Those are some nice looking bodies! I may end up poking munter for one of those Mercs sooner or later.
I was at a demonstration where someone drove a Ferrari 375 MM. Actually, they drove around a Maserati 300S first- angry sounding car. Then the Jaguar C-Type- what a throaty growl! And finally the Ferrari. When the car fired up, you could hear nothing else and had to scream to the person next to you if you wanted to say anything. The owner never even put his foot on the gas. He just slid it in to first and drove around the lot on idle. He said that there wasn't enough room to even give it any gas- the car is so powerful that it just takes off like a rocket at the slightest touch. Even on idle, it hauled. Many drivers of the period stayed away from it because it was so powerful and easy to loose control in the turns. Dan Gurney was one of the few drivers who could tame it.