For 18 years from 1971-1989, the 107 series was built with a total of 231,287 roadsters and around 22,000 examples are still on our roads, more than the Porsche 911.
And the SLC was also extremely successful in motorsport, even though it was probably the most elegant failure at the beginning (too heavy, too slow, low cornering speed). The experts called it "Sindelfingen baroque" and "roadster with sugar icing". Nevertheless, it not only took numerous first places, but also celebrated numerous other victories. The special works version of the Mercedes SLC 450 quickly became the most successful long-distance rally car at the time thanks to a few modifications.
The most important successes:
1977 Endurance rally London - Sydney 1st and 2nd place
1978 "Vuelta a la Americana Sud" fourth place overall with around 30,000 kilometres #401.
1979 Rally Safari ended with a 2nd and 6th place
1979 The Bandama Rally (now the Ivory Coast Rally) resulted in a quadruple victory.
1980 Bandama Rally in December was a double victory.
1980 Class winner of the Himalaya Rally with SLC 500 (Albert Pfuhl)
I have been practicing vintage car photography for more than 35 years and here I mainly photograph normal everyday vehicles which were still on the road en masse over 30 years ago. But also cars with extraordinary, beautiful design. From time to time I take pictures of cars, .. Read more…