Silver Arrows E-Book

Andrew Noakes

• Herausgeber: The Crowood Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 295

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Lewis Hamilton's record-breaking achievements in F1 are the latest successes in a glorious motor sport record for Mercedes and Benz that stretches back to the very first races in the 1890s. For the first time, this book tells the story of Mercedes in motor sport from the very beginning, with those pioneers of the 19th century, right through to today's hybrid F1 cars. It covers the triumphs and disasters, from the early Grand Prix machines and the extraordinarily advanced and massively powerful racers of the 1930s to the highs of F1, Le Mans and Mille Miglia glory and the sorrow of the 1955 Le Mans disaster. The story is brought right up to date, tracing Mercedes victories in sports car racing, Indycar, F1 and Formula E – and this book celebrates the achievements of some of the world's greatest drivers, from Caracciola, Fangio and Moss to Hakkinen, Unser and Hamilton.

Leseprobe

Lewis Hamilton celebrates an unprecedented 100th victory in Formula 1 at the 2021 Russian Grand Prix.

First published in 2022 byThe Crowood Press LtdRamsbury, MarlboroughWiltshire SN8 2HR

[email protected]

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2022

© Andrew Noakes 2022

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7198 4016 6

Cover design by Sergey Tsvetkov

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Timeline

Introduction

CHAPTER 1 IN AT THE START: 1894–1931

CHAPTER 2 THE FIRST SILVER ARROWS: GRAND PRIX RACING, 1934–9

CHAPTER 3 RACING REVIVAL: SPORTS CARS AND F1, 1952–5

CHAPTER 4 RALLYING AROUND: 1955–81

CHAPTER 5 STAR SALOONS: MERCEDES IN TOURING CAR RACING, FROM 1971

CHAPTER 6 ENDURANCE: SPORTS CAR RACING, FROM 1978

CHAPTER 7 AMERICAN INTERLUDE: INDYCAR ENGINES, 1994–2000

CHAPTER 8 MOTIVE POWER: ENGINES FOR F1, FROM 1994

CHAPTER 9 RETURN OF THE SILVER ARROWS: MERCEDES-BENZ GRAND PRIX, FROM 2010

CHAPTER 10 FORMULA E AND THE FUTURE, FROM 2018

Index

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Telling the Mercedes-Benz motor sport story has demanded a wide range of sources, from Le Petit Journal of 23 July 1894, via the contemporary reports of Motor Sport and Autosport down the years, to the carefully curated Daimler archives and, of course, to some of the people involved in the more recent events. My thanks go to everyone who has helped to record and relate the racing exploits of Benz, Daimler, Mercedes-Benz and the constructors who used their engines over so many years. In particular I would like to thank: the staffs of the press offices of Mercedes-Benz in the UK and Germany and Mercedes-Benz Classic, Rauno Aaltonen, Patrick Morgan of Dawn Treader Performance, Jonathan Ashman, Mike Gould and Paula Goddard. The information, insight, photographs, leads and help in all sorts of other ways that they have provided have contributed enormously. The errors and omissions are all my own.

PHOTOGRAPHIC ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

All images are courtesy Daimler, with the following exceptions:

Jonathan Ashman, p.80 (both)

Aston Martin F1, p.157 (bottom)

Author, p.137 (right middle)

BMW, p.129

BTCC, p.107 (both)

Francois Flamand/DPPI, p.158

Jordan King, p.156 (top)

Frederic Le Floc’h/DPPI, p.127 (all)

Mercedes-Benz Classic, p.83 (both)

Eric Vargiolu/DPPI, p.154 (bottom)

TIMELINE

1880

Benz & Cie founded

1890

Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft founded

1894

Benz and Daimler-engined cars compete in the Paris–Rouen reliability trial, the first serious international motoring competition

1895

Daimler-engined Peugeot wins the Paris–Bordeaux race, the first proper motor race

1901

35hp Mercedes dominates Nice speed trials

1908

Christian Lautenschlager wins the French Grand Prix for Daimler

1909

Victor Hémery is the first driver to exceed 200km/h in the ‘Blitzen’ Benz

1915

Ralph DePalma wins the Indianapolis 500 in a Grand Prix Mercedes

1926

Daimler and Benz merge

1931

Rudolf Caracciola becomes the first non-Italian winner of the Mille Miglia in the Mercedes-Benz SSKL

