The 24 minutes of Le Mans

by time news

Ea frantic call from the team leader and the night is over even though it has only just begun. Get out of the Marco Polo, into your clothes and off to the pit lane. Put on your helmet and gloves while you’re still running, squeeze into the tight seat, and one of the mechanics puts the steering wheel on the hub, snaps the huge wooden rim into place with a short jerk and starts the engine. While the infernal roar of an untamed straight-six begins, which even at 70 doesn’t sound a bit mild, the gullwing doors gently close.

As if by itself, the right hand pushes the long shift lever into first gear, one foot quickly releases the clutch, while the other continues to heat up the inferno under the endless hood with gentle jolts. The clocks on the sparsely lit dashboard tremble nervously – then the bow lifts slightly, the car stretches, and in the glaring floodlights the Mercedes 300 SL turns onto the start-finish straight of the most famous car race in the world: Welcome to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, welcome to the night shift with a legend.

Hermann Lang and Fritz Riess must have felt something similar when they drove a 300 SL here for the first time on June 14 and 15, 1952, long before the first customers were able to buy the super sports car from Germany’s economic miracle from 1954 onwards . Introduced on March 12, 1952 and initially only developed as a racing car, it has already come second in the Mille Miglia this year, won the Grand Prix of Bern and is now supposed to prove in the ultimate endurance test in motorsport that Mercedes after 22 years Abstinence on the Sarthe is back in the circus of the very fast and fearless.

Same route, almost the same car

That was exactly 70 years ago, and with Theo Helfrich and Helmut Niedermayr in a second SL in the slipstream, the gullwing with the number 21 clinched the first – and so far only – overall victory for Mercedes at the 24 Hours of Le Mans right from the start . If that’s not reason enough, if not with the same car, then at least with an almost identical one. Especially since thousands still sit in the grandstands at night and follow the wild hustle and bustle that makes the “Le Mans Classic” probably the most spectacular classic car event in Europe.

Of course, this day is all about memory and honor, but there is still no shortage of adrenaline. Because where Lang and Riess had their nerves tickled by the fight against Jaguar, Aston Martin, Lancia and the Le Mans novices Ferrari, today it is the sheer value of the car, in addition to the time and the moderate lighting conditions on the track, which is frighteningly narrow in the dark , which raises the pulse. Even if this gullwing doesn’t quite come close to the 135 million euros that make the “Uhlenhaut Coupé”, a racing prototype for the 1956 season that was only built twice and never used, the most expensive car in the world, this 300 SL is also up for this night drive Traces of a legend a true PS treasure.

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