SIR STIRLING MOSS RETURNS TO THE AMELIA CONCOURS

Sir Stirling Moss defined the image of a professional racing driver. By the time premature retirement was forced upon him by a racing accident at Goodwood in 1962, his name meant "racing driver". He was every English schoolboy's hero and the inheritor of grand master and Mercedes-Benz teammate Juan Fangio's orb, scepter and crown.
In 1996 Sir Stirling was the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance first Honorary Chairman. The cover of 'The Amelia's' 1996 collector-grade program depicted Moss' epic 1000 mile drive in the record-setting 1955 Mille Miglia, a non-stop road race around the Italian peninsula in Mercedes-Benz's legendary 300SLR.
"Having Sir Stirling Moss at 'The Amelia' again is exciting," said Amelia Concours Founder and Chairman Bill Warner. "He's a genuine hero who's won every kind of race: Grands Prix, the great endurance sports car races, even rallies. His amazing, record-setting drive in the 1955 Mille Miglia in a Mercedes-Benz 300SLR remains a high water mark of automotive and human performance. We appreciate Mercedes-Benz hosting Sir Stirling and Lady Moss once again at Amelia."

Moss raced with the Mercedes-Benz team in 1955, the most storied year of international motorsport. The fabled German grand marque took Moss to his first World Championship Formula 1 victory that summer. Poetically, it came at his home Grand Prix. Moss led a one-two-three-four Mercedes-Benz sweep of the British round of the abbreviated 1955 Formula 1 World Championship season. For Moss, the 1955 British Grand Prix was a perfect race. He drove his Mercedes-Benz W196 "silver arrow" to victory on the three-mile Aintree course, around the site of the Grand National Steeplechase, near Liverpool. Moss not only won the race and achieved his first career World Championship F1 pole position that weekend; he also set the race's fastest lap and led the most laps. Moss and Fangio, the two greatest drivers in the world, driving identical Mercedes-Benz W196 racers, exchanged the lead several times during the first 25 laps. But from lap 26, Moss led his Mercedes-Benz teammate to the finish, edging the great Fangio, the reigning World Champion, at the checkered flag by just 0.2 seconds.

Moss's final victory of the 1955 season at the rugged Targa Florio, a 581 mile race on the primitive mountain roads of Sicily, clinched the double World Championship for Mercedes-Benz. The legendary luxury performance car builder won not only the World Sports Car Championship, but the 1955 Formula 1 World Championship as well. (A feat accomplished by only one other car builder.) Moss led the way for the Mercedes-Benz sports car team, winning half the races of the 1955 championship season in the iconic 300SLR. Today, the cars Sir Stirling raced to the 1955 World Sports Car Championship are part of the Mercedes-Benz museum collection in Stuttgart, Germany.

About The Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance
Now in its second decade, the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance is among the top automotive events in the world. Always held the second full weekend in March, "The Amelia" draws nearly 250 rare vehicles from collections around the world to The Golf Club of Amelia Island and The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island for a celebration of the automobile like no other. Since 1996, the show's Foundation has donated over $2 million to Community Hospice of Northeast Florida, Inc. and other deserving charities on Florida's First Coast. The 18th annual Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance is scheduled for March 8-10, 2013. For more information, visit
www.ameliaconcours.org.