Friday 18th December 2015
Mercedes SLC450 5.0: Pic Of The Week
SLK renamed SLC; time to show some appreciation for the first car to bear the name
So Mercedes has renamed the SLK as the SLC.
SLC, meanwhile, has a heritage of its own and an association with the hefty coupe derivative of the R107 SL. It never quite captured the imagination like its drop top relative and in an attempt to give it a little motorsport credibility Mercedes famously turned it into a rally car. A hefty old tank, it found its calling in the safari rallies of the late 70s where its toughness, V8-powered performance and stability made it unstoppable on the wide-open plains of East Africa at the hands of Hannu Mikkola, Bjorn Waldegaard and others.
Aluminium V8 saved 40kg over steel engine
The road car that inspired this - the 450 SLC 5.0 - is an interesting footnote in Mercedes' history too. Of the 62,888 SLC production run it accounted for just 2,769 examples and pioneered the firm's first all-aluminium V8, which weighed 40kg less than the iron-blocked 4.5-litre one it was developed from. As a whole the car was 80kg lighter than the 450SLC it was sold alongside, thanks to aluminium body panels and other weight saving measures. Having proven itself in the SLC the M117 V8 became a mainstay of Mercedes range in the 80s, powering S-Classes, SECs and more. A nascent AMG even developed a four-valve head for it in one of its early customer tuning packages, the engine powering widebody SECs and the iconic W124-based Hammer.Always in the shadow of its SL relative, it's a shame the SLC name and lineage has been amalgamated into an unrelated product range. So let's celebrate the original doing what it did best, sideways in the red African dust on the 3,522-mile 1979 Africa Bandama rally in which SLCs scored a 1-2-3-4 victory. Pictured and prepared for your desktop is the winning #6 car of Hannu Mikkola and Arne Hertz.
Photo: Daimler AG