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Mercedes 300 SEL 6.8 #35 H. Kelleners Hockenheim 1973 Minichamps 1:18

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Mercedes 300 SEL 6.8 #35 H. Kelleners Hockenheim 1973 Minichamps 1:18 100713435 Diecast
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Minichamps' 1:18 diecast Mercedes 300 SEL 6.8 recreates Helmut Kelleners' 1973 Hockenheim touring car entry, number 35, from AMG's early competition history as an independent tuning house. The big executive saloon carries the flared arches and racing wheels that gave AMG's 'Rote Sau' cars their aggressive stance on track. Diecast construction reproduces the saloon's genuinely large proportions at 1:18 scale, a heavier and more substantial casting than a same-scale sports coupe.
Mercedes 300 SEL 6.8 #35 H. Kelleners Hockenheim 1973 Minichamps 1:18
Current price: £203.33

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Specifications
Car Brand
Mercedes
Model Manufacturer
Minichamps
Scale
1:18
Material
Diecast
Model Condition
Used Model
SKU
100713435
Genuine articles Sourced from manufacturers
5-layer carton Foam-filled interior
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About the Mercedes 300 SEL 6.8 #35 H. Kelleners Hockenheim 1973 Minichamps 1:18

TL;DR: Minichamps' 1:18 diecast reproduces the Mercedes 300 SEL 6.8 raced by Helmut Kelleners at Hockenheim in 1973, carrying number 35 and the touring car livery of AMG's oversized racing saloon. It represents an early chapter of AMG's competition history, before the tuning house became Mercedes' official performance division.

A luxury saloon built for chauffeurs rarely doubles as a racing weapon, but AMG's 300 SEL 6.8 did exactly that. Minichamps reproduces Helmut Kelleners' 1973 Hockenheim entry, a big, heavy car that had no business being fast and was anyway.

Minichamps' Mercedes 300 SEL 6.8 in 1:18 Diecast

Number 35 Livery and Hockenheim Detailing

Number 35 sits on the doors and roof in period-correct touring car style, with the Mercedes three-pointed star and AMG identification carried across the bonnet and boot in the plain, function-first graphics typical of early-1970s saloon racing. Minichamps keeps the livery restrained rather than busy, matching how these cars actually looked on track: mostly factory-adjacent paint with a handful of sponsor and class decals rather than a modern wraparound design.

Diecast Build for a Big Saloon Subject

The zinc alloy body captures the 300 SEL's genuinely large proportions for a touring car of its era, a saloon built on a luxury platform rather than a purpose-built race chassis, and the model's weight in the hand reflects that scale honestly. Wide box-flared arches cover the racing wheels correctly, the visual signature that separated these AMG-built cars from the standard road-going 300 SEL, and the interior retains saloon-style detailing rather than a stripped-out racing cockpit look. Lifting the model reveals a surprisingly substantial casting even by 1:18 diecast standards, a consequence of reproducing a large executive saloon body rather than a compact sports coupe at the same scale.

AMG's Big Saloon and Early 1970s Touring Car Racing

The 'Rote Sau' Legacy

AMG built the 300 SEL 6.8 as a racing saloon in the early 1970s, when the company was still an independent tuning house rather than the factory-owned performance division it later became. The model line earned lasting fame two years before this Hockenheim entry, at the 1971 Spa 24 Hours, where one of these cars ran competitively against far lighter machinery and finished on the podium, a result that gave the car its enduring 'Rote Sau' nickname among enthusiasts of the era. That Spa result mattered because it proved a road-derived luxury saloon could run with dedicated competition cars on pure pace, a point AMG's later touring efforts continued to build on through the decade.

Kelleners at Hockenheim, 1973

Helmut Kelleners was an active competitor in German touring car racing through the early 1970s, a period when big AMG-built Mercedes saloons regularly lined up against nimbler but less powerful rivals. This 1973 Hockenheim entry represents that ongoing competition rather than a single standout result, the kind of week-in, week-out touring car racing that rarely gets remembered outside dedicated motorsport history but still shaped the category's early identity. German domestic touring car racing in this period drew grids from several manufacturers, and the AMG-built Mercedes entries were among the heaviest cars on track, making their competitiveness against lighter opposition part of what made the category compelling to follow.

Placing This Saloon in an AMG or Touring Car Collection

For a touring car or AMG heritage collection, this 300 SEL 6.8 fills a specific and relatively under-represented gap: most Mercedes motorsport models on the market lean toward later, more overtly race-bred subjects, while this one shows AMG's roots as an independent tuner working with a road-derived platform. At roughly 24 centimetres, the model's larger saloon footprint takes noticeably more shelf depth than a single-seater cast at the same 1:18 scale, worth accounting for when planning cabinet spacing. Against a smaller-scale alternative, the 1:18 format is arguably the better choice for this particular subject, since the saloon's bulk and flared arches read as genuinely imposing only at the larger scale. Checking the arch flare width and the ride height against period photographs is the clearest way to judge how well any diecast has captured this car's distinctively aggressive stance on a road-based body. Displayed out of direct sunlight, the livery's flat colours should hold for years with only routine dusting required.

Same marque, same scale

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