Gullwing & Gull-wing (pronounced
guhl-wing)
(1) In
aviation, an airplane wing that slants briefly upward from the fuselage and
then extends horizontally outward (ie a short upward-sloping inner section and
a longer horizontal outer section).
(2) Of
doors, a door hinged at the top and opening upward (applied usually to cars but
can be used in aviation, aerospace and architecture).
(3) Anything
having or resembling (extended and partially extended) wings of a gull (and many
other birds).
(4) In
electronic hardware, a type of board connector for a small outline integrated
circuit (SOIC).
(5) In
historic admiralty jargon, a synonym of goose wing (a sail position).
Gull is
from the Middle English gulle, from
the Brythonic, from the Proto-Celtic wēlannā
(seagull) and was cognate with the Cornish guilan,
the Welsh gwylan, the Breton gouelan and the Old Irish faílenn.
The noun Gull was used (in a cook-book!) to describe the shore bird in
the 1400s, probably from the Brythonic Celtic; it was related to the Welsh gwylan (gull), the Cornish guilan, the Breton goelann; all from Old Celtic voilenno-.
Gull replaced the Old English mæw.
The
verb form meaning “to dupe, cheat, mislead by deception" dates from the
1540s, an adaptation by analogy from the earlier (1520) meaning "to
swallow", ultimately from the sense of "throat, gullet" from the
early 1400s. The meaning was the idea of
someone so gullible to “swallow whatever they’re told”. As a cant term for "dupe, sucker,
credulous person", it’s noted from the 1590s and is of uncertain origin
but may be from the verb meaning "to dupe or cheat". Another possibility is a link to the late
fourteenth century Middle English gull
& goll (newly hatched bird" which
may have been influenced by the Old Norse golr
(yellow), the link being the hue of the bird’s down.
Wing
was from the late twelfth century Middle English winge & wenge (forelimb
fitted for flight of a bird or bat), applied also to the part of certain
insects which resembled a wing in form or function, from the Old Norse vængr (wing of a bird, aisle etc) from the
Proto-Germanic wēinga & wēingan-. It was cognate with the Danish vinge (“wing”), the Icelandic vængur (wing), the West Frisian wjuk (wing) and the Swedish vinge (“wing”), of unknown origin but
possibly from the Proto-Germanic we-ingjaz
( a suffixed form of the primitive Indo-European root we- (blow), source of the Old English wawan (to blow). It replaced
the native Middle English fither,
from the Old English fiþre & feðra (plural (and related to the modern
feather)) from the Proto-Germanic fiþriją,
which merged with fether, from the
Old English feþer, from the
Proto-Germanic feþrō). The meaning "either of two divisions of
a political party, army etc dates from circa 1400; the use in the architectures
was first recorded in 1790 and applied figuratively almost immediately. The slang sense of earn (one's) wings is
1940s, from the wing-shaped badges awarded to air cadets on graduation. To be
under (someone's) wing "protected by (someone)" is recorded from the early
thirteenth century; the phrase “on a wing and a prayer” is title of a 1943 song
about landing a damaged aircraft.
A Gull in
flight (left), inverted gull-wing on 1944 Voight Corsair (centre) & gull-wing on 1971 Piaggio P.136
(Royal Gull) (right).
In
aviation, the design actually pre-dates powered flight (1903) by half a
millennium, appearing in the speculative drawings of flying machines by
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) and others, an inevitable consequence of being influenced by the flapping wings of birds.
There were experiments, circa 1911, to apply the gull-wing principle to
some of the early monoplanes in a quest to combine greater surface area with enhanced strength
but it wasn’t until the 1920s it began widely to be used, firstly in gliders for
some aerodynamic advantage and later, powered-aircraft. In powered aircraft, the gull-wing offered
little aerodynamically but had structural advantages in that it allowed
designers more easily to ensure (1) increasingly larger propellers would have sufficient
clearance, (2) undercarriage length could be reduced (and consequently
strengthened) and (3) wing-spans could slightly be reduced, a thing of great
significance when operations began on aircraft carriers, the gull-wing being especially suited to the folding-wing model. Depending on the advantage(s) sought, designers used either a classic gull-wing or the inverted gull-wing. The correct form is for all purposes except
when applied to the the (1954-1957) Mercedes-Benz 300 SL coupé is the hyphenated gull-wing; only the
1950s Mercedes-Benz are called Gullwings.
