Return Of The Gullwing – 2011 Mercedes SLS

The Mercedes Benz 300SL (SL meaning Sport Light) Gullwing was one of the very first iconic supercars in the world.  In 1954 the 300SL Gullwing reestablished Mercedes as King of road racing and sold for a ridiculous amount of money, four thousand pounds ($8,000USD). In 1954 you could buy a home for that kind of money. Mercedes only produced 1400 examples of these cars and today the 300SL Gullwing is prized among car collectors all across the world. A pristine Gullwing can fetch anywhere from half a million to a full 1 million US Dollars.

The beautifully crafted 300 SL Gullwing door was actually first created from a practical engineering stand point. The door sills were very high for chassis stiffness and the roof sat low for aerodynamics, which in turn gave its distinctive silhouette. Its power plant wasn’t new as it was borrowed from one their existing models, the Mercedes 300, but the 3.0L direct injection inline 6 propelled the Gullwing from a stand still onwards to 150. Impressive considering that most cars of its time were struggling to do half that. Out powering most of the competition by miles, the SL Gullwing was revered as one of the first and fastest production supercars of its time. Now on to present time.