Press Release
Under starter's orders: 90 cars line up at the start in Tuxtla Guti??????????????????rrez Wednesday, 19 November 1952, and at last the fun could begin. At 6.30 in the morning the first of the 90 cars (29 sports cars and 61 touring cars) left the starting line in Tuxtla Guti??????????????????rrez, with the rest of the field following at one-minute intervals. The road race's immense and impressive supporting cast included around 40,000 soldiers, 3,000 medical personnel and 600 officials. A fleet of 65 aircraft transported men and material from one stage to the next. Running into trouble: a collision leaves a shattered windscreen and an unconscious co-driver The Carrera Panamericana soon lived up to its burgeoning reputation as a car-breaker, something the teams' preparatory outings had also indicated. Nobody was more keenly aware of this than Kling and Klenk, who felt the full force of the rally's destructive potential during the opening stage. Kling, thundering towards a long right-hand bend at 200 kilometres per hour, spotted the vultures lurking by the side of the road too late. One of them promptly took off, smacking into the windscreen of the 300 SL on its ascent. Co-driver Hans Klenk sustained an impact to the face and was briefly knocked unconscious. However, he reacted like a true professional: this was no time for peaceful convalescence - there was a race to be won. Klenk's first words on coming to confirmed as much: "Let's get going, Karl!" And Karl Kling duly put his foot back down. Some 70 kilometres down the road, Klenk then used the opportunity presented by a tyre change to wash down his face, willing helpers picked the fragments of glass and bird from the car, and without further ado the pair were back on the road and heading for the stage finish in Oaxaca. After completing the stage, Hans Klenk was given a quick once-over, passed fit and sent on his way with an encouraging "vaya con Dios" [God be with you]. Clearly some form of protection was required in the event of a similar impact, and to this end, Kling and Klenk bolted eight vertical steel bars over the new windscreen. They also discussed the species and size of the dead bird, agreeing that it was a bird with a 115-centimetre wingspan and weighing as much as five fattened geese. If anything, the incident seemed to spur on Kling and Klenk, and with passing years it turned the victory and the Carrera Panamericana itself into the stuff of legend. A prayer book makes its debut in the Carrera Panamericana And so the Mercedes 300 SL teams continued their pursuit of victory through the wilds of Mexico: Karl Kling and Hans Klenk, Hermann Lang and Erwin Grupp, John Fitch and Eugen Geiger. The mountain stages took in some of the most hazardous stretches of road to be found anywhere in the world. Precipitous descents, sudden chicanes and vicious hairpins tested to the limit the cars' brakes, chassis and tyres - not to mention the courage and concentration of the drivers. At times the rock face fell sheer away on either side as the road hugged gorges up to three hundred metres deep. However, a play-safe strategy was inevitably going to jeopardise any chance of victory. The 300 SL drivers had their own solution to the race's myriad challenges: Hans Klenk noted down all the significant danger points and their exact location on the road during the exploratory run. Kling overcame initial scepticism as to the effectiveness of this laborious technique after a series of tests: "There's certainly something to be said for this note-taking idea," he admitted. The partnership's success in the race delivered concrete vindication of Klenk's methods. It also identified him as the true inventor of the "prayer book", which continues to provide today's rally drivers with indispensable information about the road ahead. Karl Kling was thus able to rely on these notes to complement his uncanny instinct for driving "by sight" at speed on unknown stretches of road. The punishing surfaces took a heavy toll on man and machines, the drivers and co-drivers making do with minor roadside repairs during the stages. But the unsung heroes of the event were the mechanics, ready to spring into action between stages to change transmission ratios and replace cracked windscreens, tyres, clutches, shock absorbers, doors; often even the sweat-soaked drivers' shirts. As the final day of the Carrera Panamericana dawned, Karl Kling and Hans Klenk were lying in fourth position. But then Kling and Klenk flew with blistering speed over the last stage to secure a comfortable overall victory in front of thousands of jubilant Mexican and Texan spectators. As Karl Kling put it: "We were so fast on some of the stages that even in a chartered DC 3 our director of motorsport Alfred Neubauer couldn't keep up." The victorious cars were scarred by the torturous ordeal they had been put through: the wind and sand had stripped the paintwork down to the metal and the bodywork had become scratched, dented and chipped by flying stones. However, nothing - not even the disqualification of team colleague John Fitch - could take the gloss off Karl Kling and Hans Klenk's victory and course record or Mercedes' one-two finish. Fitch was disqualified amid scenes of great confusion, despite securing the fastest time over the final stage. It was alleged that at the start of the penultimate stage he had sought outside assistance when he drove back behind the starting line to have his car's wheel alignment readjusted. The triumphant 1952 Carrera Panamericana road race was an historic event in the history of motorsport and sparked a huge increase in the popularity of both the drivers and Mercedes-Benz. Director of motorsport Alfred Neubauer put the Stuttgart-based manufacturer's success down to "a combination of driving skill, thorough preparation and technical prowess." The one-two victory was more than just the highlight of a highly successful season for Mercedes-Benz: it was an impressive demonstration of the return to competitiveness of the German automotive industry and also triggered the further development of the by now world-famous Mercedes-Benz 300 SL. The prototypes which set the Carrera Panamericana alight can thus rightly be seen as the precursors to the legendary sports car which celebrated its world premiere on 6 February 1954 at the International Motor Sports Show in New York. Unveiling the new model, Mercedes' head of testing Rudolf Uhlenhaut left his audience in no doubt as to its origins: "The SL is a sports car - with the emphasis on sport." It was a message which has stood the test of time. More than four decades later, the gullwing was crowned "Sports Car of the Century". Technical data for the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL racing sports car, the winning car in the 1952 Carrera Panamericana Engine Cylinders: 6, in lineBore: 86,5 mm
Stroke: 88 mm
Displacement: 3103 cc
Compression ratio: 1:8.7
Output: 180 hp
Torque: 277 Nm
Vehicle Length: 4220 mm
Width: 1789 mm
Height: 1265 mm
Wheelbase: 2400 mm
Kerb weight: 870 kg
Gross weight: 1131 kg
Top speed: 240 km/h
