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Mercedes-Benz at Goodwood Festival of Speed 2012

Mercedes-Benz W194
Mercedes-Benz W194 at Festival of Speed

Mercedes-Benz will showcase its motorsport heritage at the 2012 Goodwood Festival of Speed, scheduled for June 28 to July 1 at the 1.16 Goodwood Hillclimb in West Sussex, England.

“There is so much to look forward to at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed. We celebrate 60 years of our SL-Class with the latest model arriving in the UK just in time for the Summer. There will also be plenty of new delights to see, in what is a very busy year for Mercedes-Benz in the UK” said Marcus Breitschwerdt, President and CEO, Mercedes-Benz UK.

The theme for the 2012 Festival of Speed at Goodwood House, the home of Lord March, is “Young Guns – Born to Win.” Mercedes-Benz cars and drivers have been winning since the dawn of the motoring age, and the company has brought more than its fair share of young guns to prominence through the years, most recently Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton.

A rich heritage in motorsport is evident in the four historic racing cars that have been nominated to tackle the famous Goodwood Hillclimb – and the people recruited to drive them. Mercedes-Benz Classic is celebrating 60 years of the legendary W194 300 SL, which was a highly successful competition car two years before the ‘Gullwing’ road-going model appeared, and 75 years of the 1937 W125 Tripoli Grand Prix car, which went on to further successes that season.

One of the Mercedes-Benz ‘fin-tail’ saloons from the early 1960s, the W111 220 SE of 1963, will also tackle the course. The competition quartet is completed by the 1997 CLK-GTR, devised for FIA GT racing.

The driver line-up is expected to include Klaus ‘King’ Ludwig, a triple winner of the Le Mans 24 Hours as well as multiple championships in Germany; Jochen Mass, a vastly experienced Formula 1 driver and 1989 Le Mans winner with Sauber-Mercedes; Bernd Schneider, the 1997 FIA GT champion and a master in German sports car racing; and Paul Stewart, a celebrated Formula 3 driver before going on to form his own Grand Prix team with father Sir Jackie Stewart.

[Source: Mercedes-Benz]