Mercedes-Benz 200 SLD - Or: Sometimes repetition does please
02/10/2025
We already talked about record-breaking cars yesterday, but this one is too bizarre and unknown not to be acknowledged.
On November 25 and 26, 1959, the four rally drivers Max Nathan, Leopold von Zedlitz, Otto Gastell and Helmut Kögel completed a 24-hour drive in a Mercedes-Benz 190 SL - with a diesel engine! Specifically: with the four-cylinder engine of the 190 D, enlarged to 2032 cc and increased to 60 hp, in order to be able to compete in the FIA Class D for diesel engines with a displacement of up to three liters.
At the end of the "day's stage" at the Hockenheimring, 2977.316 kilometers were on the counter. With an average speed of 124.1 km/h, the previous record of 108.5 km/h had been beaten by a considerable margin. Together with the short distance records on Wednesday morning, the nail-biting Nitribitt roadster set a total of 24 new records.
Almost exactly two years later, privateers Walter Assenheimer and Hans Hölder repeated the undertaking in a similar form: also Hockenheim, also 190 SL, also diesel engine. However, they only wanted to break the short-distance records over distances of one kilometer to ten miles, but in both classes.
For Class E, they had upgraded the four-cylinder engine to 65 hp with the same displacement. A covered cockpit and a low windshield were intended to reduce air resistance. A 2035 cc engine was then installed for Class D, with which a further eight records were set, doubling the total to 16.
Even this contribution is a bit of a repeat. Diesel SL number 1 was the subject of a blog post over ten years ago. However, number 2 was not discussed back then, so we are happy to present the two "DieSLs" again here as a pair. Sometimes two are simply better than one.
