1929 Mercedes Benz SSK

            There’s something magical about the look and feel of those old 1920s and 1930s style roadsters. Add in European flair with German engineering and an impressive lineage and you can have only one car, a Mercedes Benz SSK.

            Introduced in 1928 and manufactured through 1932, the SSK was the last Mercedes Benz design of famed engineer Ferdinand Porsche before he opened his own automotive consulting firm and later started building race cars. The name means Super Sport Kurtz or super sport short since the car had a smaller wheelbase than previous Mercedes roadsters.

            The car featured a seven liter straight six engine that produced over 200 horse power and over 500 foot pounds of torque. In all, this car could top out at around 120 miles per hour. The good Herr Porsche showed even back then that he knew how to make a fast machine. There was good reason for all of this power, the car was mostly designed as a racer. It proved itself quite well, winning numerous Grand Prix events between 1929 and 1931.

            It is believed that fewer than 40 SSKs were every built with about half of them designed solely as race cars. As many of the racers were wrecked, their parts were cannibalized in order to keep the other cars going.

            Today, bits and pieces of many of these cars have been used in creating about 100 restoration models. The SSK pictured here was custom built by Classic Motor Carriages of Miami, FL back in 1985.

            Of the real complete and in-tact models, it is believed that only four or five still remain. In 2004 a 1929 SSK was sold at auction in England for $7.4 million.