Gullwings Old And New Return To Mexico

You've got to give Mercedes credit for knowing, respecting and using their company's history. Shoot, if I had that long and illustrious racing history behind me, I'd be leveraging it like Archimedes. So, you got the new Gullwing, what do you do with it to get one hell of a photo op?

Personally, I would have done up the Mille Miglia; the Futa and Raticosta passes are wonderful this time of year. Le Mans is always a go-to location. And of course there's the old pit/grandstand complex at Reims. And the Targa Florio ... but no, Merc decided to get esoteric and they took the new Gullwing and the first Gullwing back to Mexico for the Carrera Panamericana revival. sa-WEET!

The Carrera Panamericana was one of those races that falls into the "bat-shit insane" category on a number of counts. For starters, it was an open road race, which makes it about as batty as the Mille or the Targa. But added to that was that it was very long, and not only did it have to deal with half insane Mexican spectators, it had to deal with Mexican wildlife.

The spectators were known to crowd certain sections of the route, and then that whole macho thing would take over, and they would start making dares to see who could touch the cars as they flashed passed. And if that wasn't bad enough, most of the Carrera Panamericana was run through open range country. In other words, look out for those cows and chickens and –

VULTURES!

See that grill work on the windscreen of the older Gullwing? They put that there because during the 1952 Carrera, the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL "Gullwing" that Karl Kling and Hans Klenk were racing ran head on into a frickin' vulture at full speed. It came right through the glass and bopped Klenk in the head pretty bad. Screwed up the car too, but Kling and Klenk (great names!) we still able to win. But from that point forward, all Gullwings racing in the Carrera Panamericana featured grille bars on the windscreen.

But yeah, classy of Mercedes to take the new and the old back down Mexico-way for the modern revival of the Carrera Panamericana, which is now a vintage race/tour sort of thing.

Source: AutoBlog