Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR Coupe

When Mercedes-Benz decided to enter the FIA GT Championship, AMG had less than a year to produce a car capable of beating the McLaren F1 GTR. What followed was one of the fastest development programmes in modern motorsport. Furthermore, engineers borrowed the McLaren's own architecture as a starting point, then went further — a carbon fibre monocoque, a V12 mounted behind the driver, and aerodynamics developed with no compromise for anything but lap time. Moreover, the car won the championship in its first full season and repeated the result the year after. The road cars existed only because the regulations demanded them: twenty Coupés and six Roadsters, each one effectively a race car with lights and a number plate.

This example wears silver, the colour that has carried Mercedes racing cars since the 1930s. Furthermore, on the CLK GTR it does something specific — it catches every crease and intake of a body shaped entirely by airflow, showing the car for what it is rather than dressing it up. The black interior beneath is pure competition, with no attempt to soften the environment for road use. As a result, this is a CLK GTR presented exactly as Mercedes conceived it.