{"id":3736,"date":"2026-01-06T03:57:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T11:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/max2voyages.com\/?p=3736"},"modified":"2026-01-06T03:57:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T11:57:19","slug":"driving-the-25-million-mercedes-once-fit-for-a-maharaja","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/max2voyages.com\/?p=3736","title":{"rendered":"Driving the $25-Million Mercedes Once Fit for a Maharaja"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I looked out over the giant, white-rimmed steering wheel at the phalanx of supercharged W06 Mercedes-Benzes on the banking ahead, exhaust pipes cascading along the right-hand side of their hoods, three-pointed stars glittering high atop their grilles. All were built between 1926 and 1933, and at the time were among the fastest road cars money could buy. \u201cHow much is one worth now?\u201d I casually ask my passenger, Marcus Breitschwerdt, the head of Mercedes-Benz Heritage<\/u>. \u201cOne not in top condition, probably $5 million,\u201d he says, \u201cand a good one $10 million.\u201d I gulp. \u201cAnd this one?\u201d I ask of the hulking SS tourer in which we\u2019re sitting. \u201cBecause of its history, probably $25 million,\u201d he says, perfunctorily.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ahhh\u2026 so, I\u2019m about to drive a vintage Mercedes-Benz<\/u> with a giant supercharged engine, languorous drum brakes, and a four-speed transmission built before they invented synchromesh, a car now worth almost 10 times as much as a Mercedes-AMG One<\/u> hypercar cost when new. What\u2019s more, I\u2019m about to drive it out of the calm confines of the Mercedes-Benz test track, into the Stuttgart area\u2019s Saturday afternoon traffic, and back along a mix of autobahn and country roads to our hotel in the scenic hills of Baden-W\u00fcrttemberg. No pressure, then.<\/p>\n

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Model S Before S-Class <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Long before the Mercedes-Benz S-Class<\/u> was the three-pointed star\u2019s premier luxury car, there was the Mercedes-Benz Model S. Launched in 1926, the Model S was designed as a fast and powerful sports touring car, powered by a 6.7-liter, supercharged inline six-cylinder engine that developed 140 horsepower in normal running mode and 180-hp when the supercharger mounted vertically at the front of the engine was engaged. The Model S was superseded in mid-1928 by the Model SS, which featured a 7.1-liter version of the straight-six that produced 200 hp with the supercharger blowing the fuel\/air mixture into its giant combustion chambers. That was two to three times the power of most cars on the road at the time, enough to propel the Mercedes SS to what was then an otherworldly top speed of almost 120 mph.<\/p>\n

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The Mercedes SS I\u2019m about to drive was built barely a quarter mile away, in 1930 at Mercedes-Benz\u2019s storied Sindelfingen factory. It was shown at the Paris Motor Show in early October that year, and Mercedes-Benz Heritage records reveal it had gray bodywork and champagne-colored fenders over the chassis it wears today, along with leather seats and burr walnut trim. After the Paris show, the car was converted from left- to right-hand drive at the request of its owner, Hari Singh, the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir. The car was shown in this layout at the Berlin Exhibition in February 1931 before being officially handed over to the Maharajah.<\/p>\n

Hari Singh liked the finer things in life. Crowned in 1926 Maharaja of the stunningly beautiful kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir (now the southeastern part of the Kashmir region, control of which has long been disputed between India, Pakistan, and China), he had an annual income of almost $200 million in today\u2019s money, flew in a silver-plated plane, and lived in a Versailles-sized palace (now the LaLit Grand Palace Hotel in Srinagar). He liked cars, buying no fewer than 26 Rolls-Royces over the years, in addition to the Mercedes SS, among others. So many cars, so little time. That\u2019s probably why the Maharaja Mercedes, one of the stars of the Mercedes-Benz Heritage collection, is in such good original condition.<\/p>\n

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Making the Maharaja Mercedes Go<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Maharaja Mercedes takes a little more work to get going, as Mercedes-Benz Classic Center technician Malte Ittner had explained to me a few days earlier while showing me around the W06. Ittner is a case study in how Breitschwerdt is transforming Mercedes-Benz\u2019s classic car business under the aegis of Mercedes-Benz Heritage. Just 26, an age when most of his contemporaries simply plug diagnostic units into vehicles to get the computer to tell them what\u2019s wrong, Ittner is learning the art and science of keeping old cars alive from veteran Classic Center colleagues such as Claus Balle and Uwe Karrer, a transfer of skills that will futureproof Mercedes-Benz Heritage\u2019s business model. \u201cI love working on these cars,\u201d Ittner said.<\/p>\n

Later, after Karrer had taken me for a ride around the Sindelfingen test track in one of Mercedes-Benz\u2019s iconic 300SLR racers, I asked Ittner whether he aspired to one day take the wheel of the car Stirling Moss drove to victory in the 1955 Mille Miglia<\/u>. \u201cThat is my dream,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

These days, we just hop in behind the wheel, buckle up, select a gear, and drive our cars away. With some electric vehicles, you don\u2019t even have to thumb a start\/stop button. Not in the Maharaja Mercedes. First, you must grab a bulbous knob on the left-hand side of the dash, twist it to unlock it, pull it out, and start plunging away furiously. This is to put pressure into the fuel system. Then, you must make sure the lever on the right side of the steering wheel boss is up, to retard the ignition. This delays the firing of the spark plug until the piston has passed the top of its stroke, reducing the chance of backfires and making the engine easier to start\u2014the sort of adjustment a modern engine management computer does in a microsecond.<\/p>\n