1934

Mercedes-Benz W25 races in silver – the first Silver Arrow

1935

Rudolf Caracciola wins European Championship

1936

Rudolf Caracciola wins European Championship for the second time

1938

Richard Seaman wins the German Grand Prix; Rudolf Caracciola wins European Championship for the third time

1939

Hermann Lang wins Tripoli Grand Prix; Richard Seaman killed at Belgian Grand Prix

1952

Hermann Lang and Fritz Riess win Le Mans 24-hours in the 300 SL

1954

Juan Manuel Fangio wins F1 world championship

1955

Stirling Moss and Denis Jenkinson win Mille Miglia in the 300 SLR; Pierre Levegh and more than eighty spectators are killed when 300 SLR crashes at Le Mans; Fangio wins F1 world championship; Mercedes withdraw from racing

1956

Walter Schock wins European rally championship

1960

Schock and Rolf Moll win Monte Carlo Rally; Schock wins European rally championship for the second time

1962

Ewy Rosqvist and Ursula Wirth win Gran Premio Argentina; Eugen Böhringer wins European rally championship

1969

300 SEL 6.3 wins Macao Guia 101 race

1977

280 E wins London–Sydney marathon

1978

450 SLC wins Vuelta a la América del Sud rally

1983

Jacky Ickx and Claude Brasseur win Paris-Dakar rally

1984

Ayrton Senna wins Nürburgring race in 190E 2.3-16

1985

Mercedes returns to racing with Sauber C8 Group C car

1989

Sauber-Mercedes C9 wins Le Mans 24-hours

1993

Sauber enters F1 with Ilmor-Mercedes V10 engines

1994

Mercedes 500I pushrod engine powers Al Unser Jr’s Penske to victory in the Indy 500

1998

Mika Häkkinen wins F1 world championship with McLaren-Mercedes

1999

Mercedes CLR flips three times at Le Mans and is withdrawn; Häkkinen wins F1 world championship for the second time

2008

Lewis Hamilton wins F1 world championship in McLaren-Mercedes

2009

Jenson Button wins F1 world championship in Brawn-Mercedes

2010

Mercedes returns as an F1 constructor

2014

Hamilton wins F1 world championship for the second time

2015

Hamilton wins F1 world championship for the third time

2016

Nico Rosberg wins F1 world championship

2017

Hamilton wins F1 world championship for the fourth time

2018

Hamilton wins F1 world championship for the fifth time

2019

Hamilton wins F1 world championship for the sixth time

2020

Hamilton wins F1 world championship for the seventh time

INTRODUCTION

The story of Mercedes-Benz in motor sport is long and illustrious. It goes right back to the beginnings of organized car competitions in Europe in the 1890s – barely a decade after Carl Benz created the world’s first viable production car. Mercedes-Benz cars became the ones to beat in early Grands Prix, and came to the fore again when the greatest races of the time were organized into a European Championship. After the Second World War the company rebuilt itself from virtual ruin and Mercedes-Benz once again led the world in motor sport, winning in Formula 1 and top-level sports car racing with interesting, innovative racing cars.

But the disaster of the 1955 Le Mans race led Mercedes-Benz into a self-imposed exile from racing under its own name that would last for decades. In the meantime the three-pointed star contented itself with becoming a force in gruelling rallies, and as time went on it started to supply engines for single-seaters and sports cars of other manufacturers, which would win all around the world against the most demanding of competitors.

Mercedes-Benz’s return as a fully fledged racing car constructor in recent years has been no less successful. It has won in touring cars, in sports cars and in F1, where its domination of the sport with its Brackley-based team, Brixworth-built engines and British star driver, Lewis Hamilton, has eclipsed anything the sport has ever seen before.

As Mercedes-Benz moves into a new electrified era of automotive design, and motor sport reinvents itself for a new era, the three-pointed star will undoubtedly continue to figure strongly in racing results. For all its 120-plus years of racing achievement, its greatest successes might still be in the future.

CHAPTER ONE

IN AT THE START: 1894–1931

When the first serious competition for motor vehicles took place on 22 July 1894, the pioneering engineering of Carl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler was well represented. Twenty-one cars made it to the start of the Paris–Rouen reliability trial, of more than 100 that had been entered when the event was proposed earlier that summer. Nine were steam powered, the other twelve used gasoline engines: one of them a Benz design, and all the rest by Daimler.

