autoevolution
17 Feb 2021, 17:42 UTC ·
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Coupé body, gullwing doors, direct fuel injection, checkered seats. Also, we should add the name of Rudolf Uhlenhaut. These details will probably make you think about the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL/W 198 from 1954.
Even if everything listed here fits, very few people might remember another car, shown some 16 years later: the Mercedes C 111-II. And it’s hard to believe they spent such an extensive amount of work on this car just to make it a concept or a technical test-bed vehicle. Here’s what we have to say about it nowadays.
During the last part of the sixties, as chief of the development department of the Mercedes-Benz automobiles, Rudolf Uhlenhaut took care about the development of C 111 prototypes. And yes, he was also the man behind the illustrious 1954 300 SL Gullwing. While the newer generations of the SL series were by then sliding toward a typical premium grand turismo kind of automobile, was Uhlenhaut trying hard to bring to life a worthy successor to the 300 SL?