After nearly 70 years out of the game, Saoutchik is putting early twentieth-century design back on the menu. Remember Saoutchik, the legacy French coachbuilder from the early twentieth century? No, we suspect you won't. Because the company went bankrupt around 70-odd years ago when it, er, ran out of money. Well, now it’s back with this: the 300 GTC.

In essence a modern-day Mercedes-Benz SL draped in bits to allow it to resemble a 300 SL, it’s not confirmed if the 300 GTC will ever be built and sold by Saoutchik, but we do know this render acts as a preview into what its forthcoming models could look like. And let’s not mess about here, it looks stunning.

The SL’s silhouette looks like it’s been extended slightly, dilated at the rear and given a swathe of extra vents and stretch marks to set off the smaller cues. Most notably, there’s a gallant new set of light signatures at either end (with the rear seeing the most substantial change), chromed alloys with flared centre caps and a silky drop-top roof.

Saoutchik has also confirmed it’ll only build low-volume vehicles, and that most of the general design philosophy of its new school will hail back to its pre-1950s vehicles. The early signs certainly seem promising for the returning coachbuilder, wouldn’t you agree?

A Retro-Tinged Mercedes-Benz SL That Should Have Stayed On the Drawing Board

Coachbuilt cars can be great. Take something new with modern power, performance, and amenities, and give it a nostalgic retro look. The Radford Lotus Type 62-2 and the Zagato Iso Rivolto are two prime examples of great coachbuilding. This Mercedes-Benz 300SL homage by Saoutchik is… not.

Credit to Saoutchik for giving it the ol' college try, but this retro-tinged Mercedes-Benz SL probably should have stayed on the drawing board. It was created by Ugur Sahin Design (a designer responsible for many much-better-looking vehicles) in collaboration with Pogea Racing. Saoutchik was a prominent French coachbuilder in the 1920s and 1930s, and the name returns after 70 years.

Dubbed the 300GTC, this coachbuilt SL was inspired by the original 300SL 'Gullwing' of the 1950s and supposedly has, “all the spirit and personality of the iconic Mercedes 300SL.” Agree to disagree. It has a radical front end with rounded headlights, an extended rear with ultra-slim taillights, extra vents, and chrome accents aplenty. The only good thing about it is the monoblock-style wheels, which look good on anything.

Saoutchik doesn’t say what powers the 300GTC, but the standard Mercedes-AMG SL has a few engine options for buyers to choose from. The base SL43 has a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine with mild-hybrid assist making 416 horsepower, the SL55 has a twin-turbo V-8 with 469 horsepower, and the SL63 has 577 horsepower. There’s even an SL63 S E Performance with 805 hp—plenty enough to outrun this car’s many questionable design decisions.

Thankfully, only a handful of these coahcbuilt cars will ever hit the road. Saoutchik says it will only produce 15 examples of the 300GTC. The company doesn’t list a price, but we can only imagine each one will be extremely pricey. They say money can’t buy taste.

The 300GTC: A Modern Interpretation of the 300 SL

Coachbuilding is making a comeback, and Saoutchik, a French firm that went bankrupt in 1955, has risen from the ashes and launched a modern interpretation of the iconic Mercedes-Benz 300 SL. It calls its creation the 300 GTC Roadster, and production will be capped at just 15 units.

The company has confirmed precious few details about the car, but it’s thought to be based on the Mercedes-Benz SL and has a completely bespoke exterior and a revised interior. Whether or not it is a fitting reinterpretation of the 300 SL is up for debate, but there’s no doubt it’ll turn heads once the first examples start to hit the road.

Visible at the front end of the car are round headlights and a grille which, by modern standards, is quite modest. Saoutchik’s intricate emblem is featured on a large badge in the center of the grille, while the car also rocks two large air intakes with black mesh. Much like the car that inspired it, the front wheel arches are particularly bulbous.

Plenty of classic Mercedes touches are visible on the sides. For example, there are large vents behind the front wheels finished in chrome and a set of massive 22-inch chrome wheels. The coachbuilder has also overhauled the rear half of the car with new arches, a bespoke tailgate, a distinctive silver diffuser, and subtle LED taillights.