1945
Jamin-Bouffort JB.
Cars with gull-wing doors had been built before Mercedes-Benz
started making them at (small) scale and the principle was known in both aviation and marine architecture.
One was the 1945 Jamin-Bouffort JB, the creation of French aeronautical
engineer Victor-Albert Bouffort (1912-1995) who had a long history of clever,
practical (and sometimes unappreciated) designs. The Jamin-Bouffort JB
was a relatively small three-wheeler built using some of the techniques of construction used in
light aircraft, the gull-wing doors the most obvious novelty. Anticipating the 1950s boom in micro-cars,
there was potential but with European industry recovering from the war, most
effort was directed to resuming production of pre-war vehicles using surviving tooling
and there was little interest in pursuing anything which required development
time. Monsieur Bouffort would go on to
design other concepts ahead of their time, some of his ideas adopted by others
decades after his prototypes appeared.
Bugatti
Type 64 with gull-wing body fabricated using original conceptual sketches on
1939 Type 64 chassis.
In 1939, Jean
Bugatti drew up plans for the Type 64, a vehicle with gull-wing doors, his
sketches an example of the great interest being shown by European manufacturers in aerodynamics, then called usually streamlining.
Although two Type 64s were completed in 1939, neither used the gull-wing doors and it would be another eighty-odd years before Bugatti’s design was realised
when collector & president of the American Bugatti Club, Peter Mullin (b
1941), arranged the fabrication of the coachwork, based on the original
drawings. Built in exactly the same way
craftsmen would have accomplished the task in 1939, the body was mounted on
the surviving Type 64 chassis (64002), united for the first time with what Jean
Bugatti called papillon (butterfly)
doors which all (except the French) now call gull-wings.
Mercedes-Benz
and the gull-wing.
1952
Mercedes-Benz 300 SL prototype (W194).
By 1951, although the Wirtschaftswunder (the post-war German “economic miracle”) still
lay ahead, structural changes (the most important being the retreat by the
occupying forces in the western zones from the punitive model initially adopted
and the subsequent creation in 1948 of the stable deutschmark), had already generated an
economy of unexpected strength and Mercedes-Benz was ready to make a
serious return to the circuits. Because
the rules then governing Formula One didn’t suit what it was at the time
practical to achieve, the first foray was into sports car racing, the target
the ambitious goal of winning the Le Mans 24 hour race, despite a tight budget
which precluded the development of new engines or transmissions and dictated
the use of as much already-in-production as possible.
1952 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL prototype (W194).
It was
the use of a production car engine designed not for ultimate power but
smoothness, reliability and a wide torque band which ultimately dictated the
use of the gull-wing doors. The engine
was the 3.0 litre (183 cubic inch) M186 straight-six used in the big 300
limousines and its two door derivatives, of advanced design by the standards of
the time but also big, tall and heavy, attributes not helpful to race-car
designers who prefer components which are compact, light and able to be mounted
low in a frame. A new engine not being
possible, the factory instead created a variation, the M194, which used the
triple-carburetor induction of the 300S coupés in an improved cylinder head,
the innovation being the iron-block now lying at a 50o angle,
thereby solving the problem of height by allowing it to be installed while
canted to the side, permitting a lower bonnet line. Using the existing gearbox, it was still a
heavy engine-transmission combination, especially in relation to its modest
power-output and such was the interest in lightness that, initially, the
conventional wet-sump was retained so the additional weight of the more
desirable dry-sump plumbing wouldn’t be added.
It was only later in the development-cycle that dry-sump lubrication was
added.
1952 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL space-frame (W194).