All along the 126km (78 mile) course the cars attracted enormous attention. Crowds applauded the cars and their drivers, and photographers vied for the best shots of the amazing self-propelled machines. An excited bystander in Triel handed out apricots from his garden as the cars passed by, towns fired their cannons in salute, and in Bonnières the leading car was offered a celebratory bouquet of flowers. But there were problems, too: the cars startled horses into bolting and raised huge clouds of dust. Intrepid cyclists chased the cars as they headed north-west towards Rouen. Though Count de Dion was the first to finish, his steam car needed a stoker to tend its boiler, which the organizers, from the French newspaper Le Petit Journal, felt was against the spirit of the competition. The first prize of 5,000 French francs was split between the makers of the leading petrol cars, Peugeot and Panhard et Levassor – all their machines powered by Daimler-designed V-twin engines built under licence. It was the beginning of a spectacular story of motor sport success for Daimler and Benz, which endures to this day.

Albert Lemaître’s Peugeot was the first petrol car to finish the Paris–Rouen trial in 1894, and was named joint winner. The engine was a Daimler design.

Fritz Held and navigator Hans Thum with their 8hp Benz after winning the Frankfurt–Cologne race in 1899.

The first true motor race, from Paris to Bordeaux and back, was organized the following summer. Émile Levassor won on the road, but his Panhard et Levassor and the second-placed Peugeot of Louis Rigolet were both disqualified as they were two-seaters, and the rules required four seats. The winner was the third car home, the Peugeot-Daimler of Paul Koechlin, and there were three more cars with Daimler-designed engines and two with Benz motors among the nine classified finishers.

Carl Benz’s sons Eugen and Richard were behind the first Benz car designed specifically for motor sport, the 8hp model of 1899. Fritz Held won his class and a gold medal in the Frankfurt–Cologne race that year driving the 8hp Benz, averaging 22.5km/h (14mph) over 193km (120 miles). The sister car of Emil Graf finished in second place. Baron Theodore von Lieberg won in Vienna in another 8hp Benz later the same year, then Held and Richard Benz won a race from Berlin to Leipzig.

For 1900 Benz offered a production racing car with an uprated 16hp version of the ‘Contra’ horizontally opposed twin. Reliability was improved with centralized lubrication and pumped cooling system, and there was gear drive via a four-speed gearbox. It finished second in the hands of Fritz Scarisbrick in its first event, the Eisenach–Oberhof–Meiningen–Eisenach race, and then in May Held took the 16hp’s maiden win in a Mannheim–Pforzheim–Mannheim race staged to commemorate Bertha Benz’s epic solo drive in an early Benz car in 1888.

Despite these successes, Carl Benz’s attitude to the company’s racing activities remained lukewarm at best: he said racing was of no value in vehicle development and could be counter-productive. Even so, a 4-cylinder 20hp car was developed, with a steering wheel instead of a tiller. But by now the Benz cars struggled against the might of the latest Daimlers.

Daimler’s first win with its own car came in the Berlin– Leipzig–Berlin race in May 1898, then in August Wilhelm Bauer and Wilhelm Werner won a race at Bolzano in a 7.5hp, 2-cylinder Daimler Viktoria. In 1899 the 12hp, 4-cylinder Daimler Phoenix won in Nice in two-seater and fourseater forms, and another Phoenix won at Semmering in the hands of Emil Jellinek.

Daimler 12hp Phoenix cars wait in Nice for the start of the Nice–Magagnosc–Nice race on 21 March 1899. Both won their classes.

The first of Daimler’s newly named Mercedes cars was a bigger, faster competition car. The Wilhelm Maybachdesigned 35hp Mercedes of 1900 introduced a lightweight engine and chassis, a honeycomb radiator and a frontmounted 4-cylinder engine. With more than twice the power of the Phoenix, and a much lower centre of gravity, it was a formidable racing machine with a top speed in excess of 100km/h (62mph). It dominated the Nice speed trials of 1901, and Claude Lorraine-Barrow set a new world record for a standing start mile, reaching 79.7km/h (50mph).

The 35hp Mercedes was the first recognizably modern car, and a successful racing machine. This is the first example, delivered to Emil Jellinek in December 1900.

