• 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR W 196 S served as a development car for sports car racing
• Junkyard 1957 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL roadster sold for $1.19 million
• 1997 Renntech E60 RS was owned by Jerry Seinfeld
• 2009 Mercedes-McLaren Stirling Moss Edition hit 60 mph in 3.6 seconds

Ask the head of Mercedes-Benz Heritage what the heritage of the brand is and performance isn’t top of mind. 

“The real heritage is the pioneering spirit, the top execution, the timeless design, the top materials, and it’s the same today,” Marcus Breitschwerdt told me last weekend at the Moda Miami concours. And yet, many of the cars Mercedes brought to the event were performance models from the brand’s illustrious past.

Performance on the street and the track has been part of the Mercedes-Benz experience before it even was a company. Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft, which would merge with Benz & Cie in 1926 to create Daimler-Benz AG, built the first “Mercedes” in 1901 as a race car. The so-called Mercedes 35 hp was commissioned by Emil Jellinek and named after his daughter Mercedes.

While quality and luxury have trumped performance for most of the company’s 99-year history, the brand has built true racing and performance standouts. On the sidelines of Moda Miami concours, Mercedes Heritage gave me the opportunity to drive (and in one case ride in) some of Mercedes’s best performance cars of the past and present at the Concours Club in Opa-locka, Florida. The drives involved some slow-paced track laps and street jaunts on Miami’s often crowded surface streets and highways. Through those drives I identified a throughline of Mercedes performance that reaches its zenith today.

2009 Mercedes-McLaren SLR Stirling Moss Edition

2009 Mercedes-McLaren SLR Stirling Moss Edition

2009 Mercedes-McLaren SLR Stirling Moss Edition

2009 Mercedes-McLaren SLR Stirling Moss Edition

The session started with a drive in a car that was built as a joint venture that wouldn’t be necessary anymore. Mercedes teamed up with its Formula 1 partner McLaren to introduce the Mercedes-McLaren SLR in 2003. Today, such a car would be designed by the AMG team, but Mercedes didn’t fully own AMG until 2005. The car was built until 2009, and it went out with a special-edition model called the SLR Stirling Moss Edition. The Moss Edition built on the 722 model, using the same 641-hp supercharged 5.4-liter V-8 backed by the same 5-speed automatic transmission. It sported a speedster body style with no roof, a small windscreen in front of the driver, and a removable structural beam between the seats for added rigidity.

Just getting into the SLR for my drive showed how serious this beast was about performance. It required a big step over a wide door sill that creates a monocoque feel and contributes to sturdy structural rigidity. Once inside, the SLR provided a unique experience. It had more of a bathtub feel than any car I’ve ever driven due to the high beltline matched by the high-set center beam. The nose seemed to exist in a different zip code to accommodate the front-mid-engine layout, and the maybe three-inch-tall windscreen provided no protection from anything that might fly up from the road.

With a pair of photographers hanging out of a 2025 Mercedes-Benz AMG SL 63 S E-Performance in front of our merry line of vintage cars, speeds were extremely limited, but some of the SLR’s performance bona fides showed through. The steering had nice heft, quick reactions, and good road feel. The car’s attitude stayed very flat in the couple of corners I could take at any speed. And when I lagged back and hit the throttle the supercharged V-8 erupted with quick moments of burst before I had to let off. With brake-by-wire, though, the brake pedal felt unresponsive before setting off, but then settled in as predictable the few times I had to use it.

I’d love another shot in the SLR without a photo car in the way, and I would predict proper supercar performance for the era that is likely surpassed by today’s top AMG GT and AMG SL models. 

1997 Renntech E60 RS

1997 Renntech E60 RS

1997 Renntech E60 RS

1997 Renntech E60 RS

The Renntech E60 RS would certainly be an AMG model today, but in 1997 when this car was built for comedian Jerry Seinfeld Mercedes needed help to turn its E 420 sedan into a performance machine. While AMG, a separate German tuner at the time, did work on the car, Mercedes also worked with the Florida shop Renntech to get the most out of its sport sedan. The changes to the E 420 were numerous. The 4.2-liter V-8 was punched out to 6.0 liters and power rose from 275 hp to 434 hp. This unlocked a 4.6-second 0-60 mph time, down from 6.7 seconds. A limited-slip rear differential was added for traction out of corners, and the transmission was swapped for a beefier 5-speed automatic. Renntech hammered its own wider fenders and installed its own body kit. The Florida company also lowered the suspension, reworked the rear subframe and rear wishbones, and installed stiffer sway bars front and back. The interior received white gauge faces with a 200-mph speedometer from Renntech, a Renntech sport steering wheel, and a blueberry and gray color scheme, as well as “J.S. Edition” sill plates. All told, the modifications added $115,000 to the $50,000 or so price of an E 420.

After driving the Stirling Moss SLR, the Renntech’s steering initially felt too light. That’s a shame because hydraulic power steering usually has good feel, but it was rather dull here. Otherwise, however, the Renntech E60 RS was an absolute pleasure to drive. The work Renntech did to the rear end really paid off. The speeds increased a bit for these laps and the car remained impressively flat in corners. The rear end felt solid and planted, making it easy for me to picture Seinfeld snaking the Renntech E 60 down Mulholland Drive at night after a long day of shooting his sitcom.

My initial impression from the track was that I’d love to drive this car daily. A later street drive only reinforced that impression, as the ride quality remained rather forgiving despite the lower, stiffer suspension. The V-8 had good power, too, though without turbocharging it didn’t kick hard from a stop like today’s engines. Renntech built 60 of these cars, and their performance still holds up 28 years later.