A Reimagining That Falls Short

The Mercedes-Benz 300 SL, often referred to as “the SL Gullwing,” is one of the most iconic sports cars to ever come out of Germany, so there are plenty of people who would love to see it revived. A French coachbuilder called Saoutchik, which was founded way back in 1906, just came back from the dead to bring back the 300 SL from its equally lengthy hiatus. Maybe the SL should have stayed dead.

Saoutchik’s 300 SL tribute is called the 300 GTC, but it’s not based on the current Mercedes-AMG SL. Instead, the company used the outgoing Mercedes-AMG GT Roadster as the base, likely because that car had an extremely long hood, similar to the 300 SL. We see what the company was trying to do here, but trying to wrap 1950s styling around a car with modern proportions has not worked. This may be a matter of personal opinion, but the results kind of speak for themselves in this case.

If there’s one saving grace about the 300 GTC’s – let’s just say “odd” design – it’s that you likely won’t have to ever see one driving around. Saoutchik says it will only build 15 of them, and it’s unclear if any will end up in the US. No pricing was announced, but it’s likely well into six-figure territory.

Saoutchik attempted to replicate a 300 SL on the exterior with round headlights, modified grille, enlarged vents, relocated taillights, and monoblock wheels that look like they came off the Maybach S-Class Cabriolet. We’ve seen that some modern coachbuilt cars can look beautiful, but others, like this SL, just have horrible proportions.

A Return to the Roots of Coachbuilding

A Parisian coachbuilder that built bodies for the most luxurious automotive brands in the first half of the 20th century has been revived, and the modern company's first project is a homage to the iconic Mercedes-Benz 300 SL.

The coachbuilder is Saoutchik, the original incarnation of which was founded in 1906 by Jacques Saoutchik, born Iakov Savtchuk. The company folded in 1955, just three years after Saoutchik's son, Pierre, took over the reins.

The modern Saoutchik was founded in 2016, in the Netherlands, and specializes in automotive design and engineering, although it also dabbles in industrial design outside the automotive world. The company says it can handle complete builds, from the design sketch to production in limited series.

The company's 300 SL homage is called the 300 GTC, and the “GT” in the name is a nod to the chassis coming from a Mercedes-Benz AMG GT, specifically the previous-generation GT Roadster. The giveaway is the layout of the car's interior, which is a match with the previous-generation AMG GT.

Revived coachbuilder Saoutchik conjures a modern 300 SL Ugur Sahin Design, which a few years back penned a homage to the Ferrari F50, is responsible for the exterior design. The 300 GTC shares many of its lines with the 300 SL, and combines this with modern touches.

The body panels are all carbon fiber, supplied by Germany's Pogea Racing, and building the car from start to finish takes around 4,000 hours, according to Saoutchik.

No mechanical details have been mentioned, but the car presumably shares the donor AMG GT's twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V-8 and rear-mounted 7-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission.

Saoutchik said it plans to limit production to just 15 units. A price tag hasn't been announced.

Saoutchik: A Second Life for a Forgotten Brand

Saoutchik was a coachbuilder founded in France in 1906. It was founded near Paris, but the name is Slavic because the founder was Iakov Saoutchik, whose family had emigrated from the then-Russian Empire in 1899. Saoutchik worked on a variety of different vehicles, from household names such as Bentley and Cadillac, to more obscure brands like Delahaye and Hispano-Suiza, another automaker that recently made a comeback. As for Saoutchik, the company ceased operations around 70 years ago, in the mid 1950s, and no one paid much attention to it until now, with this new car.

Saoutchik shared these images of a new upcoming model called the 300 GTC, a tribute to the iconic Mercedes 300 SL, but hasn’t said much about it yet. The prototype doesn’t have gullwing doors, a defining feature of the original 300 SL, but it does have a drop-top roof and large, round headlights at the front. The car looks tremendous, but there are a few things we’re not sure about. First, Saoutchik hasn’t shared too many details about it. We’re going to go ahead and assume they won’t actually cut original 300 SLs into pieces to put them back together, because that wouldn’t go down well with collectors – or with Mercedes, for that matter. Second, we don’t know whether this is going to be a Mercedes-inspired concept, or an electromod of some sort, as in a classic car revamped with electric power. Hopefully we won’t have to wait another 70 years to find out.