Maybach’s next racer was the 40hp Mercedes Simplex, intended to be simpler and more reliable as well as more powerful. Even faster 60hp and 90hp versions followed, but the latter were destroyed in a fire that gutted the Cannstatt factory in 1903, prompting the company to move to Untertürkheim. Daimler had to resort to buying back or borrowing 60hp cars so the works team could operate, three of them taking part in the Gordon Bennett cup race in Ireland on 2 July. They had been driven all the way there from Stuttgart, and the effort proved to be worthwhile: Camille Jenatzy won the race in a car owned by Clarence G. Dinsmore, a well-heeled American racing enthusiast.

The basic design of the racing Mercedes remained unchanged for the next few years, but there were further improvements in engine technology. For 1905 the 4-cylinder engine was expanded to 14.1 litres and now produced 120bhp at 1,200rpm. Their power advantage made the Daimlers favourites for the 1905 Gordon Bennett cup, held in the Auvergne hills, but it was not to be: the big Daimlers were heavy on tyres and suffered from engine problems. The race, which would be the last of the annual Gordon Bennett competitions, turned into a battle between the French Richard-Brasiers and the Italian Fiats.

ORIGINS AND MERGER

Carl Benz (left) and Gottlieb Daimler were Germany’s foremost automotive pioneers.

Daimler workers at the Cannstatt works in 1893.

Carl Benz set up his own business, Benz & Cie, near Mannheim in 1880 to make two-stroke stationary engines to power pumps, mills and electricity generators. He fitted one of these engines into a tricycle and started selling them in 1886. By the turn of the century Benz & Cie was the biggest carmaker in the world with total production exceeding 2,000 cars. Meanwhile Gottlieb Daimler from Schorndorf, near Stuttgart, had built a career in engineering at a series of German companies. In 1892 he left Gasmotorenfabrik Deutz, where he was technical director, to set up his own firm in Cannstatt, taking Deutz’s chief engineer Wilhelm Maybach with him.

A year later Benz workers pose for the camera in Mannheim.

Daimler and Maybach built petrol engines and then motorized vehicles. Their cars were popular among the rich families in the south of France, promoted by the influential Emil Jellinek, consul-general of the Austro-Hungarian empire in Nice. Jellinek believed the cars would sell better with a less German-sounding name – there was still some French ill-feeling after the war of 1870 – and took to calling the cars he was selling ‘Mercédès’ after his ten-year-old daughter. Daimler eventually adopted the name for all its cars. Gottlieb Daimler died in 1900 but his company continued to flourish. In 1909 a new three-pointed star logo was adopted, signifying that Daimler’s engines were used on land, on the sea and in the air.

Daimler and Benz produced vehicles and aero engines during World War I, but when the war ended in 1918 they struggled due to lack of demand for cars. This led to a cooperative agreement in 1924, and two years later they undertook a full merger, eventually creating Daimler-Benz Aktiengesellschaft (AG). The new company’s logo combined the three-pointed star of Daimler with the laurel wreath used by Benz. The cars were produced under the name Mercedes-Benz.

THE GRAND PRIX ERA

The Gordon Bennett races had been competitions between countries, with a limit on the number of entries from any single nation. The French wanted every chance to demonstrate the achievements of their well-developed motor industry, and abandoned the Gordon Bennett cup in favour of a new competition: the Grand Prix.

Christian Lautenschlager in for a tyre change during the 1908 French Grand Prix. The Mercedes needed twenty-two tyre changes in seven hours of racing.

Maybach designed an advanced new engine for Daimler’s Grand Prix challenger, a twin overhead cam in-line 6-cylinder with a capacity of 11.1 litres and twin-plug ignition. Careful design minimized valvetrain inertia, allowing the engine to run up to 1,500rpm and produce 120bhp. But there were influential factions within Daimler that felt Maybach’s engine was too sophisticated and too complicated, and after much internal wrangling Maybach left Daimler to found his own company. Paul Daimler, son of Gottlieb, was installed as his replacement and proposed a simpler, more conventional 6-cylinder engine. In the meantime Daimler continued to race the old 120hp 4-cylinder cars, but could do no better than tenth place in the 1906 and 1907 Grands Prix.

