Legendary Race on Public Roads Now Celebrated As a Vintage Rally

The Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR sports-racing car driven to victory by legendary driver Stirling Moss in the 1955 Mille Miglia, Italy’s classic road race, set a course record that would never be broken.

The Mille Miglia (pronounced 'mee-lay meel-yah' and meaning 1,000 miles) was a high-speed race run from 1926 through 1957. The 1954-1957 races followed a route over public roads through the centre of Italy, from Brescia in the north to Rome in the south and back along a different route. The no-holds-barred event was discontinued after some horrific accidents, but the Mille Miglia lives on today – in slow motion – as an annual road rally for classic cars produced from 1926 through 1957. However, in order to qualify at least one model of a particular car must have participated in one of the 24 original road races. DaimlerChrysler AG is one of the event’s sponsors.

Considered one of the most beautiful race cars of all time, the 300 SLR was both brutally fast and astonishingly tough. The Mille Miglia followed a course over public roads meant for far slower traffic and would jolt the racecars with its many bumps, jumps and hard landings. The three 300 SLRs that took first, second and fourth places in the 1955 Mille Miglia had each at some point gone off the road and been damaged during the race – a tribute to the car’s inherent toughness.

The Never-To-Be-Broken Race Record

Moss’s navigator for the 1955 Mille Miglia race was world champion motorcycle racer and journalist Dennis Jenkinson. The team had driven and mapped the entire Brescia-Rome-Brescia circuit, recording the details on a 5.5 m roll of paper secured in a roller device similar to a scroll. The duo had rated all of the difficult corners, grading them as 'saucy,' 'dodgy' and 'very dangerous,' each type denoted by a distinct hand signal from Jenkinson.

Moss’s car carried number 722, for 7:22 A.M., the time it launched from Brescia on May 2, 1955. That Moss could attain speeds in excess of 274 km/h in his 300 SLR spoke to the trust he had placed in his navigator. The team won this challenging and dangerous race in just 10 hours, 7 minutes, and 48 seconds for an average speed of 157.65 km/h – nearly 16km/h faster than the previous course record.

Mercedes had pulled out of racing after a tragic crash at Le Mans in 1955. Yet, it is worth noting that in the two Mille Miglia races following Moss’s 1955 victory, competitors had benefited from considerably increased power and top speed.

The Legendary 300 SLR

Known internally as the W 196 S, the 300 SLR was based on the company’s dominant Formula One Grand Prix racer using fully enclosed bodywork with a navigator’s seat and trunk. The heart of the 300 SLR was based on the inline-eight cylinder Grand Prix engine, with displacement enlarged from 2.5 to 3.0 litres. The engine was brimming with high technology, including direct gasoline injection (used also on the 300 SL road car) and a desmodromic valvetrain (valves both opened and closed by camshafts).

The engine used two 'silumin' aluminium-alloy blocks of four-cylinders each, with a power takeoff located between them rather than an output shaft exiting at the rear. The idea was to trim length from what would otherwise be a very long engine configuration. Power went through the front-mounted clutch to a rear-mounted five-speed transmission, the driveshaft passing directly under the driver’s seat. Output was 310 horsepower at 7,500 rpm, with 230 lb.-ft. of peak torque at 5,950 rpm. This remarkable powerplant weighed 268 kg and was canted 33 degrees to clear the low hood.

The 300 SLR’s space-frame chassis was light yet strong. Suspension was independent all around, using torsion bar springs, and the car rode on 16-inch wire-spoke wheels. At the time, Mercedes considered disc brakes an unproven technology and so equipped the 300 SLR with hydraulic-assisted drum brakes. These proved effective in the Mille Miglia, but by race’s end, the pads and much of the aluminium brake shoes had worn away.

The 300 SLR body was likewise advanced in that it was made from a tough yet malleable form of sheet magnesium – which was lighter than aluminium. Race weight, including the driver and navigator, two spare wheels and fuel, was 1,391 kg. Top speed, which depended on the transmission and final drive gear ratios used for a particular race, could be as high as 297 km/h.

The Legendary Stirling Moss

Considered one of the most versatile race drivers in history, Stirling Moss competed in Formula One, Two and Three racing, as well as in hillclimbs, sports car races, rallies and world speed record events. His professional racing career began in 1949 and ended in a terrible crash at Goodwood, England in 1962. As documented on the authorized website www.stirlingmoss.com, this English racing legend competed in 495 career events, finished in 366 of them, and won an amazing 222 times. Moss joined the Mercedes-Benz team in 1955. In addition to winning the Mille Miglia that year, he won the British Grand Prix, Italy’s Targa Florio road race and the Tourist Trophy in Northern Ireland.

About Mercedes-Benz Canada

Mercedes-Benz Canada is responsible for the sales, marketing and service of the three brands within the Mercedes Car Group in Canada; Mercedes-Benz, smart, and Maybach. Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Mercedes-Benz Canada employs approximately 910 people in 23 locations across Canada. Through a nationwide network of 19 Mercedes-Benz owned retail operations and 39 authorized dealerships, Mercedes-Benz Canada sold 13,876 vehicles during 2003, the second best year reported for Mercedes-Benz Canada Inc.

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