Description
A Mercedes 300 SL with one door standing open in a misted field is the whole of this poster: no road, no showroom and no crowd, just the silhouette and the one detail everybody knows it for.
The doors are not styling. The car was built around a tubular spaceframe, and the frame put deep sills where a conventional door would have to open, so the door was moved to the roof because there was nowhere else for it to go. Almost every famous car detail is decoration. This one is a consequence.
Why the Mercedes 300 SL opens upwards
One raised door makes an asymmetric shape, which is a gift on a wall: it gives the eye somewhere to go and stops the frame reading as a catalogue photograph. Fog supplies the negative space, so it needs no mount to breathe. It suits a study, a hallway or a living room with restrained colour.
A design milestone of the 1950s
The road car reached production for 1954 and was the first series-production car sold with mechanical direct fuel injection, which is a larger technical claim than the doors and gets discussed far less. Its history is set out as the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL.
Hang it with
Three that sit well beside it: Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing poster, BMW E30 M3 black and white poster, 1967 Mustang black and white poster, or browse the whole classic car poster collection.
Printed and shipped by Montclair
Every Montclair poster is made to order, so nothing is stocked and nothing is ever out of stock. Yours is printed with archival pigment inks rather than dye, as a giclee at 300 dpi on 200 gsm (80 lb) archival matte paper, FSC-certified or equivalent, with a smooth, uncoated, non-reflective surface at 0.26 mm (10.3 mils). It goes on the press within 72 hours. Delivery is tracked and free worldwide, typically 8 to 13 days, with shipping already inside the price. Unframed posters ship rolled in a rigid tube. Framing is available from 27×35 cm to 70×100 cm in solid wood, assembled by hand with hanging hardware fitted to the back.
Brandon –
Great quality
Lawrence –
My father loved the print