The new Mercedes Benz SLR supercar jointly developed with McLaren can very well trace its history to the 300SLR that had created a lot of regret and anxieties in the Benz boardroom.

One of its variants entered the 1955 Le Mans 24-hour endurance race, bumped a slower moving Austin Healey from the rear and flew headlong at 125mph  into a cheering crowd that suddenly turned into horrid spectators when nearly a hundred of them died as the fiery Benz SLR plowed into then, killing the driver Pierre Lavegh as well.

After that, Benz would never enter a race, so you won’t see them in the race circuits of the rest of the 50s up to the 70s.