The 1908 race was run over ten laps of a 77km (48 mile) circuit near Dieppe. Daimler developed a new 4-cylinder engine to meet regulations that restricted bore diameter to 155mm. The resulting 12.8-litre engine had twin camshafts, overhead intake valves and developed 133bhp at 1,400rpm. Daimler learned from the practices of its competitors and made wheel changing as simple as possible: mechanics had pneumatic jacks to speed up stops, and each wheel was retained by a single fixing. It proved to be a clever innovation and Christian Lautenschlager, Daimler’s chief test driver, recorded a famous victory after no fewer than twenty-two tyre changes. After almost seven hours on the road he finished nine minutes ahead of the 12.4-litre Benzes of Victor Hémery and René Hanriot. Later the Mercedes engine was fitted with aluminium pistons, which allowed the use of even higher engine speeds, boosting the power output to 177bhp and powering a Mercedes to 173km/h (108mph) at Ostend in July 1910.

1909 ‘BLITZEN’ BENZ – SPECIFICATIONS

Chassis and bodyTypeOpen two-seater with alloy body panels and separate ladder chassisEngineLocationFront engine, longitudinalBlockCast ironHeadCast ironCylinders4, in lineCoolingWaterLubricationPressure lubrication via gear pumpBore × stroke185 × 200mmCapacity21,500ccMain bearings5Valves/operation2 overhead valves per cylinder, single lateral camshaft, pushrods and rockersCompression ratio5.8:1Fuel systemHorizontal tubular-slide valve carburettorIgnition system2 × Bosch D4 magnetos; 1 plug per cylinderMaximum power197bhp at 1,600rpmMaximum torque260lb ft (353Nm) at 1,000rpmTransmissionRear-wheel drive; four-speed manual gearbox; cone clutchSuspension and steeringFrontBeam axle, semi-elliptic leaf springsRearBeam axle, semi-elliptic leaf springsSteeringWorm and nutWheels and tyresWooden-spoke wheels with metal fairing plates, 820 × 120 Continental tyresBrakesFront: none Rear: mechanically operated wheel shoes and external band brakes on driveshaftsDimensionsLength4,820mm (190in)Width1,600mm (63in)Height1,280mm (50.5in)Wheelbase2,800mm (110in)Unladen weight1,450kg (3,197lb)PerformanceTop speed228.1km/h (141mph)Acceleration 0–60mphn/a

THE BLITZEN BENZ

Benz built on the promising performance of its 1908 Grand Prix machines with a record-breaking car powered by an enormous 21.5-litre 4-cylinder engine, the largest-capacity engine ever used by Benz or Daimler. In its first outing, a flying kilometre contest in Frankfurt, it won with a rousing 159.3km/h (99mph) run – and that was just the start. Victor Hémery, one of its designers, clocked 202.648km/h (126mph) over the flying kilometre at Brooklands, the first time the 200km/h barrier had been broken. In 1910 it was bought by American promoter Ernie Moross, and with Barney Oldfield at the wheel it recorded 211.9km/h (132mph) along Daytona Beach, making it not only the fastest car in the world but the fastest machine of any sort. Railway locomotives and speedboats could not keep up, and even the aircraft of the time were far slower. Moross called it the ‘Lightning’ Benz, later adopting the German equivalent: ‘Blitzen’. In 1911 it toured the USA attracting thousands of spectators, and in April that year it raised the speed record to 228.1km/h (142mph) in the hands of American racer Bob Burman.

Victor Hémery, one of the designers of the ‘Blitzen’ Benz and the first to drive it, or any car, in excess of 200km/h.

A determined-looking Barney Oldfield and his riding mechanic pose in the ‘Lightning’ (later ‘Blitzen’) Benz in 1911. At the time it was the fastest vehicle in the world.

1914: IN THE SHADOW OF WAR

After 1908 the French Grand Prix was not held again until 1912, and Daimler did not return until two years later. The 1914 Mercedes Grand Prix car bristled with innovation. The new 4-cylinder engine was an overhead camshaft design with four valves per cylinder, and could rev to the then-extraordinary speed of 3,500rpm. Drive was carried to the rear wheels by shaft instead of the conventional chains.

The race took place on 4 July, barely a week after the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and with Europe on the brink of war. Mercedes’ Max Sailor pushed hard in the early stages of the race but the car failed, leaving Peugeot’s Georges Boillot, winner of the race in 1912 and 1913, with a healthy lead over the Mercedes of Christian Lautenschlager. But the Peugeot was heavy on tyres, stopping six times for new rubber where the Mercedes stopped only once, and Boillot had to push as hard as he could to maintain the advantage. In the end the Peugeot’s engine gave up, leaving Lautenschlager to head a magnificent 1-2-3 victory for Mercedes.

