Streetwalker – Sink the Bismarck!

When it was constructed, the Bismarck was the largest warship in the world. It displaced more than 50,000 tons and featured 72 total guns; its largest battery were a complement of eight 380mm guns on four turrets, which it used against British heavy cruisers with devastating effect.


The Bismarck only took part in one operation, the Battle of the Denmark Strait of May 24th, 1941, where it sunk the HMS Hood in just three minutes. The Hood was the Royal Navy’s last battlecruiser, a source of pride for the British, and its sinking enraged Winston Churchill to famously order “sink the Bismarck!” Which the Royal Navy did, three days later—they gave chase with two aircraft carriers, three battleships, four cruisers and seven destroyers, finally sinking the German ship 300 miles off the western coast of France. It took two days of sustained torpedo and aircraft attacks to take down the Bismarck.

59 years later the Scottish brewery BrewDog introduced the world’s strongest beer, competitively named “Sink the Bismarck!” This was in response to a German brewery named Schorschbräu that had toppled the Scots’ previous strongest beer, Tactical Nuclear Penguin at 32%, with one that was 40% alcohol. As such, the British never resist a chance to mention the war, and they never shirk away from a tussle with the Teutons. Sink the Bismarck! is 41% alcohol, recapturing the title and bringing beer supremacy back to the Isles*.

Not even Mercedes could escape the flamboyant tailfins of the late 1950s, though official word from Mercedes at the time—in characteristic German rationality—was that the fins were there to help aid parking. The W111 (in Mercedes engineering code) flagship was known rather appropriately as the “fintail,” or in German as the “Heckflosse,” and was only built for 6 years in the sedan form shown here. Paul Bracq designed the W111, and if that name rings a bell it’s because he’s designed many midcentury Mercedes cars as well as Peugeots, Citroëns, and my favorite BMW of all time, the E24 6-Series.
This particular model’s a 230S, which featured Benz’s M180 inline-six at 2.3 liters, good for 120 horsepower. Only the sedan featured this engine throughout the W111’s twelve-year run; later coupes got a V8 engine near the end of its production run.

The Heckflosse was the first car to feature the concept of the crumple zone, patented by Mercedes—crashes in the new W111 resulted in half as many deaths as the Pontons. Of course, when you’re faced with an old Mercedes seemingly honed from a solid block of granite, you’re better off to begin with. The Germans used to build products designed to last, and it would probably take a Royal Navy flotilla to take down a Heckflosse.
Please, however, don’t drink a bottle of Sink the Bismarck! while driving your German battleship.

* Both breweries have since outdone themselves with more alcoholic beers. Schorschbräu’s finest now features43%, while BrewDog came out with a beer called The End of History, a limited-edition, sold-out 55-percenter whose bottle is stuffed inside a taxidermied squirrel, and dressed in a kilt. Because, you know, obviously.