Mercedes-Benz Classic will be taking part in this year’s Arlberg Classic Car Rally (June 26-282014) with a sports version of the Mercedes-Benz 190 SL. Taking to the wheel of this very special Roadster dating from 1955 will be brand ambassador and former DTM racing driver Ellen Lohr.
“The Mercedes-Benz 190 SL impressively combines two attributes of automotive engineering, namely decidedly sporty driving characteristics and a high level of ride comfort,” says Michael Bock, Director Mercedes-Benz Classic and Customer Center. “These are ideal attributes for this very varied regularity rally through the Lech holiday region.”
The Arlberg Classic Car Rally is something of a home game for Mercedes-Benz: in 1927 Wilhelm Max Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe (“Prinz Sause”, or the “Speedy Prince”) driving a Mercedes-Benz Model S with the start number 35 won the first Arlberg race in the class for sports cars with a displacement of up to eight litres.
Mercedes-Benz is also active as a main sponsor for this fifth event in the revived Alpine classic. The spectacular mountain scenery of the Tyrol and Vorarlberg provides the perfect conditions for participants in the Arlberg Classic Car Rally: there are no fewer than ten Alpine passes within a radius of around 100 kilometres. Over the three days the route covers more than 500 winding kilometres. The Rally starts and finishes in the municipality of Lech.
After the traditional prologue through the “Lech Canyon” on the Thursday (26 June 2014), the cars will climb the 1894-metre Hahntennjoch on Friday and then return to Lech by completing a wide loop via Pitztal, Ötztal, and Berwangertal. On Saturday, the drivers will follow the old Arlberg road through the “Flexengalerie” hewn out of solid rock.
The car entered by Mercedes-Benz Classic for the 2014 Arlberg Classic Car Rally
Mercedes-Benz 190 SL (W 121) sports version, 1955
The sports version of the Mercedes-Benz 190 SL (W 121) is configured as a touring sports car. Thanks to windowless doors and two small glass panes rather than one large windscreen, it is lighter than the standard production SL and therefore an attractive option for sporting events. The bumpers and soft top are removable.
Technical data
- Production period: 1955-1969
- Cylinders: 4/in-line
- Displacement: 1,897 cc
- Output: 77 kW (105 hp) at 5,700 rpm
- Top speed: 180 km/h
The driver for Mercedes-Benz Classic in the 2014 Arlberg Classic Car Rally
- Ellen Lohr
- Born on 12 April 1965 in Mönchengladbach
Ellen Lohr came to motor sport from the kart racing scene, where she was active from 1979 to 1983. Her greatest successes were participation in the Junior Kart World Championships and a first place in the North-West German Kart Championships. After competing in the German Formula Ford 1600 series (German Champion in 1987), and first participating in the DTM (BMW) and German Formula 3 Championships with VW in 1989/90, she was engaged for the German Touring Car Championships by the AMG-Mercedes team. For the 1995 season she moved to the Mercedes-Zakspeed team, and in 1996 drove for the AMG-Mercedes team Persson MS. Ellen Lohr is the only woman to date to have achieved a DTM victory, which she won in May 1992 at the motor racing festival in Hockenheim at the wheel of an AMG-Mercedes 2.5-16 Evolution II. In 1997, she competed in the European Truck Racing Championships, driving a Mercedes-Benz racing truck. Subsequently Ellen Lohr has continued to be actively involved in numerous other race series, including the Paris–Dakar Rally since 2005 and back in truck racing since 2012.