Goodwood Festival of Speed 2005, and a 21.5-litre Blitzen Benz is coaxed into life by its Mercedes-Benz Classic custodians.

Ralph DePalma tries out Otto Salzer’s 1914 Grand Prix Mercedes at Untertürkheim. DePalma would buy another of the team cars and ship it to the USA just as war was breaking out in Europe.

Carlo Demand’s painting shows Ralph DePalma taking the lead of the 1915 Indianapolis 500 from Dario Resta’s Peugeot.

War curtailed European racing, but in the USA motor sport continued. The Italian-American former dirt track star Ralph DePalma had nearly won at Indianapolis in a Mercedes in 1912, eventually pushing the car over the line with his riding mechanic Rupert Jeffkins to finish eleventh after an engine failure two laps from the end. In 1915 he tackled the Brickyard again in one of the 1914 Grand Prix cars, the car that Louis Wagner had taken to second place at the 1914 French Grand Prix. History nearly repeated itself: after building up a substantial lead the Mercedes’ engine threw a conrod, but DePalma was able to coax it over the line on three cylinders to take the victory.

BENZ TROPFENWAGEN

Post-war, Benz built some racing versions of its production cars. Then in 1921 it acquired the rights to Edmund Rumpler’s innovative Tropfenwagen or ‘teardrop car’, so-called due to its aerodynamic shape. Four racing versions, known internally as the Benz RH, were built in 1922–3, with 2.0-litre twin overhead camshaft 6-cylinder engines and swingaxle independent rear suspension. As the engine was ahead of the rear axle it was technically mid-engined, but because the axle was positioned right at the back of the chassis the engine was further back than was ideal for weight distribution.

Benz RH Tropfenwagen was mid-engined, with teardrop shape, and based on designs by Edmund Rumpler.

The Benz Tropfenwagen ran reliably in the Grand Prix of Europe at Monza in September 1923, but could not match the supercharged Fiats.

Ferdinand Minoia in Benz RH number 1 on the way to fourth place in the 1923 Grand Prix of Europe at Monza.

The Benz RH cars ran in the Grand Prix of Europe, also known as the Italian Grand Prix, in 1923. With only around 80bhp from their normally aspirated engines, they did not have the power to compete with the supercharged Fiats, but two of the three cars entered finished the race, Fernando Minoia in fourth place and Frank Hörner fifth. The rearward weight distribution gave them good traction, which was useful on hillclimbs, but the Tropfenwagen’s racing career was cut short by the economic conditions in Germany and the growing collaboration between Benz and Daimler, which began in 1924. As the partner with the wider range of motor sport activities and the greater success, Daimler assumed control of the group’s racing activities.

SUPERCHARGED SUCCESS

Count Giulio Masetti won the 1922 Targa Florio in Ralph DePalma’s old 4.5-litre Grand Prix Mercedes, but lining up in the same race were two cars that showed Daimler was already working on racing machinery based on new technology developed for aircraft engines during the war. Mechanical superchargers, which pumped air into the engine’s cylinders to increase the amount of fuel that could be burned, meant aircraft could fly faster and higher than ever before. In a race car they meant more power from smaller engines, and Daimler concentrated on the 1.5-litre Voiturette class.

The supercharged engine followed a pattern that would become a classic layout: an in-line six with twin overhead camshafts, four inclined valves per cylinder and a central spark plug in each combustion chamber. The vertical Roots blower was connected to the crankshaft by a cone clutch, which was engaged when the accelerator pedal was pushed all the way to the bulkhead. The new engine produced up to 79bhp, but activating the supercharger gave a violent increase in power, so driver awareness and skill were paramount.

Christian Werner and riding mechanic Karl Sailer on the way to winning the Targa Florio in 1924.

Werner’s Targa Florio-winning 2.0-litre Mercedes. The cars were painted red to give them easier passage in partisan Italy.

Rudolf Caracciola and riding mechanic Eugen Salzer aboard the supercharged straighteight Monza, heading for German Grand Prix victory at Avus in 1926.

