Automotive Art – Nicolas Hunziker’s “Gullwing! Qué bella macchina!”

Gullwing Artwork

Nicolas Hunziker honors the Gullwing Mercedes-Benz 300SL in which John Fitch won the ’55 Mille Miglia.

Two months before the end of WWII, an American P-51 Mustang was shot down over Germany. The pilot was Captain John Fitch and he spent the rest of the war as a POW. Ten years later, that same John Fitch teamed up with a German co-driver to drive a German car for a German team in an Italian race. The co-driver was Kurt Gesell, the car was the Gullwing 300SL, the entrant was none other than the Mercedes-Benz factory team and the race was the famed Mille Miglia of 1955. This just serves to illustrate that John Fitch was more than just a racecar driver. He was a visionary. He understood that past conflicts were just that: In the past. There was no need to rekindle nationalism and emotions of WWII. He understood that motor racing would become a worldwide affair, and so it was that the unlikely team of Fitch and Gesell scored a GT class victory in their beautiful black Gullwing 300SL.