Photo: Goodwood Road & Racing/YouTube
As we're sure that most of you are aware, Goodwood was for the last five days the capital of the automotive world, with the famed Festival of Speed and the subsequent Goodwood Hill Climb being home to hundreds of thousand of petrolheads from around the world.
Sadly, we didn't get a chance to attend the event this year, but we did have our eyes and ears glued to the Goodwood official YouTube channel, where most of the festivities surrounding the event were transmitted live every day.
With Mercedes-Benz celebrating 120 year of motorsport history in 2014, this year's edition of the Goodwood Festival of Speed was all about the three-pointed star, with the Stuttgart brand's history in motorsport being also commemorated by an astonishing sculpture that quite literally towered over the Goodwood House.
With that being said, the Goodwood Hill Climb also hosted a number rare and even unique Mercedes-Benz racing cars from yesteryear, ranging from a 1928 Mercedes- SSK, via both versions of the W196 Grand Prix car and culminating with a rare 500 SL rally car and the flame-spitting Sauber-Mercedes C9 Le Mans racer.
While arguably all Silver Arrows present at the event provided the spectators with a heavy dose of visual and auditory arousal, we don't have such good new about the 1981 Mercedes-Benz 500 SL rally car though, which was sadly crashed after being driven a bit faster than it should have been in the fourth corner of the Goodwood hill climb.
The driver was none other than DTM legend Roland Asch, who fortunately escaped without injury from the somewhat embarrassing impact with the oversized bales of hay.
As far as we know, the modified 500 SL may very well be the only one of its kind, with the car actually being a stillborn rally vehicle that was created back when Mercedes-Benz wanted to enter the world rally championship with none other than Walter Rohl behind the wheel.
There is no information about the current state of the car, but we have no doubt in our minds that it will be fully repaired and ready for active duty for other events in 2014. It's still a bummer though.
With Mercedes-Benz celebrating 120 year of motorsport history in 2014, this year's edition of the Goodwood Festival of Speed was all about the three-pointed star, with the Stuttgart brand's history in motorsport being also commemorated by an astonishing sculpture that quite literally towered over the Goodwood House.
With that being said, the Goodwood Hill Climb also hosted a number rare and even unique Mercedes-Benz racing cars from yesteryear, ranging from a 1928 Mercedes- SSK, via both versions of the W196 Grand Prix car and culminating with a rare 500 SL rally car and the flame-spitting Sauber-Mercedes C9 Le Mans racer.
While arguably all Silver Arrows present at the event provided the spectators with a heavy dose of visual and auditory arousal, we don't have such good new about the 1981 Mercedes-Benz 500 SL rally car though, which was sadly crashed after being driven a bit faster than it should have been in the fourth corner of the Goodwood hill climb.
The driver was none other than DTM legend Roland Asch, who fortunately escaped without injury from the somewhat embarrassing impact with the oversized bales of hay.
As far as we know, the modified 500 SL may very well be the only one of its kind, with the car actually being a stillborn rally vehicle that was created back when Mercedes-Benz wanted to enter the world rally championship with none other than Walter Rohl behind the wheel.
There is no information about the current state of the car, but we have no doubt in our minds that it will be fully repaired and ready for active duty for other events in 2014. It's still a bummer though.
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