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To mark the 70th anniversary of The Donington Grand Prix, a Mercedes-Benz W125 racing car will return to celebrate its only competitive appearance in factory hands on British soil.

Event Director Julian Ghosh said “Even by today’s standards, the performance of the famous German Grand Prix teams back in 1937 must have been staggering. How fortunate we are to be able to relive some of this in 2007 with one of those actual Silver Arrows”.

The W125, with its 5.6 litre supercharged 8 cylinder engine producing some 640 bhp, will be in action on the Donington Park track on both days of The Vintage Sports-Car Club’s VSCC SeeRed 2007 event and will complement the weekend’s historic racing programme that varies from Edwardian Racers to Group C Endurance Cars.

VSCC President Martin Grant Peterkin commented “Every year SeeRed produces an attraction with something for everyone but I’m certain that enthusiasts will find the sight and sound of the Mercedes-Benz W125 extra special”.

The VSCC SeeRed 2007 festival continues to focus on attracting a fresh audience to it’s broad church of activities and to historic motor sport in general. As vintage racing becomes ever popular events such as the Edwardian race and the Williams Monaco Trophy will be run alongside other popular historic fayre such as Group C, Formula Junior and the Historic Grand Prix Car Association (HGPCA).


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^ Only starting with 1980s turbo GP racers was the W125 outpowered.

But its M123 isn't the most powerful engine. The Merc W25K AVUS streamliner of was.
It was a special 5.6 V12 supercharged alcohol fuel engine producing 700+ hp called DAB.

Ridiculous that time was. This makes me think that hp numbers will again retreat at some point for both road and race cars while they become more and more efficient, and then 30 years later hp will start exploding again. I mean when you think about it, that was 640hp 70 years ago! If things had kept going like that we'd be driving 700-800hp street cars and race cars of all types would be pushing 3500-5000hp on a regular basis I think.

M

Only GP cars.

As all other races cars were severly underpowered vs. the GP cars of 37.

In 1938 the displacement was cut to 3.0 litres for supercharged cars from unlimited in previous year.

So the new MB silver arrows lost about 200 hp.

But the new cars 1938/39 were just as fast as both MB and AU worked on chassis, aerodynamics, advanced materials, suspensions, brakes, transmissions, driver position witch improved handling, cornering (speeds),
braking and partially reduced wheelspin.

So by 1939 AICACR (renamed FIA in 1947) saw that 3.0 litre of displacement was still too much and made the silver arrows (due to their overall improvement even more dominant).
So they looked at the junior GP competition the formulae 1.5/voiturette class competition.
After WWII this formulae 1.5 became widely adopted, so in 1950 FIA sanctioned it and formulae 1.5 becamed Formula 1.

1937 was in many ways a turning point in the history of GP racing, as in that moment displacement would become controled and top speeds reduced.

The 1937 GP car in their streamline form could reach 380/390 Km/h (235-240 mph) on the AVUS racetrack and over 400 Km/h (over 250 mph) on the authobahns making the the fastest GP racers ever.
And the AVUS 1937 race by average and top speed is to this day the fastest GP ever held (and at its time the fastest race ever held). Not to mention that
thanks to its 350.000 to 400.000 spectator attendance (besides it's space age cars and insane speeds) it absolutely ridiculed both the Indy 500 and 24h of Le Mans.


[quote]
In 1937 the organizers of the Avus Race decided to drop the requirement of compliance with the 750 kg formula in force at the time, but to allow a free formula without any weight limit. Mercedes-Benz used this opportunity to fit the DAB V 12, 5.6 litre engine that was originally designed for speed record attempts - with over 730 hp , but too heavy for the 750 kg formula - into a W 25 chassis.

In addition to the V 12 engine, an aerodynamic body similar to that used for record cars was added to help cope with the high-speed Avus track in Berlin, which in 1937, for the first time had a steep bend. Manfred von Brauchitsch was nominated to drive the Avus W 25, and he finished the second qualifying round in first place. He had to drop out of the race, however, due to a gear lever defect. On the straights he reached speeds of up to 380 kmh.

--- source DaimlerChrysler/ supercars.net ---


The fastest GP racers (by top speed) in the fastest GP ever held.

Great post, Karma for you. I think that clip was from a History Channel special I saw about the 1930's rivalry between Mercedes and Auto Union. It was one of the more fascinating things I've ever seen on cars. Good lord, 730hp back in those days! I can't comprehend that.

M

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^ More on the silver arrows/GP racers:

Simple, german engineering baby.

Heck the aero record cars were with their aerodynamics were even more advanced as both MB and AU discovered not only how to reduce drag but also how to generate downforce via ground effects (Auto Union) or inverted airfoils (MB).

Had it not been for WWII who know what might have happened as they had a
tendency to put what worked on record cars onto GP racers.

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Excellent posts, Imhotep.

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^ Thank you. I'm quite interested in pre WWII GP racing and in particular the silver arrow time.