1957 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL roadster

1957 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL roadster

1957 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL roadster

1957 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL roadster

Five months ago, this 1957 300 SL roadster fresh out of a junkyard, sold to an RM Sotheby’s auction for $1.19 million. It was so valuable because the 300 SL was valuable in general and because this particular car was one of only 39 built with the knockoff hubcaps. The car hadn’t run since the 1970s as its battery was last changed in 1972. It was missing also the grille, the passenger seat and numerous other parts. After the auction, the car went to the Mercedes-Benz Classic Center in Long Beach, Calif., to get it running, and five months later I was driving it around a racetrack. The Classic Center didn’t have to rebuild the engine, but a lot of work went into making the car roadworthy, including the replacement of all rubber components. The shop also had a matching passenger seat in a matching state of disrepair, and while both seats look beaten down by the weather, they have new stuffing under weathered upholstery.

Even though it was easily the slowest of the bunch, it was an incredible treat to drive this car. The 300 SL’s 3.0-liter inline-6 originally put out 215 hp thanks in part to a very early application of direct injection, but a rep from the Mercedes-Benz Classic Center estimated that maybe 150 of those ponies remain in this car’s stable. The 300 SL was the fastest convertible in the world in its day, but here I couldn’t even keep up with the camera car, partially because Mercedes didn’t want me to rev it over 4,500 rpm and partially because the power built rather slowly. The steering didn’t help either. The steering wheel is so big that it rubbed against my lap and the manual steering was heavy even at speed. Too many laps in this car and you’re chancing a pulled intercostal muscle.

My laps in the SL amounted to a shakedown session to work out the remaining bugs that had infested this car over decades of storage. While it thankfully had a synchromesh 4-speed manual transmission, finding second gear proved problematic when downshifting. The car lost power due to fuel starvation from sloshing the gas around in the corners, and the right rear brake locked up on me once. The car had so much patina that the owner and the Classic Center hadn’t even cleaned the windshield of its storage grime. That made it hard to see on the way forward on parts of the track as we were driving near sunset. Nonetheless, driving it was a singular experience that made me appreciate the engineering and quality that went into the original.

1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR W 196 S

1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR W 196 S

1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR W 196 S

1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR W 196 S

Automakers don’t dole out track drives or even rides in multi-million dollar race cars very often, so it was an honor to ride shotgun in the 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR W 196 S, chassis number 2. To give you an idea of how valuable this car could be, a 1954 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR grand prix car recently sold for $53 million at auction.

While this example was built as a race car, it didn’t do any actual racing. Instead it was a development car and test car for drivers such as Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss. Mercedes racing would try out new parts on this car before rolling them out to the actual race cars.

The W 196 S was related to the brand’s F1 cars of the day, but it was built for the Sports Car World Championship, thus the S in the name. It also used a more powerful engine, a 3.0-liter straight-8 (rather than the F1’s car’s 2.5-liter version) that spit out 306 hp. Its magnesium body rode on a tubular frame with a double-wishbone front suspension, a rear swing axle, and inboard drum brakes. With the help of this car, Mercedes won the championship in 1955, which would be the W 196 S’s only racing season as Mercedes pulled out of racing after a tragic crash at the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans that claimed the lives of driver Pierre Levegh and 83 spectators.

My ride in chassis number 2 was exhilarating. It started by swinging a leg over the passenger side (no door here) to step on the seat, bracing myself against sturdier sections of the pliant magnesium body and plunking my too-big bottom into a too-small seat with no belt. Once on the track, the racing credibility of this car became immediately evident. It set a now-faster pace with no problem, accelerated hard in the few areas where the stoic German mechanic at the wheel could open it up, and let out a banshee scream from its 306-hp inline-8 that drowned out all the other cars. I struggled to brace myself for corners, and my fairly short legs butted up against the front bulkhead. After my time in the 300 SL I thought the steering might be heavy, but the driver said the steering was light. That’s due partly to less unsprung weight given the inboard brakes and partly to a different screw-type steering mechanism rather than the 300 SL’s recirculating ball.

I appreciate the ride, but it would have been tons of fun to pilot the 300 SLR myself, and I estimate its track times could put some of today’s sports cars to the test.

2025 Mercedes-Benz AMG SL 63 S E Performance

2025 Mercedes-Benz AMG SL 63 S E Performance

2025 Mercedes-Benz AMG SL 63 S E Performance

2025 Mercedes-Benz AMG SL 63 S E Performance

While I didn’t drive the AMG SL 63 S E Performance on the track, I did drive it on the street and I’ve put other versions of the SL and the related GT through their paces on twisty roads. With 791 hp from its hybridized twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8, this car spits out 150 more horses than the SLR hypercar of less than two decades ago. That enables a 0-60 mph time of 2.8 seconds, almost a second quicker than the SLR. The SL/GT duo were fully developed by AMG, and while they are fairly heavy, they’re also great performers, especially sportier versions of the GT, such as the 63 S and the 63 Pro. They’re also comfortable for everyday driving, sport more technology and higher-quality interiors than ever before.

The SL and GT represent a shift at Mercedes in the last two decades. The traditional luxury and quality that the brand has delivered throughout its history is joined by world-class performance in top-line AMG models. Mercedes has offered that type of performance from time to time over the years, sometimes with outside help, but now it can do it on its own.