For reasons that will likely forever remain a mystery, this Mercedes-Benz 300SL ‘Gullwing’ – just the 43rd example to roll off the line in Stuttgart – was entombed in a Jacksonville garage for 53 years. The time-warp coupé has now returned to its birthplace.
Mercedes-Benz has bought back the vehicle and it is estimated that the vehicle could be worth millions of Dollars. The firm reacquired the 1954 300 SL Gullwing Coupe with 35,408 miles on its odometer. The car was amassing mold and dust in a Jacksonville, Florida, dealership since the 1960s.It was then moved to a storage facility about 10 years ago.
“We believe the car has been sitting since 1956 and with 35,308 miles on the odometer,” Constantin von Kageneck, who is the Mercedes-Benz Classic Centre’s marketing and communication specialist said. “It appears the original owner enjoyed this 300 SL quite a bit between 1954 to 1956.”
A number of charming almost-prototype features are special to this car, being such an early example – the 43rd of the 1,400 eventually built by Mercedes. These include the hand-beaten Silver Star in the front grille, the bolted-on ‘eyebrows’ above the wheels, the flat-topped rear bumper ‘horns’, and the distinctive gooseneck gear lever. And all caked in 53 years’ worth of beguiling patina – you really don’t find them like this very often.
“There comes a point in your life when (attempting) a car like that to getting a proper restoration, you have to wait in line a year or two. Then, when they get to it, it’s another two years. When you get to be in your late 70s or early 80s—that’s four years to get a car done. You just don’t know if you’re going to be alive that long,” Bill Warner, who assisted in finding the car commented.
There are specific cars that are must haves for the most series of all collectors “A 427 Cobra is one. A pre-1971 Ferrari is another and a Duesenberg is another. That’s just the way it is. This car is one of those.”
Mercedes-Benz has been attempting to buy the vehicle for several years, and it recently made an offer deemed acceptable to the owner. The car was originally medium blue metallic, but it was primed and sanded during an attempt to restore it.
Kageneck said that Gullwing Coupe No. 43 will be shown at the Amelia Island Concours and will be set alongside No. 44.
“For most classic car aficionados, there is an emotional connection to a specific car,” “It was the car their parents took them on vacation when they were young, the first car they owned in high school or the car they dreamed about when they were introduced to cars in the first place. …Classic cars tell a story of the past, they inspire people’s nostalgic imagination and offer us a glimpse of what life in the past looked like.”