The
calculations made suggested that with the power available, the W194 would be
competitive only if lightness and aerodynamics were optimized. Although the relationship between low-drag
and down-force were still not well-understood, despite the scientific
brain-drain to the US and USSR (forced and otherwise) in the aftermath of the
war, the Germans still had a considerable knowledge-base in aerodynamics and this
was utilized to design a small, slippery shape into which the now slanted
straight-six would be slotted. There
being neither the time nor the money to build the car as a monocoque, the
engineers knew the frame had to be light.
A conventional chassis was out of the question because of the weight and
they knew from the pre-war experience of the SSKL how expensive and difficult
it was to reduce mass while retaining strength. The solution was a space-frame, made from tubular
aluminum it was light, weighing only between 50-70 kg (110-155 lb) in it’s
various incarnations yet impressively stiff and the design offered the team to
opportunity to use either closed or open bodies as race regulations required.
However,
as with many forms of extreme engineering, there were compromises, the most
obvious of which being that the strength and torsional rigidity was in part
achieved by mounting the side tubes so high that the use of conventionally
opening doors was precluded. In a race
car, that was of no concern and access to the cockpit in the early W194s was
granted by what were essentially top-hinged windows which meant ingress and
egress was not elegant and barely even possible for those of a certain girth
but again, this was though hardly to matter in a race car. In this form, the first prototypes were built,
without even the truck-like access step low on the flanks which had been in the
original plans.
1952 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL production coupé (W194).
Actually,
it turned out having gull-wing windows instead of gull-wing doors did
matter. Although the rules of motorsport’s
pettifogging regulatory body, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the FIA; the International
Automobile Federation) were silent on the types and direction of opening doors and, in the pre-war era they had tolerated some essentially fake doors, their
scrutineers still raised objections during inspection for the 1952 Mille Miglia. The inspectors were forced to relent when unable to
point to any rule actually being broken but it was clear they’d be out for
revenge and the factory modified the frame to permit doors extending down the
flanks, thereby assuming the final shape which would come to define the
gull-wing door. Relocating some of the
aluminum tubing to preserve strength added a few kilograms but forestalled any
retrospective FIA nit-picking. To this
day, the FIA's legions of bureaucrats seem not to realise why they’ve for so long been
regarded as impediments to competition and innovation.
The W194 at Le Mans, 1952.
First
tested on the Nürburgring and Hockenheimring in late 1951, the W194, now dubbed
300 SL for promotional purposes, was in March 1952 presented to the press on
the Stuttgart to Heilbronn autobahn. In those happy days, there was nothing strange about demonstrating race cars on public highways. The
SL stood for Super Leicht (super
light), reflecting the priority the engineers had pursued. Ten W194s were built for the 1952 season and
success was immediate, second in the Mille Miglia; a trademark 1-2-3 result in
the annual sports car race in Bern and, the crowning achievement, a 1-2 finish
in the twenty-four hour classic at Le Mans. Neither usually the most powerful nor the fastest car in the races it
contested, the 300 SL nevertheless so often prevailed because of a combination of
virtues. Despite the heavy drive-train,
it was light enough not to impose undue stress on tyres, brakes or mechanical
components, the limousine engine was tough and durable and the outstanding
aerodynamics returned surprising good fuel economy; in endurance racing,
reliability and economy compensate for a lot of absent horsepower.
As a footnote (one to be noted only by the subset of word nerds who delight in the details of nomenclature), for decades, it was said by many (even normally reliable sources) that SL stood for Sports Leicht (sports light) and the history of the Mercedes-Benz alphabet soup was such that it could have gone either way (the SSKL (1929) was the Super Sports Kurz (short) Leicht (light)) and from the 1950s on, for the SL, even the factory variously used Sports Leicht and Super Leicht. It was only in 2017 it published a 1952 paper (unearthed from the corporate archive) confirming the correct abbreviation is Super Leicht. Sports Leicht Rennsport (Sport Light Racing) seems to be used for the the SLRs because they were built as pure race cars, the W198 and later SLs being road cars but there are references also to Super Leicht Rennsport. By implication, that would suggest the original 300SL (the 1951 W194) should have been a Sport Leicht because it was built only for competition but given the relevant document dates from 1952, it must have been a reference to the W194 which is thus also a Sport Leicht. Further to muddy the waters, in 1957 the factory prepared two lightweight cars based on the new 300 SL Roadster (1957-1963) for use in US road racing and these were (at the time) designated 300 SLS (Sports Leicht Sport), the occasional reference (in translation) as "Sports Light Special" not supported by any evidence. The best quirk of the SLS tale however is the machine which inspired the model was a one-off race-car built by Californian coachbuilder ("body-man" in the vernacular of the West Coast hot rod community) Chuck Porter (1915-1982). Porter's SLS was built on the space-fame of a wrecked 300 SL gullwing (purchased for a reputed US$500) and followed the lines of the 300 SLR roadsters as closely as the W198 frame (taller than that of the W196S) allowed. Although it was never an "official" designation, Porter referred to his creation as SL-S, the appended "S" standing for "scrap".
