1950 Mercedes Benz Racecar Transporter - Jay Leno's Garage

showing how we offload this thing weld another episode of Jay Leno's Garage this is my 1950s mercedes-benz race car transporter this is a car or a vehicle I lusted after since I was a kid if you don't know the history back in the 50s when mercedes-benz went Grand Prix racing most of the racing was England Germany France Spain and the Germans did not like to fix their cars at the racetrack they like to fix them at the factory so what they did was they built was what was at the time the world's fastest car transporter 108 or 105 108 miles an hour and what this had was this had the engine out of the famous Mercedes Gullwing you know the 300 SL the big six-cylinder mechanical fuel injection just like the race car so what they would do is if a car broke down the transporter pick it up drive you know eight nine hours and 100 miles an hour back to Germany fix it and then drive it back the next day and have it at the race it was a very romantic vehicle and so unusual looking and look how far back the wheels are from the cab when you drive this thing you find in some well I mean it everything happens behind you this is the ultimate expression of cab forward you always hear that expression cab forward design this is the ultimate cab forward design in fact the reason I bought my Corvair ram side was it was the closest in design I could get to this now what happened to the actual one the actual one lived at mercedes-benz until 1967 and then mercedes-benz decided it was too big was taking up too much space just crush this thing and destroy it so you know back in the early 60s there wasn't this nostalgia for antique cars or older vehicles everybody liked modern stuff I mean sure there were some people that collected vintage cars but they were it wasn't like it is today you were just seen as like my dad used to say why are you buy an old car and you got a brand-new Cadillac for the same price it didn't make any sense to fix up an old car you know there were better transporters or more efficient that were faster by the time this thing met its demise so what happened was I think it was just crushed and then there was such an outcry from people who just loved this vehicle you know Corgi made toys of it EV dinky toy everybody made a toy version of this car some resided Mercedes Benz decided to build a replica and an exact replica as only Mercedes Benz could do and that's it the Mercedes Museum in Germany I went to see it actually I think across them something like 2 million dollars now this one this one was built initially by a gentleman in Sweden named Sergey I'm not good with my Swedish names I never met the man he passed away it was not a hundred percent completed he had done most of the bodywork and he did a wonderful job it just needed a lot of things to make it Road worthy and since I actually used it as a transporter for my Mercedes we cut these holes in the side so I'll show I have this works we you know you want to carry straps and tools so obviously you put your key in and boom and we can carry all of our stuff in here I use it as an actual transporter this one does not have the Gullwing Mercedes engine from the 50s that would be crazy expensive but it has a Mercedes truck engine from the mid 80s and it does the job reasonably well it does have the Mercedes Benz a Gullwing a dashboard we put air conditioning in it because we live in California it gets crazy hot here we obviously dynam added everything when I got it it was more like a showpiece it really wasn't a working truck now we put better air suspension in it so we can raise and lower it and we use it as a transporter and people love this thing you know you take this to a Mercedes meet and people go crazy they just think it's the coolest looking thing and to this day I still think it's one of the coolest looking vehicles of all time as you can see it looks great with the Mercedes Benz going up on there but used to carry the Grand Prix cars and these things you got your spare tire right here these come off and they turn into ramps and you'll see well unload it later and show you how that works there's no power steering or anything in this car as I said the only option is something we put in air conditioning it's got the proper plaid seat like they had back in the day and out of respect for Mercedes Benz we have replicas on the side because we're not trying to pass it off as the real thing but I think it's just as cool as the real thing and since the real thing doesn't exist anymore data I mean I love the fact that there are people that will make these types of things all we also put a door here so you could get to the radiator in the actual car in the actual vehicle this did not open but since we have fuses and we have the air conditioning and everything else up there to get to the radiator it just makes it a little bit easier the front of it is as you can see just basically a Mercedes sedan from the early 50s proper color what else are we got it's got a winch on it so we can pull the car up these are plastic but I will do them in glass one of these days that seems to work fine for right now but it's uh it's just fun to drive I mean it's a it's a little awkward because because you're always the wheels turned behind you like well it's like it's like walking like this all the time you know the wheel knows it's a little goofy but but I just love this thing and as I said if you're a mercedes-benz fan this is a piece of mercedes-benz history that does not exist anymore and has been recreated and that's what we want to do as a homage to that great era of the 50s in fact I have fond Gio's first trophy that he gave me it was quite honored to have that it's pretty cool it's his first World Cup I'll tell you what why don't we take it for a ride and then we'll come back here we'll show you how we offload the car and then we can show you I can't show you the engine compartment unless the the car is off of here because it you can't lift the hood it hits that's you don't want to break down with the car on there basically so that's it we'll do it we'll take it for a spin we'll show you how it goes down the road it looks really cool going on the road especially with the with the car on the back and then we'll come back here offload it and we'll go into it a bit more detail and I'll show you that Cup when we get back goddamn it looks kind of cool going down the road now we're not going to go 108 or 105 like the original did but she does 65 70 no problem he takes this thing to German car shows and go crazy Angie drives pretty nicely I mean it's just such an odd sensation of the wheel behind you some of my favorite Mercedes Benz came out of Sarah the Gullwing cause 300sl convertible the the big s see I think was called the one that had the the SL engine but it was the coupe with the sunroof ah 3-under for on the tree shifter hugs fantastic car the build quality of those early Mercedes were just unbelievable that rich rich German leather oh just just fantastic fuel mileage is RI just typical for a truck probably I think on the freeway you're probably getting 15 15 to 18 something like that it's not bad it's just a little Mercedes truck engine but it's a it's a powerhouse got a five-speed box in it so that helps obviously