Colin Wood
Colin Wood Associate Editor
7/29/21 11:25 a.m.
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Fifty years ago, at the 1971 Spa 24 Hours, a bright-red Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL rolled up to the start line, surrounded by a field of smaller and lighter race machines from Alfa Romeo, BMW and Ford.

Despite its ungainly appearance, three letters on that red car would soon become synonymous with producing some of the fastest road-going and racing cars ever made: …

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BA5
BA5 GRM+ Memberand Reader
7/29/21 12:27 p.m.

Still pretty cool, but feels a bit like they missed the mark by not doing this to an E63 or an S-Class or something.

Colin Wood
Colin Wood Associate Editor
7/29/21 1:06 p.m.

In reply to BA5 :

I didn't even consider that. AMG could have charged crazy money for a hyped-up S-Class with that livery, or even just a normal S-Class with the throw-back colors.

pinchvalve (Forum Supporter)
pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
7/29/21 1:19 p.m.

To me, the red Pig kicked off one of my favorite car genres, high-powered Q-ships. Would we have the BMW M5 or the  Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio or heck, the Chevy SS without it? I actually love the look of it, the imposing grille and lights menacing in your rear view.

red_stapler
red_stapler SuperDork
7/29/21 1:22 p.m.
BA5 said:

Still pretty cool, but feels a bit like they missed the mark by not doing this to an E63 or an S-Class or something.

I don't think either of those cars are homologated for GT3 racing though.

buzzboy
buzzboy Dork
7/29/21 1:26 p.m.

Love the look of my alltime favorite racecar but I agree with BA5. There isn't an AMG  version of the current W223 Sonderklasse. Do a limited run of a new AMG S-Klasse with a Rot Sau livery!

STM317
STM317 UberDork
7/29/21 1:29 p.m.

The fact they're doing this with some old chassis seems weird to me, as if they had a handful of unused old chassis shoved in a corner and they just used the livery and some badges to try and make a little more off of them than they otherwise would've made by selling them as body in white or whatever.

Colin Wood
Colin Wood Associate Editor
7/29/21 1:39 p.m.

In reply to STM317 :

I was wondering that too when I was writing this piece. I saw the headline from AMG, then looked at the first image in the press release and thought "isn't that an SLS? Why would someone want to buy that in 2021?"

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