Porsche 356 SL, in pit lane, Le Mans, 1951.
Unlike their neighbours in Stuttgart, Porsche have never had any doubt what they meant by "SL". After the
end of World War II (1939-1945), it took some time for Herr Professor Ferdinand
Porsche (1875–1951) to extricate himself from the clutches of the allied
authorities which had arrested him as a war criminal but once free, he moved to the town of Gmünd in
north-west Austria where he embarked on a project to build his own cars, the
first being a small roadster using many components from the Volkswagen (Type 1;
Beetle) with which he was familiar. However,
upon consideration of the realities of even small-scale series production and
the market potential of various body styles, it was decided to create a rear-engined,
closed coupé and in just under three months, Porsche’s small team designed what
came to be known as the “Gmünd Coupé”, the first leaving the modest works in
June 1948. By 1950 over 50 had been
built (including a half-dozen-odd cabriolets), all with hand-formed aluminum
bodies and the layout and shape remains identifiable the in rear-engined (and
the mid-engined Boxer and Cayman) Porsches produced in 2025.
Porsche 356 SL, Le Mans, 1951.
When in
1950 Porsche relocated his operation to Zuffenhausen, production resumed with bodies
of steel rather than aluminum but eleven of the Gmünd chassis were shipped
north and used by the factory for their competition programme; they were converted
to Sport Leicht (Sports Light)
specification and named 356 SL (internally the 356/2 3000 series), fitted with
1086 cm3 (66 cubic inch), air-cooled, flat four engines (rated at 46
horsepower), enlarged fuel tanks, louvered quarter-window covers, fender skirts
(spats), streamlined belly fairings and an aluminium body. The factory entered three 356 SLs in the 1951
Le Mans 24 hour endurance classic and while two crashed, one won the 751-1100
cm3 class (46-67 cubic inch).
W194 roadsters at Nürburgring, 1952.
After
the triumph of the 300 SL at Le Mans, the team won at the Eifelrennen and was then entered into
in a race on the Nürburgring; to shed some weight, engineers converted
three of the coupés to roadsters, emulating the body of one of the original ten
which had been open-topped from the start.
To avoid any unpleasantness with the FIA, the section of the doors
extending into the side of the car was retained and a smaller windscreen was installed
to improve aerodynamics and afford the driver some protection from the weather
and bugs unfortunate enough to be caught in the path. The roofectomy reduced weight by about 100 kg (220 lb) which presumably helped, the four finishing in the
first four places. Winning W194, 1952 Carrera Panamericana Mexico, the protective metal struts were an ad-hoc addition after a bird strike.
One
final adventure for the year yielded a perhaps unexpected success. In November 1952, the factory entered two
coupés and two roadsters in the third Carrera Panamericana Mexico, a race of
3100 kilometres (1925 miles) over five days and eight stages, their engines now
bored out to 3.1 litres (189 cubic inches) increasing power from 175 bhp
(130kw) to 180 (135). The cars finished 1-2-3
although the third was disqualified for a rule violation and the winning car
endured the intrusion at speed of a vulture through the windscreen. Unlike the 300 SL, the unlucky bird
didn’t survive. There was however one
final outing for the W194. In 1955 it
won the Rally Stella Alpina, the last time the event would be run in
competitive form, one of many cancelled in the wake of the disaster at Le
Mans that year in which 84 died and almost two-hundred injured. Coincidently, that accident involved the
W194’s successor, the 300 SLR.
