Interesting One-off Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Flick Modified by AMG Spotted

This why either completely original or very well restored examples are always in demand, so when a modified one appears somewhere it usually brings a lot of cuss words from Gullwing and/or Mercedes-Benz aficionados and collectors.

You might want to put down the tar and feathers for the 300 SL in the following video though, not because but thanks to the fact that behind this one-off's modifications there is a rather interesting story, which is far from lacking in pedigree.

The parking lot where it was spotted seems to host a silent invasion of beautiful Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing models, but it is this red one which draws all the attention.

The story goes that this car had belonged for the first 18 years of its life to a wealthy businessman in Venezuela, from where it was imported back into Germany in 1974, where it was bought by none other than Friedrich Karl Flick, who was a major shareholder of Daimler-Benz at the time and also a Nazi heir.

As it happens, Mr. Flick wanted a more individualized variant of the car, which led him to none other than the nutty engineers from Burgstall, who were then just beginning to expand their future AMG empire and had not moved to Affalterbach.

According to press from the time, the Daimler-Benz shareholder wanted his car to be the fastest in Germany, which is why he instructed AMG technicians to make it faster than a Porsche 930 2.7 RS, while also unofficially lending its name to the finished product, which since then has been known as the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Flick.

The easiest way for that to happen was via an engine swap, but only Mercedes-Benz parts could be used, so AMG engineers first tried to fit the now-legendary 6.3-liter engine from the 300 SEL 6.3.

Sadly, it didn't fit under the low hood of the car, which prompted them to take a smaller 4.5-liter V8 and re-engineer it to provide approximately 280 hp.

Along with a number of other interior and exterior modifications that took the better part of an entire year, this red Gullwing became not only the fastest but also the most expensive German car at the time, with the total cost of the work amounting to at least half a million German marks.

It is not known who the current owner of the car is, but he definitely is more appreciative towards Mercedes-Benz history than you would think at first glance, as this 300 SL is not the blasphemy an untrained eye would think at first glance.