b500 magazine
MAGNUS WALKER Man with a beard
Man with a Beard Builder, Collector, Driver Born in Sheffield -1967 Wrote a letter to Porsche as a 10 year old wanting to be a car Designer Lives in Los Angeles since 1987 Car Enthusiast
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ne thing often leads to another. That was how our Mille Miglia adventure began. The epic 1,000 mile fourday romp through the Italian countryside in search of la Dolce Vita. The Mille Miglia was not actually an event on my dream list, though. The journey began 18 months prior with a random Instagram photo post of my buddy Ray’s 1963 220 Mercedes. It was a rather fetching example in slate gray with a red interior, a three-speed column shift, and gobs of character, soul and patina. Often, that’s all you need. The IG post I recall was well-received. One comment in particular stood out, from Michael at the MercedesBenz museum in Stuttgart, Germany. It went like this: “How cool that a Porsche guy posts a Mercedes photo.” This was followed by an invite to tour the Mercedes-Benz museum if I wanted to the next time I was in Stuttgart. Naturally the next time I was over there visiting the other team across town, I visited the iconic museum. The structure alone is enough to grab the attention of anyone, car fan or not. About half way through the guided tour, we came across a 300SL. Casually I mentioned how I’d love to drive one, and to my surprise, Michael replied, “Hey that could be
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arranged. Would you like to drive it in the Mille Miglia?” “Yes,” was the only word I could think of. Of course I’d like to drive it. It was as simple as that. Now, the Mille Miglia is no longer the balls-out pedal to the metal race it was back in the day when Stirling Moss and co-pilot ‘Jenks’ set the course record of 10 hours, seven minutes, and 58 seconds back in 1956. Today’s Mille is more of an exhibition tour of the countryside. We flew to Frankfurt. Michael met us at the airport, in a Mercedes of course. We drove straight to Brescia, to a nondescript convention center where we first got to see and inspect the car and the MercedesBenz team. Soon, the slightly daunting excitement of the next few days began to sink in. The good news was we had factory support. All we needed to do was show up and drive. Our steed for the next few days was a 1955 Mercedes-Benz SL in black with no bumpers. It was car number 359. The three-litre inline six is quite an impressive sight to behold. The doors open towards the sky like a gullwing, hence the name. The sill is wide and low and requires a balletlike pirouette to slide on down into the low-slung bucket seat.
