Lot 1068: 1936 Mercedes-Benz 540K Spezial Roadster in the style of Mercedes-Benz, Sindelfingen

License No AL-03-73
Wagen no. 113695

Few experiences in motoring can match the sound and fury of a Third Reich supercharged Mercedes-Benz in full flight: “'One's foot goes hard down, and an almost demoniacal howl comes in…the rev counter and speedometer needles leap round their dials: there is perhaps no other car noise in the world so distinctive as that produced by the Mercedes supercharger,” wrote H.S. Linfield of The Autocar in 1936. “This is a master car for the very few. The sheer insolence of its power affords an experience on its own.”

The straight-eight 5401cc 540K, the ultimate production version of the supercharged “Kompressor” line that had begun with the 380K of 1932, was an exclusive model for an exclusive and powerful clientele. Developed by the new chief engineer of Mercedes-Benz, former racing driver Max Sailer, the 540K succeeded the outwardly similar 500K in 1936 and some 447 were built before production ended in 1939. And while the 500K/540K line carried some of the most dazzling coachwork of its day, undoubtedly the crowning glory was the “Spezial Roadster” body, custom built by Mercedes-Benz’s own coachworks Karrosserie Sindelfingen to the designs of the gifted Hermann Ahrens. Compared with the standard Roadster version at 22,000 Reichsmarks ($8800), the Spezial Roadster had a basic price of 28,000 Reichsmarks ($11,200, “and you could more or less write your own ticket as to what went on to the chassis”).

Writing of Ahrens’ flowing roadster designs in particular, the late respected historian Griffith Borgeson said: “There is a harmony and balance of line and mass… which very simply defies any conceivable improvement. They are sculptural perfection… For many people of taste, more beautiful cars will never be designed and built.”

Certainly that was a view shared by some of the most powerful men in 1930s Germany, like the portly Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, whose famed eggshell-blue Spezial Roadster would be captured by US paratroops at the fall of Germany and, nicknamed “The Blue Goose”, be used as his command car by General Maxwell Taylor before being sent to the United States in October 1945. Another keen user of the Spezial Roadster was the unsmiling head of Nazi motorsport, Korpsfuhrer Adolf Huhnlein of the NSKK, whose backing enabled the Mercedes and Auto Union racing cars to dominate the major races of the 1934-9 era; he owed his unique position to the fact that it was his shock troopers who had in 1919 protected the first meeting held by rising politician Adolf Hitler.

Production of Spezial Roadsters was, therefore, extremely limited, and only a small proportion of the 29 roadsters built on the 540K chassis qualified for the “Spezial” tag; the car offered here, originally built as a Cabriolet B, was rebodied as a Spezial Roadster during the course of a five-year rebuild completed in 2001 “to the highest standards” by the respected German restorer Prahl, and is finished in metallic silver with red leather upholstery.

Designed for the network of high-speed Autobahns that was spreading across Germany in the 1930s, the 540K represented the ultimate in automotive engineering in its day, with all-round independent suspension by swing axles and an unusual gear shift, with direct drive top semi-automatically engaged. The unique system of supercharging used by Mercedes-Benz derived from the company’s experience in aeroengine design, where a system of “at will” supercharging had enabled World War One German aircraft to gain a performance advantage by boosting engine power at altitude.

So the Mercedes supercharger was only clutched in at full throttle, rather like the “kick-down” on an automatic transmission, to give a short power boost for overtaking or hill climbing, a maneuver accompanied by a trademark banshee wail calculated to strike fear into the driver being overtaken!
This was not empty show: the 540K was one of a very limited number of 1930s automobiles capable of exceeding 100 mph, and indeed, when the leading British magazine Autocar tested a 540K cabriolet on the Brooklands track in 1938, it recorded the highest maximum speed achieved by any closed car tested up to that date: with three up, the car reached 104.65 mph.

Wrote the tester: “There is a wonderful impression of solidity, the car feeling safe at high speeds, and the steering is firm… at speed needing little more than the driver's hands rested lightly on the wheel to keep a straight course. The ratio leans to the low side, a little more tharl 3.5 turns being needed from lock to lock…. Obviously, the whole machine is built very strongly and solidly, to withstand hard work and high speeds.”