Fifty years of AMG will be the focus of a special exhibition opening October 20 at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Germany. Featured will be 10 vehicles, including the recently unveiled, 1,000-horsepower hybrid concept design model of the Mercedes-AMG Project One. A variety of AMG engines also will be displayed, as will several privately owned vehicles under the banner of “AMG & Friends.”
The exhibition, which will feature four themes — motorsport, standard production vehicles, technology, and the future — runs through April 8, 2018.
At the opening of the exhibition, racers Ellen Lohr, Klaus Ludwig and others will present talks about racing AMG vehicles in the Germany touring car series.
AMG 300 SEL 6.8 racing tourer, Spa-Francorchamps (1971).
The featured 10-vehicle display ranges from the 1969 AMG 300 SEL 6.8 that raced in the 24-hour event at Spa in 1971 to the Project One concept with its 1,000-horsepower hybrid drivetrain which uses two electric motors to add to the output of its 1.6-liter V6 gasoline engine to create a futuristic all-wheel drive supercar.
Corvette museum track launching winter ‘King of the Heap’
The National Corvette Museum and its NCM Motorsports Park will offer a “King of the Heap” winter program limited to cars worth $1,000 or less. In fact, if anyone offers $1,500 for any of the competitor’s vehicles, it has to be sold.
Each car will have four drivers, each driving in the car in four disciplines — autocross, rally, track or 1/8-mile drag race. Competition will be staged regardless of weather conditions.
Vehicles, convertible are eligible, must have all body panels, have two-wheel drivetrains, five-point seat belts, race on Unifoyal Tiger Paw Touring NT tires no wider than OEM specification. Further, exhaust tone cannot exceed 75 decibels at 50 feet and vehicles cannot leak fluids “excessively.”
Registration is open until December 1. For details, visit the series website.
ACD showcases John Dillinger, Hoosier Hoodlum
It was on October 14, 1933, that Walter Dietrich, Harry Copeland and others from John Dillinger’s gang robbed the Auburn, Indiana, Police Department of bullet-proof vests, a Thompson submachine gun and ammunition. It wasn’t until 2014 that the FBI returned that machine gun to the city’s police department.
That gun and other memorabilia and period artifacts are part of a new display at the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum. Among those artifacts is a 1934 Ford, the same model Dillinger stole when he escaped from the Crown Pointe, Indiana, jail.
The museum previously displayed Dillinger’s 1933 Essex Terraplane getaway car, which was on loan from the National Museum of Crime and Punishment in Washington, D.C.
Special events this weekend
The California Automobile Museum in Sacramento stages CruiseFest on Fulton Avenue on Saturday from 3 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
In conjunction with a month-long motorcycle exhibit, the Kansas City Automotive Museum plans a motorcycle ride as part of its October 7 cars and coffee cruise-in.
Britain’s National Motor Museum at Beaulieu stages its fifth annual Great Electric Train Show Saturday and Sunday.
Mark your calendar
The weekend of October 20-21 will be the inaugural Corvette Racing Weekend at the AACA Museum in Hershey, Pennsylvania, where team manager Doug Fehan and racer Tommy Milner will be featured at a Friday evening reception. Saturday, Fehan and Milner, along with Andy Pilgrim, Kai Spande, Michelin tire engineer Lee Willad and photographer Richard Prince will present seminars. The C5-R raced by Dale Earnhardt at the 2001 Rolex 24 Hour of Daytona will be displayed.
October 15 is the date of the annual “Night at the Museum” fundraiser at the Blackhawk Automotive Museum in Danville, California. Among the items to be auctioned are a Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance 2018 VIP experience, a VIP hospitality suite experience for two at the 2018 Monaco Historic races, a two-day cours athte Bondurant School of High-Performance Driving, and a tour for as many as 20 people of the Mozart Foundation Automobile Museum.
