The 300SLR continued to have a successful, albeit brief, career – it won the 1955 World Sportscar Championship with successes in the Targa Florio and the RAC Tourist Trophy in the hands of Moss. But following the Le Mans disaster, Mercedes-Benz withdrew from direct involvement in motorsport. It would be many years before the company was competing again, initially through its AMG associate, then as an engine supplier and now of course as an F1 factory team with outstanding success.
722 is now, along with the five of the other surviving cars, in the care of Mercedes-Benz. Two others are in museums in Europe, and one is in the museum in Indianapolis. Until the summer of 2021, Mercedes-Benz were regularly demonstrating 722 at various events around Europe, including the Mille Miglia retrospective (a non-competitive time trial over the old route for three days) and events such as the Goodwood Festival of Speed. This programme was produced by BBC about the 1992 Mille Miglia event. Settle back with a another latte, or maybe a nice Chianti?
In September last year, after a summer of such events, 722 was formally retired to permanent display in Stuttgart, but only after one last journey, in the care of Gerd Straub, the engineer who had cared for the car for over 30 years, through the centre of London, albeit more slowly than Moss took it through the cities of Italy, 67 years ago today.
Moss’s career continued to the end of the 1961 season. In 1958, at the Argentine Grand Prix, he won in a rear engined Cooper, the first win for a rear engined car in the post war era and in the format that F1 would adopt universally very quickly.
For the 1962 season, what many had long dreamed of, but not many expected, was being prepared. Stirling Moss and Enzo Ferrari had come to an accommodation. Ferrari would build a Formula 1 car to Moss’s requirements, based on the Dino 156 Sharknose that Phil Hill had just used to win the championship, and agreed to this car being run by Moss’s preferred team led by Rob Walker and painted in Walker’s traditional dark blue. There’d be a 250GTO, above, for sportscar events too. And then fate took its turn.
On Easter Monday, 23 April 1962, Moss was competing in a non Championship event at Goodwood in a Lotus-Climax. He’d taken pole position and was in third position when, for reasons never fully understood, he left the circuit and crashed head on into an earth banking. Moss spent four weeks in a coma, and was paralysed on his left side for 6 months. Rather than show you a picture of the accident, here’s a picture of Moss with the steering wheel of the car. That curve fitted around his forehead
A year later, he tried a Lotus at Goodwood and concluded that he was not going to be able to compete at the same level. The racing career of the man bracketed by Enzo Ferrari alongside Tazio Nuvolari, as drivers who “on any kind of machine, in any circumstances and over any course, risked everything to win, and appear to stand out amongst the rest” was over.
Moss is the greatest driver who never became F1 world champion
+1.
Thanks for this lovely tribute to a superb driver and a real gentleman.
Great discussion, Roger, and it’s hard to argue with you. For anyone who wants to read Denis Jenkinson’s thoughts on what makes a great racing driver (including commentary on contemporary drivers), this is a really good book, and he discusses the Mille Miglia at length.
https://www.amazon.com/Racing-Driver-Theory-Practice-Driving/dp/0837602017
That blue MB “transporter” truck pictured half way through the read is awesome!
A legendary driver to be sure, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be in the passenger seat on that MM run. Nothing derogatory towards Moss, just putting you life on the line in someone elses hands is difficult. I know, part of racing, but I’d rather be a driver, with infinitely less skill than Sterling, than be a passenger in even his car.
Both of them had a pair of brass ones to do that in that race.
Another gong for Sir Roger, your choice from the big cabinet this time, sir. Yes, it can have thistles or baths or whatever one you fancy.
I will clank in unsubtley with a firm opinion: it IS the greatest, in combination.
An exceedingly beautiful car of remarkable capability (and sound), a driver simply admired by ALL others (and modest with it), a race over gorgeous Italia that is literally death-defying – it beckons at every single yard – at an average speed that can never be matched. It can never be done again. I can think of no other race to have all these things.
