German Car Zone

Exactly!

I doubt the X5 would even be in existence if it weren't for the ML. Same could be said about the production of Maybach. I'm sure Benz knew way in advance that BMW was going to get Rolls-Royce and they knew to get work on a rival.

Those two will be battling as long as their companies exist.

In this case, it is a good thing that we still have the two of them as independent companies. The ones that have benefited the most are the consumers because of the rivalry that exist between them.

This might be due to lack of knowledge about the brands, but I have never found anything that differentiate American Ford from Chevrolet whereas the difference in character between BMW and Mercedes have always been quite noticeable.

Brilliant post doc. Yes there are very few if any differences from your average Chevy and Ford. They've both been found lacking in so many ways in the past it isn't even funny. The Ford vs Chevy rivalry is mainly based on the Mustang vs the Camaro and what they'll do at the track......in a straight line, their hp numbers etc. They do tend to follow each other into certain segments, sometimes....but MB vs BMW is a far more encompassing, sophisticated rivalry.

M

In 1933, German chancellor Adolf Hitler promised Mercedes-Benz the 500,000-reichsmark (approximately $3 million today) incentive offered to any German racing team willing to campaign a car in the new grand prix era beginning the following year. To the Führer's chagrin, Ferdinand Porsche stepped forward to request equal treatment. Porsche presented drawings of a supercharged V-16 engine ideal for propagandizing Germany's technical eminence and nominated the Auto Union combine as Mercedes-Benz's sparring partner. Hitler's resolution - an equal split of the sponsorship largesse - triggered the Age of Titans, one of the fiercest rivalries in motorsports history.

The new-for-1934 grand prix formula was intended to curb speeds by limiting the maximum (not the usual minimum) car weight to 750 kilos (1654 pounds, not including tires and liquids). Rules writers expected the incumbent Alfa Romeo, Bugatti, and Maserati teams to field 3.0-liter engines producing about 200 hp. What they got was a major surprise. Before the 750-kilo era ended in 1937, the two German teams pummeled rivals - and each other - with supercharged engines that topped 6.0 liters and 500 hp. The lighter materials, exotic fuels, suspension advancements, and streamlining implemented by these so-called silver arrows fostered 200-mph racing speeds.

Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union butted heads on forty-seven occasions between 1934 and 1939, with the front-engine Mercedes cars from Stuttgart winning twenty-eight times versus eighteen victories for the mid-engine team from Chemnitz. Both teams were trumped but once, when an unstoppable Tazio Nuvolari triumphed in the 1935 German Grand Prix in an Alfa Romeo campaigned by Scuderia Ferrari.

The heroic Germans fought equally hard in mountain-climb and speed-record venues. Over six seasons, Mercedes won three climbs and shattered seventeen speed records, versus seventeen climb victories and forty-one speed records achieved by the Auto Union team.


Auto Union vs Mercedes Benz - Great Rivalries - Automobile Magazine


Nice read, but entirely too short.


M