1953 300 SL Prototype.
The 300
SL was re-engineered for the 1953 season, the bodywork now made from magnesium,
lighter even than aluminum, the design of which had seen the car return to the
wind-tunnel after which it gained a revised front section which not only
reduced drag but also improved cooling by optimizing airflow to the radiator
and engine compartment. Power rose
too. Again drawing from wartime
experience with the DB60x V12 aero-engine used in many German warplanes, direct
fuel-injection was introduced which boosted output from 180 bhp (135 kw) to 215
bhp (158 kW). Nor were the underpinnings
neglected, the rear suspension design improved (somewhat) with the addition of the
low-pivot single-joint swing axle (which would later appear on some production
300 SLs) while the transmission was flanged on the rear axle, not quite a transaxle
but much improving the weight distribution. The wheelbase was shortened by 100 millimetres
(4 inches) and 16-inch wheels were adopted.
Even disk brakes were considered but the factory judged them years from
being ready and it wouldn’t be until 1961 that they appeared on a
Mercedes-Benz, more than half a decade after others had proved the technology
on road and track. There was however one
exception to that, a disc brake had been installed between propeller shaft and
differential on the high-speed truck built in 1954 to carry the Grand
Prix cars between the factory and circuits in Europe.
The
revised 300 SL however was never raced, the factory’s attention now turning to
the Formula One campaign which, with the W196, would so successfully be
conducted in 1954-1955, an off-shoot of which would be the W194’s replacement,
the W196S sports car which would be based on the Grand Prix machine and dubbed,
a bit opportunistically, the 300 SLR (Sport
Leicht Rennen (Sport Light-Racing)).
Such was the impression made by the futuristic W194 that it would
inspire production of the road-going 300 SL Gullwing (W198), 1400 of which were
built during 1954-1957 (including 29 with aluminium bodies).
1955
Mercedes-Benz 300 SL (W194) (1954-1957).
Although the public found them glamorous, the
engineers at Mercedes-Benz had never been enamoured by the 300 SL’s gull-wing
doors, regarding them a necessary compromise imposed by the high side-structure
of the space-frame which supported the body.
Never intended for use on road-cars, it was the guarantee of the US
importer of Mercedes-Benz to underwrite the sale of a thousand gull-wing coupés
that saw the 300 SL Gullwing enter production in 1954. The sales predictions proved accurate and of
the 1400 built, some 80% were delivered to North American buyers. The W198 300SL was the model which became
entrenched in the public imagination as “the Gullwing” and it’s the only
instance where the word doesn’t need to be hyphenated. Glamorous those doors may have been, they did
impose compromises. The side windows
didn’t roll down, ventilation was marginal and air-conditioning didn’t exist;
in a hot climate, one really had to want to drive a Gullwing. There was also the safety issue, some drivers
taking the precaution of carrying a hammer in case, in a roll-over, the
inability to open the doors made the windscreen the only means of escape and
roll-overs were perhaps more likely in a Gullwing than many other machines, the nature of the swing axles sometimes inducing unwanted behavior in what was
one of the fastest cars on the road although, in fairness, on the tyres available in the 1950s that was less of an issue than it would become on later,
stickier rubber.
