MBWorld Trivia: 300SL Is Not For The Birds

By Lane Anderson - May 1, 2013

It’s a gullwing kind of day here at MBWorld as we ask if you know which race was the toughest for the famed 300SL racing car.

This trivia post doesn’t have a correct answer and I certainly encourage you to voice your opinion in the comment section, but I think I have a compelling answer for you to consider.

The 300 SL never saw any type of desert testing but Karl Kling and his 300 SL wanted to build off their momentum and successes in Europe having won at Berne, Le Mans, and the Nurburgring. To test their mettle, Mercedes-Benz entered the Mexican Road Race known as the Carrera Panamericana.

On the very first leg of the race that ran from Tuxtla Gutierrez to Oaxaca the team had a very unexpected run in with mother nature when a buzzard crashed through the windshield of the 300SL. The bird landed right on the lap of Kling’s co-driver and injured the navigator enough that the team needed to improvise some type of safety device.

The adjustment on the fly (pun intended) came to fruition when mechanics affixed bars from the hood to the roof in order to protect themselves from any other bird who may have wanted to get a bit too up-close and personal with the 300SL.