Daimler entered two 2.0-litre supercharged cars for the 1923 Indianapolis 500, finishing eighth and eleventh, and the Indy car design formed the basis of two cars for the 1924 Targa Florio. They were painted red instead of the usual German racing white, the theory being that the partisan crowds would think they were Italian cars and refrain from throwing rocks as they passed – which had happened in the past. The Targa was a huge success for Daimler: Christian Werner won, with Christian Lautenschlager second and Alfred Neubauer third.

Paul Daimler had left for Horch and had been replaced as technical director by Ferdinand Porsche. The first complete car Porsche designed for Daimler was the 2.0-litre straighteight Monza for the 1924 Italian Grand Prix, but the ill-handling car killed Count Louis Zborowski. Only the emerging talent of the German driver Rudolf Caracciola seemed able to tame it: he won the first German Grand Prix in a sports car version at the Avus track in Berlin in July 1926.

More successful was the 6.2-litre 6-cylinder Model K, a large supercharged car with a top speed of 124km/h (77mph). The racing S (sport) version had an even larger 6.8-litre engine and a lower-slung chassis, and won the first race at the Nürburgring in Caracciola’s hands in 1927. The ‘White Elephants’, as the big supercharged Mercedes S cars became known, underlined their superiority a month later when they dominated the German sports car Grand Prix.

The ‘White Elephants’: the supercharged Mercedes line up for the inaugural race at the Nürburgring in June 1927. Note how eventual winner Caracciola (number 1) has the headlamps of his Model S turned sideways.

Mille Miglia 1931: Caracciola’s wife Charly steps away as Rudolf guns the SSKL away from the line, while co-driver Wilhelm Sebastian waves acknowledgement to the starter. Sixteen hours later they were back in Brescia as victors.

For 1928 there was a new engine, developed for the first time by a joint Daimler and Benz team. The 7.1-litre M06 developed 247bhp at 3,300rpm and powered the Super Sport or SS, which took the first three places in the German Grand Prix that July. The SSK was an abbreviated version (K stood for kurz, short) with 450mm chopped out of the wheelbase, for hillclimbs and tighter race tracks. Caracciola put it to good effect with third place behind a pair of lithe Bugattis in the inaugural Monaco Grand Prix in April 1929.

After winning a hillclimb in Prague, Caracciola then took the SSK to Ireland for the Tourist Trophy. Though the race began in brilliant sunshine, rain quickly came, and for an hour and a half Caracciola battled to stay ahead of Glen Kidston’s 6½-litre Bentley on the bumpy, slippery roads between Newtownards, Comber and Dundonald. When the Bentley skidded in the rain and landed in a ditch, Caracciola was left to reel in and pass the Alfa of Campari, which led on handicap. The Mercedes won by two minutes.

Bugatti still provided formidable opposition on tracks that favoured handling over straight-line speed, but more often than not the combination of Caracciola and the SSK was unbeatable. In 1930 he shared a car with Christian Werner in the Mille Miglia and the pair finished sixth, and he won the Irish Grand Prix. Caracciola also won every one of the seven hillclimbs the SSK competed in, finishing the year as European Hillclimb Champion.

The SSK was developed into the SSKL for 1931, with more power (nearly 300bhp) and significant efforts to reduce weight. Holes were punched into the chassis rails and out-riggers, saving 125kg, though the SSKL still tipped the scales at a substantial 1,352kg. It was Caracciola, naturally, who used the SSKL to win the Mille Miglia in 1931, at record speed. He was the first non-Italian to take the victory there, and the last until Stirling Moss’s win for Mercedes-Benz in 1955.

There were more victories for the SSKL that year, Caracciola winning three major races in Germany, and five international hillclimbs to once again take the European championship. But the impact of the Great Depression was being felt across Europe, and Daimler had to cut back its racing activities. In 1931 it supported private teams rather than run a works effort, then in 1932 it was forced to withdraw from competition completely.

