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Why is there no photo? (upd. Picture found!)

On most Fridays we bring you a photo of a girl with a car, but in this case we don't have one. That is to say, we have a picture of the girl and we have a picture of her car, but none of them together. The lovely looking girl is baroness Gisela von Krieger who was born into a wealthy Prussian family and in the 1930s became one of the ten most fashionable women in the world. Her car is a 1936 Herman Ahrens designed Mercedes 540 K Special Roadster, which Gisela kept all her life. In 1942, in the middle of the war, she brought it from Germany to Switzerland. After the war she moved to New York and stored the 540K in Greenwich, where it remained for the better part of four decades, still with the Baroness's driving maps and silk gloves, even down to her lipstick-stained cigarette butts! We have been searching the internet for a long time, but have not been able to come up with a photo of both Baroness and 540K together. Still we are very certain there must be one. Can you help us out?
(By the way, this marvelous Mercedes will be offered during Gooding & Company's Pebble Beach Auction on August 18-19).

Update by Editor: William King found the picture we were looking for: Baroness Gisela von Krieger and her brother Henning with his Mercedes 540K Special Roadster. Thanks William!

Gepubliceerd:
donderdag juli 12th, 2012
Stewart Wilkie
15 Juli 2012, 16:35
What a load of tosh !
Its one of the most sought after cars on the planet. I would gladly trade in my 3 Derby Bentleys against it
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Onbekend
14 Juli 2012, 17:56
Respecting swing axles, and to be fair, the Autocar road test states 'its very weight gives it great solidity that helps towards safe roadholding'- which was probably true, given the weight as tested was 53cwt - more than 2.7 tons! The chassis was also a massive, ridged box section. However, at the other end of the range, for the 16cwt 170H model, complete with rear engine, we have the comment '(it has) a slight swaying motion, so that the car does not appear to be following a straight course': in polite 1930s- speak that meant it swayed around like mad! Whatever the axle, personally I believe that unless it's a small MG or any Alfa, if you want a 1930's car to hang on to the road- best get a heavy one!
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Onbekend
14 Juli 2012, 11:42
I have original road tests that show the 540k took 12.5 seconds to reach 50mph- exactly twice as long as a modern Honda Civic- and without the blower was good for about 90mph. It would get to 100mph with its screaming blower- but you could only use that for a maximum of two minutes! Mind you, you'd be vey brave to attempt fast driving- the rear end had aptly named 'swing axles' and when you pushed the brake pedal nothing much would happen.

editor: do you have any experience with the MB swing axles? I think they were introduced in prewar GP racing. I have big experience with the late fifties swing axles based on the same principle, but then mounted on the 1960 300 SE saloon. No british stiff rearaxle set-up can stay close to that!
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Onbekend
14 Juli 2012, 11:27
Well, I never liked it. Horribly ostentatious, exagerated lines, overburdoned with chrome, massively heavy, and slow. In case you are wondering- I refer to the car, not the girl!! My old Derby Bentley would have seen off one of those and if you risked using the blower it was 'goodbye' to the engine. Today it is also a charactature- there have been so many immitations to satisfy egocentric show- offs that nobody will believe you if you claim yours is a real one.

editor: that is exactly the reason why one should restore an original no more than as little as needed...
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Onbekend
13 Juli 2012, 13:45
The car looks superb a wonderful restoration and might just break the world record. She lived a fabulous lifestyle and the car deserves to look its best.
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Onbekend
13 Juli 2012, 04:39
I remember an article, showing the car after it`s discovery. it looked fantastic but now it has been destroyed for value restored better than new.
I think the article showed a small pic of both beauties

regards
mike
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