The vehicle presented here is one of the very rare Mercedes SSKs from 1929 with a highly interesting history. Photographs of the original factory commission papers and registration documents from the relevant period impressively document the history of this very special vehicle and part of contemporary automotive history. The purchaser of the vehicle was Monsieur Dolphas, a French racing driver living in Paris at the time, who took delivery of the vehicle in 1929. He subsequently sold the Mercedes SSK with chassis no. 35989 in 1937 to a friend who lived not far from the Arc de Triomphe, on Avenue des Neuilly in the Neuilly district. On October 8, 1940, the car was sold on and came to the glamorous Monte Carlo in the Principality of Monaco. Many a gambler hoped that gambling would bring them wealth and prestige, but unfortunately only a few succeeded. The car was soon deposited as a pledge for accumulated gambling debts and was not collected for a long time. A wealthy Englishman acquired the car, or rather what was left after the pawnbroker had kept it for many years, and eventually handed it over to a scrap yard in England.
An Austrian community of heirs acquired the car and kept it for decades. A few years ago, Thomas Rosier in Oldenburg, northern Germany, became aware of the heavily dismantled vehicle and fulfilled a dream. The desire to own a legendary Mercedes SSK had been his personal dream for a long time. A previous participation in the Mille Miglia, the famous race from Brescia to Rome in Italy and back, had kindled the fire in him. Long discussions and numerous research sessions with Markus Kern, probably the most renowned SSK specialist in specialist circles, led to the project being tackled. Around 6,000 hours of highly qualified work, almost endless searches for original parts, material tests and tuning work brought the SSK back to the state of its birth. Attention was paid to every detail. Even the original black color was to give the car back its original shine. An SSK has been reborn, incidentally one of the very few with left-hand drive. Thomas Rosier would be delighted to present this contemporary witness to automotive racing history to you in person.