1928 MERCEDES-BENZ SSK – SPECIFICATIONS

Chassis and bodyTypeOpen two-seater with alloy body panels and separate pressed steel ladder chassisEngineLocationFront engine, longitudinalBlockAluminium alloy with cast iron linersHeadCast ironCylinders6, in lineCoolingWaterLubricationPressure lubrication via gear pumpBore × stroke100 × 105mmCapacity7100ccMain bearings5Valves/operation2 overhead valves per cylinder, single overhead camshaft, finger followersCompression ratio5.4:1Fuel system2 × pressurized updraft carburettors and Roots superchargerIgnition systemBosch ZR6 magneto and battery double ignition, 2 × Bosch plugs per cylinderMaximum power247bhp at 3,300rpmMaximum torque414lb ft (562Nm) at 1,900rpmTransmissionRear-wheel drive; four-speed manual gearbox; dry multi-plate clutchSuspension and steeringFrontBeam axle, semi-elliptic leaf springs, hydraulic dampersRearBeam axle, semi-elliptic leaf springs, friction dampersSteeringWorm and nutWheels and tyresCentre-mount wire-spoke wheels, 5.00 × 30 high pressure tyresBrakesFront: internal band brakes, finned grey iron drums Rear: internal band brakes, finned grey iron drumsDimensionsLength4,250mm (167in)Width1,700mm (67in)Height1,250mm (49in)Wheelbase2,950mm (116in)Unladen weight1,520kg (3,351lb)PerformanceTop speed192km/h (119mph)Acceleration 0–60mphn/a

RUDOLF CARACCIOLA

Mercedes team manager Alfred Neubauer rated Rudolf Caracciola the best driver of the 1920s and ’30s, perhaps the best of all time. Caracciola was smart, versatile and devastatingly fast.

Caracciola was the star Mercedes driver of the 1920s and 1930s.

Born in Remagen in 1901 to a Sicilian family, Caracciola was apprenticed to the Fafnir car company in Aachen and made his racing debut in one of its 1.5-litre cars at Avus in 1922, where he won his class. After a brawl with a Belgian army officer he hastily moved east to Dresden, where he sold Fafnir and later Mercedes cars and raced on two and four wheels. At a race in the Teutoburg forest – which he won – he met his future wife Charlotte, known as Charly.

His reputation as Regenmeister, master of the rain, was established in his first big win, in the German Grand Prix at Avus in 1926. He stalled his 2.0-litre Mercedes at the start, losing more than a minute, but as rain started to fall he reeled in the leaders. After a pit stop to change a fouled plug he chased down Christian Riecken’s Berlin-built NAG and had built a lead of three minutes by the end. He used the prize money to marry Charly and set up his own Mercedes-Benz dealership in Berlin.

He won the inaugural race at the Nürburgring in 1927, and in 1929 he took third place in the first Monaco Grand Prix and won the Ulster Tourist Trophy, another victory in pouring rain. He was the first non-Italian winner of the Mille Miglia, in 1931, and won his second German Grand Prix that year in another wet race. He won again in 1932, this time driving for Alfa Romeo, but almost lost his right leg after a practice crash at Monaco in 1933. Then early in 1934 Charly was killed in an avalanche near their Swiss home.

He returned to racing with the Mercedes-Benz W25, adding more victories as he battled Auto-Union’s rising star, Bernd Rosemeyer. He won the European Championship an unprecedented three times and the German Grand Prix six times – a record that still stands today. On the Frankfurt–Darmstadt autobahn in 1937 he achieved 432km/h (268mph) in a Mercedes record car. Rosemeyer was killed trying to beat it.

Caracciola sat out the war in Switzerland. In 1946 he practised for the Indianapolis 500 but crashed after being struck on the head by, probably, a bird. He raced sports cars for Mercedes, but retired after another big crash at Bremgarten in the 300SL. His health deteriorated and he died in 1959 at the age of only 58.

Caracciola and SSK on the Klausen Pass in 1930. They won, of course.

CHAPTER TWO

THE FIRST SILVER ARROWS: GRAND PRIX RACING, 1934–9

An innovative Mercedes appeared at Avus in May 1932 that hinted, in more ways than one, at the way the marque’s motor racing future was about to develop. Manfred von Brauchitsch’s SSKL sported a startling streamlined body in light alloy, designed by aerodynamics expert Baron Koenig-Fachsenfeld and built in Cannstatt by Walter Vetter. In the rush to get the car finished the body was left unpainted, making this car the very first of the Mercedes-Benz ‘silver arrows’.

The Manfred von Brauchitsch SSKL streamliner, which was driven from Stuttgart to Berlin before the race. The licence plate was detachable.

The Cucumber, as it quickly became known due to its body shape, had 25 per cent less aerodynamic drag than a conventional SSKL and the top speed was 12mph (20km/h)