In the US in 1956, a "fully optioned" Gullwing would have been invoiced at US$8894.00 and apart from the car itself, some of those options would proved a good investment, items like the knock-off wheels adding by the 2020s at least tens of thousands to the selling price and even the fitted luggage attracts a premium. The options affecting the mechanical specification (notably the camshaft and choice of final drive ratio) had a significant influence on the character of the car, the former raising the rated horsepower from 220 to 240 and in its more powerful form the top speed would have been 140-155 mph (225-250 km/h) depending on the gearing. Those serious about speed could opt for the "package" of the aluminum body with "full competition equipment" including the Rudge wheels and upgraded engine & suspension, supplied with two complete axles in a choice of gear ratios. That package listed at US$9300.00 which in retrospective was another reasonable investment given the aluminum Gullwing from Rudi Klein's "junkyard collection" sold at auction in October 2024 for US$9,355,000 (an that for a vehicle needing restoration). Still, all things are relative and average annual income in the US in 1956 was about US$3600 and while it was possible to buy what would now be called a "house & land package" for around US$8000, the typical house sold for more than twice that. The 300 SL would still have been a sound investment because although one would have incurred insurance, maintenance, running and storage costs over the decades, a well maintained, original, 1956 aluminum Gullwing would now sell for well in excess of US$12 million while US$9600 placed in the S&P 500 index would by 2024 be worth some US$9.4 million (assuming all dividends were re-invested). There have been better investments than aluminum Gullwings but not many.
Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR (W196S), Stirling Moss & Denis Jenkinson, Mille Miglia, Italy, 1955.
The 300 SLR (W196S) was a sports car, nine of which were built to
contest the 1955 World Sportscar Championship.
Essentially the W196 Formula One car with the straight-eight engine
enlarged from 2.5 to 3.0 litres (152 to 183 cubic inches), the roadster is most famous for the run in the 1955 Mille Miglia in Italy which was won over a
distance of 992 miles (1597 km) with an average speed of almost 100 mph (160
km/h); nothing like that has since been achieved. There's infamy too attached to the 300 SLR;
one being involved in the catastrophic crash and fire at Le Mans in 1955.
1955 300
SLR (W196S “Uhlenhaut” coupé).
Two of the 300 SLRs were built with coupé bodies,
complete with gull-wing doors. Intended
to be used in the 1955 Carrera Panamericana Mexico, they were rendered instantly
redundant when both race and the Mercedes-Benz racing programme was cancelled after
the Le Mans disaster. The head of the
programme, Rudolf Uhlenhaut (1906-1989), added an external muffler to one of the coupés, registered it for road use (such things were once possible when
the planet was a happier place) and used it for a while as his company car. It was then the fastest road-car in the
world, an English journalist recording a top speed of 183 mph (295 km/h) on a
quiet stretch of autobahn but Herr Uhlenhaut paid a price for the only partially
effective muffler, needing hearing aids later in life. Two were built (rot (red) & blau (blue), the names based on their interior trim) and for decades they remained either in the factory museum or making an occasional ceremonial appearance at race meetings. However, in a surprise announcement, in June 2022 it was revealed rot had been sold in a private auction in Stuttgart for a world-record US$142 million, the most expensive car ever sold. The buyer's identity was not released but it's believed rot is destined for a collection in the Middle East. It's rumoured also the same buyer has offered US$100 million should an authentic 1929 Mercedes-Benz SSKL ever be uncovered.
Although the C-111 would have a second career in
the late 1970s in a series of 5-cylinder diesel and V8 petrol engined cars used
to set long-distance endurance records, its best remembered in its original
incarnation as the lurid-colored (safety-orange according to the
factory) three and four-rotor Wankel-engined gullwing coupés, sixteen of which
were built. The original was a pure
test-bed for the Wankel engine in which so many manufacturers once had so much
hope. The first built looked like a
failed high-school project but the second and third versions were both finished
to production-car standards with typically high-quality German workmanship. Although from the school of functional
brutalism rather than the lovely things they might have been had styling been
out-sourced to the Italians, the gull-winged wedges attracted much attention
and soon cheques were enclosed in letters mailed to Stuttgart asking for one. The cheques were returned; apparently there
had never been plans for production even had the Wankel experiment proved a
success. The C-111 was fast, the
four-rotor version said to reach 300 km/h (188 mph), faster than any production
vehicle then available.
