(Photos: Motoring Research via AutoEvolution.com) Historical races are a great way to see the race cars of yesteryear come out and exercise instead of sitting static in a museum, but there is always a risk of an accident with a race, and unfortunately at the Goodwood Members Meeting, there was an accident during the race for the Salvadori Cup that involved two extremely valuable historic race cars: the 1955 Mercedes 300 SLS “Porter Special” being driven by Jochen Mass, on loan from a private collection, and a Lister-Jaguar being driven by Tony Wood had a meeting of the metal near the pit entrance. According to witnesses, Mass was coming out of a chicane when he ran up on Wood, who was preparing to pit. He went for the brakes and locked them up, causing the Mercedes to plow into the back of the Lister-Jaguar hard. Both cars came to rest near the pit entrance, with the Lister spilling fuel. 

The Mercedes started life as a 300SL, but the car had been in an accident and had burned. Chuck Porter restored the car to it’s current no-roof configuration, swapped in a V8 (in it’s current configuration, it would be a small-block Chevrolet from about 1957 or 1958) and is valued at just under $6 Million. The Lister-Jaguar is based upon the running gear of a Jaguar D-type, and is valuable itself, at about $1.5 Million. It’s expected that both cars are going to be restored, but the one person we wouldn’t want to be would be the guy who had to break the news to the Mercedes’ owner.