The W196 Streamliner is a motorcar that I would have sworn blind was a 1955 Mercedes-Benz, it turns out that its beautiful hand-beaten aluminium body is a recent creation, as are the car’s underpinnings.
The “new” W196 Streamliner is built in Britain by The Streamliner Motor Company, each car has a triangulated steel chassis modelled on the original from 1954. The engine and suspension elements are all more modern Mercedes-Benz derived units with the 3.0 litre 24-valve 6-cylinder engine coming from a 1992 model Benz, the transmission is a race-spec Getrag 5-speed and the single-seat arrangement is identical to the original W196.
The Streamliner is designed with both road legality and race track performance in mind, the car you see pictured here is road legal in the UK and EU and is also fully certified to take part in historic rallies and races.
The Streamliner Motor Company will be building Streamliners to order and will also be offering a gullwing model in the spirit of the original Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé. As you might imagine, pricing information is not listed however you can click the link to visit The Streamliner Motor Company and send them the specification requirements for your personal Streamliner. Or you can do what I’m doing and just daydream about it.
Additional information provided by the excellent Sports Car Digest.
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
