SPEEDING TICKET

OK, OK, it’s not orange. The colour is called weissherbst. Translates as ‘white autumn’. And, in the metal – well, glassfibre – it’s more a kind of bronze. Mercedes-Benz’s ‘supersports’ car (their word, not mine) burst onto the scene in March 1970 at the Geneva motor show, powered by a 350bhp, 2.4-litre quad-rotor Wankel engine that promised a top speed of 300km/h (188mph) and 0-62mph in 4.8 seconds. That top speed turned out to be conservative, although the records it subsequently achieved came after that tricksy engine had been consigned to Mercedes-Benz’s own museum.

Of course, there’d already been a C 111, the first generation that did the rounds as more of an engineering study during 1969. But this