This is a very special success story extending over the past few decades. For the past and, for a time, the present of SL history, from the 300 SL (W 198 series, 1954 to 1957) to the R 129 SL series (1989 to 2001), are concentrated in the person of Sacco in a way that cannot be said of anyone else at Mercedes-Benz.
The Mercedes-Benz SL, W 113 series, launched in 1963, was the first sports car in the world with a safety body. It was designed so that the area impacted upon – both at the front and at the rear – would deform, thus reducing or completely dissipating the kinetic energy in the corresponding area.
Some 60 years after its motorsport premiere, the Mercedes‑Benz 300 SL racing car is all set to be the star of the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance in spring 2012: on 11 March, Mercedes-Benz, sponsor of the high-calibre event in Florida since it was first staged in 1996, is showcasing the 300 SL (model series W 194) which won the Le Mans 24-hour race in 1952.
The premiere that was celebrated for two luxurious premium-class cars from 15 to 25 March 1962 at the 32nd Geneva Motor Show was a brilliant one: Mercedes-Benz presented the 300 SE Coupé and the 300 SE Cabriolet of the W 112 series. Because both these two-door four-seater cars were the result of the consistent combination of technical brilliance, impressive performance and very high standards of style and elegance.
By the end of the Second World War, the benchmarks had changed in Germany and Western Europe. People were suffering greater hardship, their needs were existential, their standards more modest, the newly elected Federal government in West Germany was closer to the people and democratic.