when you take the car off you get a little bit of mileage good you drop it you know 3,000 pounds it's just so unusual looking going down the road people always have to look sways like what what what does that thing I like the fact that it's a single vehicle car transporter you know I don't like the ones we have stacked 10 or 15 cars on but we go back to the garage I'm going to show you the build on this car I've got a whole scrapbook of how it was put together it's pretty amazing I think I love about these old Mercedes and the turn signals are right here on the horn ring if you turn it left go look in it turn four signals on turn it right turn signal done that's kind of cool and then of course it's also a horn I got this on here because it's no power steering in but you hit your knuckles on this dashboard but as you can see it's a proper Mercedes uh dashboards for the period just like the SL put on my blinker as they go as I said five-speed gearbox is for suspension to raise and low the front end raising low in the rear end does it cause your air-conditioning vents here air compressor radiator fan o'clock got speedo tach fuel water temperature oil pressure and oil temperature well this air suspension actually rides pretty nice and when I first got this thing it was really just kind of a shell there was so much engine he even the dead of winter you you're hanging out the window with your tongue hanging out is so hot in this thing so we dynam added it to obviously for insulation purposes and for quietness put the air conditioner in now it drives like a regular truck every time we look at the rearview mirrors here Mercedes right on my tail doubt it just meant to pull one this just meant to pull one race car and race cars tend to be anywhere from 1,800 pounds to maybe 3,500 something like that so it's not meant to haul a ton of bricks it just meant to hold one car so that was the idea of fairly small for a tow truck or for a hauler and you know it's meant to be a practical vehicle not really vehicle you want to take up in the hills and go through the twisty thin you know but we'll take it back to the shop I'll show you some photos of the build it took us about Oh God year and a half to finally get this thing all sorted but now it's a proper car a proper truck and and does work the proper truck does it's not just a show vehicle so that's it's kind of cool thanking even Hall cars aren't Mercedes Benzes but I don't like to do that keep it all in the family shai how we offload this thing that's about as low as she goes you all right George come up the ramp is collapsing red ramp is collapsing the it's a nice thing about a crummy paint job well you saw how we offloaded it that's how they get it back in the day all these ramps interlock and fit in we hadn't we hadn't done it in a while so it got a little uh a little crazy actually that should be in the it's going to rattle around but I'll fix that later I'll show you the engine and this thing it's nothing you know normally my engine compartments are immaculate so I apologize but it's a truck it's just amid a mid-80s Mercedes Mercedes truck engine what is it I think it's 2.4 2.3 2.4 liter 4 cylinder and it's a workhorse it does what it's supposed to do carries this thing around the weight of the vehicle is who got everything right here forty six hundred and fourteen pounds so a five-speed manual box got the winch you see all the dynamap we put in here there was so much heat coming out of this thing so it's nothing fancy just a real workhorse truck engine up there it just puts us back down but now I'll show you some of the build of this thing it's pretty amazing put on my grandpa glasses here's the original car original vehicle right here with across the fabulous SLR in the back with the you see the famous air brake these are all pictures of the real deal you know Fangio drove these things that looks like Fangio there I'm not sure but I think that might be Fangio now I'll show you a replica here are some of the dimensions I'll show you there now this is a very popular Swedish magazine I get it at home even though I don't speak Swedish but the pictures are in English that makes any sense anyway the man who built this car Sergey was his name hope I'm saying it right this is uh this is my car in Sweden before you know it another tool boxes or any of that on the side but I'm going to show you his build on this thing first you make a wooden buck you see how it's done the front of a I got the Mercedes 190 windshield in there you look over my shoulder his there's the donor car right there well there you are this basically the hole he as you can see you add a lot of models of this vehicle there is making the grill look at this I mean okay it takes a lot of work that your own for forging and it's making all the pieces this is what you do when you don't have Netflix okay you have time to actually build stuff instead of watching Game of Thrones or something else because a lot more nudity in Game of Thrones but ultimately it might be more rewarding she is practicing putting the car in the ramp that's the buck again to make the whole front you don't get rich doing this stuff it's more labor of love so you made the whole - I mean pretty amazing he was quite quite an artist Sweden has a huge car culture they love American cars over there but they'll actually they love all cars but you know the Swedes are very a lot of craftsmen look at this look at beautiful copied the dashboard exactly mercedes-benz spent two million building their replicas I don't know what he spent but he was not a rich man he's just a lot of a lot of work he Ria's Braun somebody Mercedes to get the ramp specifications and let's see there's the air banks for the air suspension right there so that kind of gives you some idea of the amount of work that went into this it's a it's a great piece and I really do treasure this you know it's such an oddball everybody likes to make replicas of Ferraris and Lamborghinis and all kinds of you know exotic race cars I think I'm the only one that really likes replicas of transporter trucks but here's that Fangio true oh hey I was talking about see it says FIA one Manuel Fangio champion double D constructed in 1951 that's that's pretty good see nowadays you get millions of dollars for being world champ back then you got a firm handshake a slice of cold mutton and know here's a little cup you know you risk your life I mean these guys were just unbelievable and he was certainly the greatest of them all or one of the greatest of them all you can argue about those all day long but this is one of the most prized possessions and I put it next to my I got the real Cup next to the replica truck with the real Mercedes so two out of three is not bad see you guys later thanks

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 2,808,096

Keywords: Mercedes, Benz, Jay, Leno, Transporter, Racecar, Blue, Jay Leno, Jay Leno's Garage, car reviews, compares cars, classic cars, vintage cars, sports cars, super cars, cars, car gear, McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder, Camaro Z28, jay leno garage, jay lenos garage, car collection, cnbc, episode, motorcycle, ford, corvette, tour, dodge, lexus, 1950

Id: Ywwo9RVtIwI

Length: 21min 9sec (1269 seconds)

Published: Mon May 30 2016