Soon, Mercedes will be releasing the Project One - but until then, this is their king.

There are many things about the way people use language that peeve the hell out of me – but if there's one thing I abhor more than anything else, it's the way in which folk overuse the word "literally". I'm sure I'm not alone in this boat. Not only is the word said too frequently, it's said in situations where it causes massive and implausible exaggerations.

People will refer to trivial things such as the sound of nails scraping down a chalkboard as "literally, the worst thing in the world". Not Nuclear War, as I'd foolishly thought like the numskull that I am.

Of course, as someone who often says things in jest, I appreciate that we all have a duty – that more people need to exercise – to take things with a pinch of proverbial salt. But the frequent and incorrect use of the word literally is LITERALLY doing my brain in! And that's why I know that every comment I receive for this blog will try to incorporate the word "literally" in some way or another.

The biggest problem however with disliking the use of a particular word comes when you are required to use that very word in circumstances where it's warranted – like now...

The GT1 Class of the FIA GT Championship was literally one of the greatest racing classes ever to grace the Earth. Not just because of the racing – but because of one particularly epic road car it spawned: the Mercedes CLK GTR. One of the most race-focused homologation-hypercars ever to touch the public highways, culminating in the astonishing SuperSport variant. This is the story of that very car, and how Mercedes arrived at producing what is still to this day the most maniacal car they've ever made.

If like me you're a child of the 90's, then unless you have memories from inside the womb, you won't be able to cast your mind back to a time when endurance racing never existed. Not back so far to a time when such a thing had never happened before – but to a time when the world was entirely bereft of any international endurance racing series'. That time was a dark period of loneliness; the great depression of motorsport. Fortunately, it only lasted for the year of 1993.

The World Sportscar Championship – which had been an endurance racing series since 1953 – folded after the 1992 season due to a lack of entrants for 1993. This was a meteoric blow for international motorsport, because it meant the death of endurance racing. This unacceptable scenario resulted in 3 men putting their heads together – Jurgen Barth (who won Le Mans in 1977), Patrick Peter, and Stephane Ratel. Together, they would form the BPR Global GT Series – the name of which is an acronym of the first letter in each of the creators' surnames.

The BPR Series started in 1994, but it wasn't really until 1995 that it really got exciting thanks to the entry of the McLaren F1 GTR. For the sake of fairness, the series was split into 4 different speed categories – GT1, GT2, GT3, and GT4 – with GT1 being the fastest, and so on. The McLaren F1 GTR sat in the GT1 class, along with other supercar icons as the Ferrari F40 and Porsche 911. But thanks to the supremely fast McLaren, the GT1 class wasn't so much a race as a selection of Ferraris and Porsches watching McLarens disappear. The McLaren F1 GTR won the championship in 1995 and 1996 – and it even won Le Mans outright in 1995.

As exceptional as the F1 GTR was however, it did have a fundamental flaw as a racing car, for it was originally a road car that had been converted to race, and not a car that from birth was destined to conquer every circuit on Earth. In fact, if it wasn't for the influential input of 3 particularly important McLaren F1 owners, McLaren would never have even considered turning their masterpiece into a racer. The F1 GTR's dominance was predominantly thanks to its magic combination of a featherweight carbon chassis with a monstrously powerful BMW V12 engine. Absolutely nothing could get near it.

The series garnered a great deal of success, which in turn caught the attention of Porsche and Mercedes. Porsche already had a car competing in the GT1 class in the form of their 993 GT2 Evo, but just like the McLaren, it was a road car that had been modified to go racing. Porsche therefore decided to create a purpose built racing car that could put an end to the McLaren's reign, and towards the end of the 1996 season, it was ready: the Porsche 911 GT1.

The Porsche being a late entrant in the 1996 competition, it wasn't eligible to collect any championship points – but that tiny omission didn't change the fact that the 911 GT1 was the machine that showed the McLaren F1 GTR what the back of a car looked like, because Porsche had created a faster racing car. All of a sudden, it was the car to beat, and was expected to walk the 1997 season. But unfortunately for Porsche, Mercedes had other ideas.

Towards the end of 1996, Mercedes and AMG had collaborated in order to build their own purpose built racing car. Back in 1996, Mercedes and AMG weren't part of the same company; it wasn't until 1998 that Mercedes purchased a significant portion of AMG, and it took until 2005 for Merc to finally buy the AMG brand completely. But in 1996, they got together with the objective of crafting a racing car, which began by purchasing a McLaren F1 GTR.

