2012 Best of Show Winner
August 2, 2021
1928 Mercedes-Benz 680S Saoutchik Torpedo shown by Paul & Judy Andrews
This 1928 Mercedes-Benz marries a spectacular 680S chassis with the latest avant-garde coachwork. Jacques Saoutchik made perhaps a dozen Torpedo Roadster bodies, each differing in their details, and this Mercedes-Benz 680S (chassis 35959) is thought to be the only remaining survivor of three low-windshield Torpedo Roadsters.
The combination of chrome accents with low windshield make this Torpedo, shown first at the 1928 New York Auto Show, both a sports car and a luxury touring car.
“The car is really everything,” said Concours Chairman Sandra Button in describing the Torpedo’s win. “It has fantastic German engineering, elegant French styling, and a wonderful restoration by Paul Russell. It’s a car you can imagine racing as well as touring. It’s just a marvelous embodiment of everything that is Mercedes-Benz.”
Paul Andrews, the car’s owner when it was named Best of Show at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in 2012, stressed the whole package: “There’s not a bad line on this car. It was the sports car, the high performance car of its era, and then Saoutchik gave it style and grace. It has power and it has beauty.”
