Key Facts
On a Saturday afternoon fifty-odd years ago in Belgium, a big red four-door saloon sat on a starting line nestled amongst lightweight, full-bore touring cars. And it was mocked.
Mocked enough to earn it a rather unflattering nickname. ‘Red Pig’, they laughed.
A car with thick carpets, leather seats and a full rear bench, even luxury trim on the doors. A racing Mercedes-Benz W109? Ha! The cheek of it.
It was the predecessor to today’s Mercedes S-Class, which gives you some notion of the gall engineers Hans Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher had when they elected to champion a big luxury bus against Ford Capris and E9 BMWs and Alfa GTAs.
The founders of AMG however – A for Aufrecht, M for Melcher and G for their home town of Großaspach – knew they were onto something. They had prepared this Benz “comprehensively”.
The V8 was enlarged to a mighty 6.8-litres, producing 428bhp and 457lb ft of torque. In 1971. AMG reckoned on a 0-62mph time of 6.1s, which – for a car weighing 1,635kg – was more than acceptable.
Here is our take on this Spa 24hrs classic, Von Otto’s very own ‘Black Pig’.