Mercedes test mule using McLaren chassis - Credit: Sutton Images Mercedes test mule using McLaren chassis - Credit: Sutton Images

This may sound like a peculiar way to begin building a racing car – but it was actually a fantastic move. Not only did it help them find out just how fast their competition was – but it also gave them a means to test their own engine while they were still developing their own custom chassis.

Credit: Sutton Images Credit: Sutton Images

It seems blasphemous to consider engine swapping a McLaren F1 GTR – but this was no ordinary heart transplant. For in place of the BMW 6.1L V12, they placed an AMG 6L V12 – code named M120. They then bolted to the McLaren's chassis their own custom prototype bodywork, which looked suspiciously like a McLaren F1 GTR Long Tail's body. Without the use of a Crystal Ball however, the Mercedes couldn't have been influenced by the Long Tail due to how the LT never raced until the following year.

I don't think they meant for this to happen! - Credit: Sutton Images I don't think they meant for this to happen! - Credit: Sutton Images

By fitting the AMG engine, the car ran around the Jarama circuit in Spain 2 seconds a lap faster than the McLaren F1 GTR did in the 1996 BPR series. That might not sound like a lot – but in racing, that's enough time to grow a reasonably sized beard.

By using a McLaren F1 GTR as a test mule, it not only served as a means of testing their engine, it also helped speed up the Mercedes-AMG development program for what would become the CLK GTR Racing Car. All in all, the CLK GTR took just 128 days to design – which in car-design terms, isn't enough time to blink.

In 1997, the BPR Global GT Series was taken over by the FIA, and subsequently changed to the FIA GT Championship. The performance classifications were now limited to just 2 – GT1 and GT2 – but it was in the top GT1 class that the world witnessed the coming of Mercedes's new racing car: the CLK GTR.

Despite the fact that Mercedes and AMG had used a McLaren F1 GTR for testing, nothing on the CLK GTR came from the McLaren. With the threat from Porsche, McLaren had also been busy at work creating a faster racing car – the McLaren F1 GTR Long Tail, which turned out to be the CLK's biggest rival.

McLaren F1 GTR Long Tail - Credit: ultimatecarpage McLaren F1 GTR Long Tail - Credit: ultimatecarpage

Early teething problems with the CLK left the door wide open for the McLaren, which won the first 3 races of the 1997 season. But from there on out, the 622bhp CLK GTR dominated and went on to win both the FIA GT Drivers' and Manufacturers' Championships in 1997.

Mercedes won both of these titles again in 1998; however, due to entering into the Le Mans race of that year – something which they hadn't done in 1997 – the way they won the championship took an unexpected turn.

They'd already won the first 2 races of the 1998 season in their CLK GTR, but between the 2nd and 3rd race, Le Mans beckoned (for those who don't know, Le Mans wasn't part of the GT Championship racing calendar). In preparing the car for the 24 hour race, Mercedes didn't think the 6L V12 would be suited to running at maximum output for so long. They therefore removed the V12 engine and enrolled the talents of a V8 engine – code named M119 – that'd famously seen use in the Sauber Mercedes C9. In the Sauber however, the V8 was boosted by Twin-Turbos; in the CLK, it was normally aspirated, and had its displacement increased slightly from 4973cc to 4986, resulting in 600bhp.

Mercedes also decided to alter the aerodynamics of the CLK in order to make the car better suited to the extremely high speeds of Le Mans. For a start, they lowered the nose, replaced the two brake-cooling ducts with a single larger one, lowered and adjusted the rake of the roof, and redesigned the roof-mounted air intake. Along with a variety of other mechanical changes, they'd turned the CLK GTR into the CLK LM.

The CLK GTR is on the left; the CLK LM is on the right. The CLK GTR is on the left; the CLK LM is on the right.

The visual differences between the GTR and the LM can be seen in the above photograph. Come the big race, Mercedes's decision to replace the V12 with the V8 seemed to be a wise one, as they'd managed to qualify on pole. However, their belief in the engine ultimately turned out to be ill-calculated, because both of the LMs that Mercedes had entered suffered engine failure.

For the continuing 8 races of the 1998 GT Championship however, Mercedes persisted with the V8 engined CLK LM. It turned out to be a wise move, as they won every single race of the contest. This however was a problem for the GT1 class as a whole. The unmatchable omnipotence of the CLK GTR and LM proved to be the catalyst that killed off the GT1 class in the FIA GT Championship; it resulted in no other manufacturer putting themselves forward to enter into the 1999 season, as they'd only be there to look at the arse of a CLK as it gradually vanished out of sight. While that may seem negative and cowardly, you can't really blame them. I mean, if Superman entered an Arm Wrestling contest, would you bother challenging him knowing you'd be put through the table?