The C112 was an experimental mid-engined concept car built in
1991. Designed to be essentially a
road-going version of the Sauber-built C11 Group C prototype race car developed
for the 1990 World Sports-Prototype Championship, it was powered by the 6.0
litre (366 cubic-inch) M120 V12 used in the R129 SL and C140/W140 S-Class
variously between 1991-2001. The C112
does appear to have been what the factory always claimed it was: purely a test-bed for technologies such as the electronically-controlled
spring & damper units (which would later be included on some models as ABC
(active body control)), traction control, rear wheel steering, tyre-pressure
monitoring and distance-sensing radar. As an indication it wasn't any sort of prototype intended for production, it offered no luggage space but, like the C111 twenty years earlier,
it’s said hundreds of orders were received. It was 1991 however and with the world in the depths of
a severe recession, not even that would have been enough for a flirtation with thoughts of
a production model. After the C112,
thoughts of a gull-wing were put on ice for another two decades, the SLR-McLaren
(2003-2009) using what were technically “butterfly” door, hinged from the
A-pillars.
2011
Mercedes-Benz SLS-AMG (2101-2014).
The factory’s most recent outing of the gull-wing door,
the SLS, which used the naturally aspirated 6.2 litre (379 cubic inch) M159 DOHC
V8, was produced between (2010-2014), a roadster version also available. To allay any doubt, it was announced at the time of release that SLS stands for
Super Leicht Sport (Super Light
Sport) although such things are relative, the SLS a hefty 1600-odd kg (3,500
lb) although, in fairness, the original Gullwing wasn’t that much lighter and the
SLS does pack a lot more gear, including windows which can be opened and
air-conditioning. In the way of modern marketing, many special versions were
made available during the SLS’s relatively short life, even an all-wheel-drive
electric version with a motor for each wheel.
Such is the lure of the gull-wing motif for Mercedes-Benz, it’s unlikely
the SLS will be the last and a high-priced revival is expected to become a
feature of the marketing cycle every couple of decades but we're unlikely to see
any more V8s or V12s unless perhaps as a swan-song, AMG indicating recently
they expect their 4.0 litre (244 cubic inch) V8 to remain in production for
another ten years, Greta Thunberg (b 2003) and her henchmen the humorless EU bureaucrats permitting.
Lindsay Lohan at the Nicholas Kirkwood (b 1980; shoe designer) catwalk show with a prop vehicle (one of the gull-wing DMC DeLoreans modified
closely to resemble the one used in the popular film Back to the Future (1985)), London Fashion Week, 2015.
Tesla Model X with falcon-wing doors.
Such was the allure of the 300 SL’s gull-wing
doors that in the shadow they’ve cast for seventy-odd years, literally dozens
of cars have appeared with the features, some of questionable aesthetic
quality, some well-executed and while most were one-offs or produced only in
small runs, there’s been the occasional (usually brief) success and of late some
Teslas have been so equipped and with the novelty of them being the back doors,
the front units conventionally hinged.
Tesla calls them “falcon wings” because the design was influenced by the
bird. However, the biomimicry was (for
obvious reasons) not an attempt to gain the aerodynamic advantages of the falcon’s
wing shape which affords exceptional maneuverability in flight but simply an
adoption of the specific bone structure.
Unlike the fixed structure of the classic gull-wing door, the Tesla’s
falcon-wing is fitted with an additional central joint which permits them to be
opened in cramped spaces, aiding passenger ingress and egress. Some Tesla engineers have however admitted
the attraction of them as way to generate publicity and (hopefully) attract
sales may have been considered during the design process.
Bricklin SV-1 (1974-1975, left) and DMC
DeLorean (1981-1983, right).
Two of the best known of the doomed gull-wing
cars were the Bricklin SV1 and the DeLorean, both the creations of individuals
with interesting histories. Malcolm
Bricklin’s (b 1939) first flirtation with the automotive business was his introduction
into the US market of the Subarus, built by the Japanese conglomerate Fuji
Heavy Industries. Having successfully
imported the company’s scooters for some years, the model Mr Bricklin in 1968 chose
was the 360, a tiny, egg-shaped device which had been sold in Japan for a
decade, the rationale underlying his selection being it was so small and light
it was exempt from just about any regulations.
