Crosswind for the Mercedes Benz 230 SL
03/20/2013
Mercedes-Benz took care of the safety of its customers early on. Crash tests were carried out as early as the 1950s and the sensitivity of cars to crosswinds was also investigated.
A "crosswind machine", 32 meters long and two meters high, was built especially for this purpose. It was located on the Daimler-Benz test track in Stuttgart-Untertürkheim and could produce wind speeds of up to 20 meters per second, which corresponds to wind force 9 in nature. To do this, it used 16 blowers, each driven by 18 kW motors. Even the safety of the test drivers had been taken into consideration, because as soon as the wind turbine started working, a flashing light came on to draw attention to the expected gusts.
We don't know how big the deviations were that were measured when the 230 SL drove through. Nor do we know how big the difference was with the roof up or down.
The picture and many others of the Mercedes Benz 230 SL can of course also be found in the Zwischengas archive.
