When Mercedes-Benz Took an Automatic SLC to the World Rally Championship. And Won!

A Dream Debut as SLC Dominates Against All Odds

The team entered a trio of its new rally 450SLCs into 20,000-mile Vuelta a la América del Sud — or lap of South America. They were up against a horde of rally Fords, Fiats and the rest. Against all odds however, Andrew Cowan and Colin Malkin led Sobieslaw Zasada and Andrzej Zembrzuski home in a Mercedes-Benz 450SLC 1-2, with Timo Makkinen and Jean Todt fourth in another SLC.

Mercedes-Benz had come, seen and conquered as the 450 SLC scored a totally unexpected debut rally victory.

Buoyed by its success, Mercedes-Benz ramped up its 450SLC rally effort up as it prepared a new 290 hp 5-liter version of E50 the M117 for FIA Group 4 World Rally Championship competition. The new rally cars gained an aluminum hood, trunk lid and doors, which cut 125 pounds and black wheel arch flares made room for wider BBS alloys. Under the bonnet, the new all-aluminum V8 was de-stroked from the production 5,025 cc to 4,973 cc to comply with 5-litre FIA Group 4 rules.

Merc Had to Build a Rally SLC for the Road Too

Mercedes-Benz also had to homologate the car in order to compete. That meant it had to build and sell at least 400 examples of the car it intended to rally. So it built the 450SLC C107.026. These 240 horsepower rally cars for the road had the same aluminum bodywork, along with wheel arches and spoilers, which owners could also delete option, and the like.

Knowing the 450SLC’s appetite for rougher, more arduous rallies, Mercedes focused on the African rounds in 1979. Rally legend Hannu Mikkola and navigator Arne Hertz wasted no time to shock the WRC establishment by coming home second at the Safari Rally. Mikkola and hertz went one better at the Ivory Coast 41 years ago this week as they stormed to Mercedes’ first ever World Rally Championship victory aboard the 450SLC on the Rallye Côte d’Ivoire.

Rally SLC Scores an utterly Dominant Ivory Coast WRC 1-2-3-4

But that’s not all. Bjorn Waldegaard and Hans Thorszelius ended second, Andrew Cowan and Klaus Kaiser third and Vic Preston Jr. and Mike Doughty fourth in an utterly dominant 450SLC showing. And while he also drove an Escort RS1800 to victory in Portugal, New Zealand and in Great Britain that year, that win and second place in the Mercedes-Benz 450 SLC contributed to Mikkola’s second overall in the ’79 World Rally Driver’s Championship.