Although really unsuited to US motoring conditions it was (at US$1300)
several hundred dollars cheaper than a Volkswagen Beetle and had a fuel
consumption around a third that delivered by even the less-thirsty US-built
cars so it found a niche and some ten-thousand were sold before that gap in the
market was saturated. Ever imaginative, Mr
Bricklin then took his hundreds of unsold 360s and re-purposed them essentially
as large dodgem-cars, renting unused shopping-mall car-parks as ad-hoc race
tracks and offering “laps” for as little as $US1.00. He advertised “no speed limits” to attract
the youth market but given the little machines took a reported 56 seconds for
the 0-60 mph (0-100 km/h) run, reaching any state's legal limit in a car-park would
have been a challenge. Mr Bricklin
achieved further success with Subaru’s more conventional (in a front wheel
drive (FWD) context) 1000 and the corporation would later buy out his US
interests for was thought to be a most lucrative transaction for both parties.
1969 Subaru 360 Deluxe.
His eponymous gull-winged creation was the SV-1
which, although nominally positioned as a “sports car” was marketed also as a “safety-vehicle”
(hence the SV). It certainly contained
all of the safety features of the time and in that vein was offered mostly in
lurid “high visibility” colors although the prototypes for an up-market “Chairman”
version were displayed in more restrained black or white. It was ahead of its time in one way, being
fitted with neither ash-trays nor cigarette lighters, Mr Bricklin not approving
of smoking and regarding the distractions of lighting-up while at the wheel a
safety hazard. Whether in stable
conditions the car could have succeeded is speculative but the timing was extraordinarily
unlucky. The V8-powered car arrived on
the market in 1974 shortly after the first oil shock saw a spike in the price
of gasoline and in the midst of the recession and stagflation which followed in
the wake. Between its
introduction and demise, the costs of the SV1 more than doubled and there were
disruptions to the production process because supply problems (or unpaid bills, depending on who was asked) meant the AMC engine had to be replaced with a Ford
power-plant. By the time production
ended, only some 3000 had been built, but, not discouraged, Mr Bricklin would go on
to import Fiat sports cars and the infamous Yugo before being involved with a
variety of co-ventures with Chinese partners.
1970 Pontiac GTO convertible.
John DeLorean (1925–2005) was a genuinely
gifted engineer who emerged as one of the charismatic characters responsible
for some of the memorable machines General Motors (GM) produced during its golden
age of the 1950s & 1960s. Under Mr
DeLorean’s leadership, Pontiac in 1964 released the GTO which is considered (though
contested by some) the first “muscle car” and the one responsible for the whole
genre which would flourish for a crazy half-dozen years and in 1969 the Grand
Prix which defined a whole market segment.
Apparently, the Grand Prix, produced at a low cost and sold at a high
price was one of the most profitable lines of the era. Given this, Mr DeLorean expected a smooth
path to the top of GM but for a variety of reasons there were internal tensions
and in 1973 he resigned to pursue his dream of making his own car. It took years however to reach fruition
because the 1970s were troubled times and like the Bricklin SV1, the DeLorean
Motor Company’s (DMC) gull-winged DeLorean was released into a world less
welcoming than had been anticipated. By
1981, the world was again in recession and the complicated web of financing arrangements
and agreements with the UK government to subsidize production could have
worked if the design was good, demand was strong and the product was
well-built, none of which was true.
1969 Pontiac Grand Prix 428 SJ.
As the inventory of unsold cars grew, so
did the debt and desperate for cash, Mr DeLorean was persuaded (apparently without
great difficulty) to become involved in the cocaine trafficking business which certainly
offered fast money but his co-conspirator turned out to be an FBI informant who
was a career criminal seeking a reduced sentence (on a unrelated matter) by
providing the bureau with “a big scalp”.
At trial in 1984, Mr DeLorean was acquitted on all charges under the rule of "entrapment" but by then
DMC was long bankrupt. In the years since,
the car has found a cult following, something due more to its part in the Back
to the Future films than any dynamic qualities it possessed. It was competent as a road car despite the
rear-engine configuration and the use of an uninspiring power-plant but, apart
from the stainless-steel bodywork and of course the doors, it had little to
commend it although over the years there have been a number of (ultimately
aborted) revivals and plans remain afoot for an electric gull-wing machine
using the name to be released in 2025.