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Gas Is Brake. What? <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Twist the key, and then thumb the tiny starter button, gently squeezing the gas pedal. There\u2019s the slow-motion metallic sound of heavy machinery turning over, then the big six fires up with a guttural rumble. Move the spark advance\/retard lever back to the halfway point to keep the engine happy at higher revs, and you\u2019re ready to roll. Almost. The clutch in the Maharaja Mercedes is being cantankerous today. Even with the pedal fully depressed, it\u2019s proving impossible to engage first gear without an almighty graunch from the transmission. I grit my teeth and muscle the long shift lever forward, momentarily suppressing my mechanical sympathy as the gears collide and complain. We\u2019re in! Now comes the tricky part.<\/p>\n

As in many cars of the era, the gas pedal of the W06 Mercedes is in the middle of the usual manual-transmission three-pedal layout, with the brake located to the right and the clutch to the left, and it\u2019s very easy to instinctively stab the gas when you need the brake. Following the other participants in the 2025 Mercedes-Benz Classic W06 Tour, enthusiasts who have brought their own cars from around Europe and the U.S. to spend two days driving them around southern Germany, I ease the big Benz off the test track, through the Sindelfingen factory grounds, and out onto the road, managing the double declutch shift from first to second gear without any metal-on-metal noise from the transmission. We\u2019ve barely touched 10 mph, but I\u2019m as focused on my driving as I was pushing a Porsche 911 GT3 at the N\u00fcrburgring Nordschleife<\/u>.<\/p>\n

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The key to mastering the Maharajah Mercedes, I learn, is not to rush anything. Shifting gears is a deliberate process; clutch in, move the shifter, clutch out, with a pronounced shove on the gas pedal to rev the engine if you\u2019re downshifting, then clutch in, and move the shifter. Sometimes you get it right, but with the clutch misbehaving, anything other than the first-to-second shift turns into a crap shoot that often results in a noisy grinding of gears.<\/p>\n

The steering takes a lot of muscle to get the car through 90-degree turns at slow speeds, and you need to be keenly aware of the road and the traffic a long way ahead, because even at 30 or 40 mph, the big drum brakes take a relaxed approach to slowing the car. Plus, of course, you need that fraction of a second extra to remember to move your foot to the right from the gas pedal to find the brake pedal. On the longer downhills, it\u2019s prudent to also use the e-brake to keep the big Benz under control.<\/p>\n

Lumbering Along on the Autobahn in the White Elephant<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Fortunately, that big straight-six has a ton of torque, shouldering the big Mercedes along from as little as 400 rpm, which reduces the need for frequent gear shifts. The Maharaja Mercedes is a much easier car to handle than the 1904 Mercedes Simplex<\/u> I drove in the 2023 London to Brighton Veteran Car Rally. But it doesn\u2019t feel as modern as the swoopy 500 K roadster I sampled briefly at Pebble Beach a few years back, not the least because that car, built just four years later in 1934, was smaller and lower and lighter and had all the pedals in the correct order across the floor.<\/p>\n

On the autobahn, the Mercedes SS cruises happily at 60 mph, the big straight-six turning a relaxed 1,700 rpm, the exhaust whump-whump-whumping like the rotor blades of a Huey chopping through the tropical air in Apocalypse Now<\/em>. Cruising, says Brit John Bentley, whose low-slung, Gl\u00e4ser-bodied S sports tourer hews more to the sportier side of the W06\u2019s character, is something at which these big Benzes excel. Bentley, who also owns the supercharged contemporary of the Mercedes, a Bentley Blower, says that while the British car is the quicker of the two with the supercharger engaged, the Mercedes is the more comfortable to drive long distances.<\/p>\n

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Punching the gas pedal to the floor to engage the SS\u2019 supercharger would add 40 horses to the engine\u2019s naturally aspirated peak output of 160 hp, but as the supercharger\u2019s clutching system is notoriously fragile, I resist the temptation. Breitschwerdt had briefly poked the bear on the drive to Sindelfingen that morning so I could hear the supercharger\u2019s signature bellow, a distinctive trumpeting sound that gave the white-painted racing versions of the W06, the SSK and SSKL roadsters, the nickname “White Elephants” among racing fans. \u201cThe mechanics say I shouldn\u2019t do this,\u201d he said as he punched the gas and kicked the supercharger into action. Then he lifted off, turned, and looked at me, smiling. \u201cBut I am the boss.\u201d<\/p>\n

I can only imagine what it must have been like to see the Maharaja Mercedes speeding down the road, supercharger bellowing, in 1931. Today\u2019s equivalent automotive shock and awe would be seeing a Ferrari Daytona SP3<\/u> scream by with its naturally aspirated V-12 nuzzling 9,500 rpm. Of course, there have been Mercedes racing cars since the very dawn of the automotive era. But it was the fast and powerful supercharged W06, launched after the merger of Daimler and Benz in 1926, that teased out the first strands of a high-performance Mercedes road car DNA that can still be found today in the company\u2019s thundering AMG models.<\/p>\n

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