This is not the CLK GTR in question, despite being a CLK GTR – especially one I saw on Amelia Island in May.Photo: Adam Ismail
When boomers adore the happy days of homologated hypercars at Le Mans, they adore the Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR. It wasn’t the only example of this phenomenon in the late 90s, of course – you also had the street version of the McLaren F1 and Porsche 911 GT1 to start with. But it’s the one that comes to mind, maybe because it looked the most dramatic and was one of the rarest of them all.
Only 26 CLK GTRs have ever been produced – 20 coupes and six roadsters – and one of them will cross the block in Pebble Beach on the weekend of August 13th. It has had four owners so far, although it is virtually guaranteed that the fifth will pay the highest price.
Gooding & Company, which is running this auction, predicts the Silver Arrow will cost between $ 8.5 million and $ 10 million. That’s about double the $ 4.5 million the last buyer spent on it RM Sotheby’s during Monterey Car Week 2018.
Photo: Adam Ismail
The CLK GTR was a dominant force during its competitive days, winning the 1997 FIA GT team and driver championships – just like its successor, the similar-looking CLK LM, in 1998. The CLR followed in 1999, but Mercedes doesn’t like to bring that up all of this so often these days.
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But there’s another reason the CLK GTR is so memorable to a certain generation of enthusiasts. It was synonymous with Need For Speed when it won races and in NFS III, NFS: High Stakes, and a little later NFS: Hot Pursuit 2 when the car seemed to hit and win. In most of these games, the McLaren F1 was presented as a sworn rival to Mercedes. No other car could rival the pair, and choosing between them has never been easy. I speak from experience, of course.
Photo: Adam Ismail
So you can imagine how excited I was when I came across a CLK GTR at the Amelia Island Concours in May. I didn’t expect to find the car there – you never expect to see a CLK GTR, just as you don’t expect to come across astatine in your daily life. As soon as I saw a glimmer of its absurd wing from the other side of the lawn, I stopped noticing any other vehicles around me. That says a lot, because next to it were a McLaren F1, Porsche 959, Ferrari F50 and Jaguar XJR-15.
Photo: Adam Ismail
One of the things that impressed me the most while studying the CLK GTR was how tight the interior was due to the width of those side skirts. The ultra wide angle perspective of the photos I took definitely add to this feature, but even without the distortion, it’s really something special. It’s also completely at odds with the low key, ordinary interior and quaint GTI-like checkered upholstery. On the other hand, the CLK GTR wasn’t made to look ridiculous – it was made to win races. This is what made the hypercars of their generation so special.
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