Given that the FIA had no entrants, they were forced to pull the plug on the GT1 class, meaning the GT Championship was contested only by the GT2 division. But even though the CLK's racing days were now officially over - and it could walk away as a champion so phenomenally supreme, that all other contenders backed down – there was still one rather major problem plaguing Mercedes, and that was the glaring discrepancy of unfulfilled homologation promises.

The FIA stipulated that in order to race in the GT1 class, manufacturers needed to make so many road going versions of their racing cars too. Other makers had honoured their homologation promises – but Mercedes hadn't. They'd promised to make 25 road going versions of the CLK GTR – of which they'd only made one, which was retained by Mercedes and not put up for sale.

The fact that Mercedes didn't have a homologated production road car throughout their racing days riled the other manufacturers. But their promise of 25 production cars was one they had no choice but to keep, so between the winter of 1998 and the summer of 1999, a further 25 road cars were built.

The CLK GTR was made between AMG and another company called HWA, which was founded in 1998 as a spin-off to AMG when Mercedes snapped up a majority of their performance counterparts. The racing cars were given the slightest dusting of civility to turn them into road cars. A little bit of leather was added, a stereo, and air conditioning – which sounds nice, but it was rather like adding a couple of scatter cushions to a cave.

For that real racing car feeling, the CLR GTR Road car came equipped with a 6-speed paddle shift gearbox. But unlike the smooth DSGs of today which can swap gears without allowing so much as your eyelashes to flinch, the CLK's was rather more rudimentary. It required the use of a clutch pedal to pull away and to change gear. You could slot it into gear without the clutch if you were a Jedi-Master at rev-matching – but really and truly, it just wasn't worth the risk.

The biggest difference however came in the form of what that gearbox was connected to. In the GTR racing car, it was a 6L V12; in the GTR road car, it was a 6.9L V12, capable of producing 604bhp. Put through the real wheels alone of the 3175lb (1440kg) GTR road car, it could get you from 0-60mph in 3.7 seconds, 0-100mph in 6.5 seconds, and onwards to a top speed of 214mph. That made it one of the fastest cars on Earth at the time – but the area in which it lead the world was price, because back in 1999 the CLK GTR cost $1,550,000. Nearly $2.3MILLION in today's money.

As a result of this, only 20 of the cars sold. Rather than leave the remaining 6 cars (including the first car that was made back in 1997) sitting around, HWA had a rather ingenious brainwave: they modified them by turning them into Roadsters. Now you could have a racing car-like experience with the wind rushing through your hair.

If the normal CLK GTR didn't present a striking enough pose for you, then the Roadster version sure as hell should. By combining a homologation-hypercar with a roadster they made something which, arguably, was a bit pointless, but was truly spectacular in every way. Not only that, but the addition of a different aerodynamics package – as can be identified from the rear wing – made the car even more menacing. From a driver's perspective however, there was one rather pressing problem: the modifications the car had received to turn it into a roadster had incurred a 231lb (105kg) weight penalty, bringing the weight of the car up to 3406lbs (1545kg). Dynamically at least, the coupe was still the best.

The ultimate expression of what the CLK GTR road car could be however was secretly lurking within those 20 original coupes, because 2 of them were harbouring a rather special something: a 7.3L AMG V12 – the same one that would go on to power the Pagani Zonda – producing 655bhp!! These 2 monsters were known as the Mercedes CLK GTR SuperSport.

The SuperSport was, once again, a product of the AMG spin-off HWA. For it was their lunacy that elected to put that blissful beating heart into the CLK GTR, and in doing so, they also made some changes to the front splitter to improve the car's stability at high speeds – which was very wise indeed.

Considering there was only 2 SuperSports made, the exact performance figures have never officially been specified – but through all the conjecture, some claim that the top speed was as high as 232mph!!

One of the 2 SuperSports – Chassis No17 – was originally painted red with a tan interior, making it standout from the ubiquitous silver exterior and black interior that virtually all other CLK GTRs had. When the car swapped hands however, it was then painted silver – but so it didn't blend completely in with the rest of the CLK GTR crowd, the interior was re-trimmed in red.

The Mercedes CLK GTR came from a truly astonishing era of motorsport. Basing the road car on the racing car, instead of the other way around, resulted in a hypercar unlike almost anything else you'd see on the roads. It will never matter how much time flies on by, the sight of the CLK GTR is enough to hypnotise anyone into staring at it in pure awe. But just remember: if when peering inside you see red leather, the car is even more special - literally!

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Written by: Angelo Uccello

Twitter: @AngeloUccello

Tribe: Speed Machines

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