It has a big chunk of nostalgia in my weeny car brain, as I read that famous account by Jenks in some collection of derring-do true tales when I was about nine, and it stuck. I haven’t time to read today (but will), as it too is unmatched: no account from a race , no matter how good, will ever be able to come from inside the car itself. To CCers who’ve not read read it, I encourage a bookmark and a plan to do so. It is superb, as history, as a thrill, and as writing.
My boast in life is that I have met Moss, in 1982 at age 13 or 14. Oh, yes.
He came here to race in a vintage race demonstration, including the W196, and his Cooper. (There were also Alfa P1’s, etc, but these exotics all paled). It was the days before historic stuff was very big, and the crowd was small. It was also stinking hot, and, as per the times, there was no security or such. In the public carpark (!) and shade of the back of the stands, Moss was standing next to the Mercedes naked from waist up, having just driven her. He was slightly posh-voiced, but totally unaffected, didn’t care who asked him what, clearly very genuine man. Too my shame, I remember being a bit disappointed, because Fangio, my biggest hero, was supposed to come, but had been unwell. It was, I realized much later, still quite the thrill to have met his mutually respected good friend and competitor! (No, I’ve no idea what I said to him: almost certainly something tongue-tied and inane, no that I need have worried, of course).
Great article Roger, and you learnt me a new thing. I never knew the engine drove the propshaft from the middle of the crank till reading this.
[This comment is a digression, for old F1 fans like Sir Rog]
I sometimes feel like I made that day up, but no, here’s a link (soon to expire, btw). l’ll say the following in case link fails: Also present that day was Alan Jones, Jack Brabham, John Surtees and Denny Hulme, all World F1 Champions. All just wandering about, chatting. Mercedes was w154. Alfa the ’35 German GP-winning P3. Also the Porsche F1 car, ’49 and ’55 Ferrari GP (Dino 246?) cars, ’50’s Aston Martin racers. all of these got driven, quite hard, around the track. What a day!
http://narrywoolan.com.au/motor-racing/sandown-1982.html
Thank you and you’re welcome – you’re a gent Mr Justy and I’d shake your digital hand to get within the 5 steps to anyone rule (or whatever it’s called). Closest I’ve got otherwise is Damon Hill at a book signing, another intriguing personality for a champion.
Sir! I have tried several times but all links to the article only seem to give the first page did you mean to torture me sir?
What links? I don’t see any links in his article.
The image links for the book pages all go to page 104.
You’re right, there was some faulty code in this post. Thanks for the heads-up; the pages work correctly now.
Reload the article (which now spans five pages) and you’ll find the book links working. Thanks for the alert.
Thanks Daniel!
True legend, I saw one of those Sunbeam Talbot rally team cars recently 6 were built or actually 3 and 3 spares one of the spares resides in Auckland it runs and is roadworthy and registered, Moss said of them apparently they werent all that fast and the handling was average but they were unkillable,
There arent too many like Stirling Moss he could drive anything fast enough to win.
Thanks Roger for re-posting this, as I missed it first time around. One of the very visible drivers, perhaps the first “celebrity” in Motorsport, even to me as a kid in the US. Moss may have been tough behind the wheel, but he liked his luxuries: he was famous for having a heated toilet seat in his London home.
I believe that Mercedes-Benz withdrew from Formula One in 1955 because of the accident at Le Mans that took so many lives. That they were winning was probably just expected when you consider who the competition was.
Pierre Levegh’s accident’s repercussions for Mercedes-Benz were manifold. I was looking at a 25th anniversary Car and Driver the other day. Mercedes-Benz was celebrating Car and Driver’s anniversary, or buying some favor, with heavy advertising. They showed photographs of all the Mercedes-Benz cars that had been reviewed through the years, and it became apparent that Mercedes-Benz stopped developing sporting cars in the wake of the crash. Sure, the 300SL roadster reached production after 1955 in response to requests for a more livable 300SL, but subsequent offerings were rather pedestrian for decades. The 230SL was really a successor to the 190SL, and the 1955 300SL’s performance went unmatched until the holders of institutional memories of 1955 had all retired.
Conocen un tal, Juan Manuel Fangio