The Mille Miglia is a legendary long road race in Italy. Instead of a closed race track, it historically ran along public roads, so it’s a big test of speed and endurance.
Person
Sterling Maas
Sterling Moss was a British race driver from the 1950s. The episode mentions him to show that Mercedes had top international drivers in the Mille Miglia.
The 1955 Mille Miglia was a major Italian race where cars drove on real public roads, not a closed track. It’s remembered for being brutally fast and difficult, and this episode treats it as the key moment in the Mercedes comeback story.
This phrase is describing how long the Mille Miglia is—about 992 miles—and that it’s run on regular roads. Racing that far on public roads makes it much harder than a typical track race.
A navigator is the person riding with the driver to help them stay on the right route. In races like the Mille Miglia, that job is crucial because you’re moving fast and need accurate instructions.
The Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR is a famous race car from the 1950s. It’s known for being extremely fast and technologically advanced for its time, and in this story it’s the car Moss and his co-driver used in the 1955 Mille Miglia.
Dennis Jenkinson was a highly respected racing navigator and co-driver, especially known for his work in the Mille Miglia era. In this episode, he’s identified as Sterling Moss’s navigator in the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR.
Stuttgart is a major German automotive city and home to key Mercedes-Benz operations. The episode uses Stuttgart’s post-war destruction to set up the “Mercedes miracle” theme—how the company planned to race again despite devastation.
Daimler and Benz were two big German car companies. They later combined into what we now know as Mercedes-Benz, and both had to rebuild after major world events.
Mercedes-Benz is the combined car company that came from Daimler and Benz. The story here is about how it had to recover and restart production after the war.
Alfred Neubauer was an important early racing team organizer. The host says he helped invent the job of team manager—basically coordinating what the team does during races.
In racing, a team manager is the person who runs the team behind the scenes. They coordinate strategy and communication so the drivers and mechanics can execute during the race.
Ferdinand Porsche was a famous car engineer. In this story, he’s connected to the racing-management figure Neubauer and to Mercedes’ engineering work in the 1920s.
The host points to a specific German Grand Prix as the moment that inspired Neubauer’s team-management ideas. The idea is that the race was so chaotic that someone needed to coordinate things better.
Rudy Carracciola was a well-known German race driver. In this story, he’s mentioned as winning a Grand Prix that helped show why better race organization was needed.
Here, logistics means planning how everything gets organized and coordinated for a race. The host says Neubauer wanted to handle that because races were too chaotic for ad-hoc decisions.
Concept
mechanized artillery
Mechanized artillery is big military guns that are moved using vehicles and engines. The host is saying that experience helped him later organize racing operations where timing and resources are limited.
Austro-Daimler was an old-school company that made vehicles and engines. Here it’s mentioned because some military vehicles were built by them, linking to the logistics story.
Grand Prix racing is the highest level of major European car racing. The host is basically saying it was the big deal of its time, like today’s F1 championship.
Alfa Romeo is an Italian car brand that also raced at the top level. The host is saying Mercedes wasn’t racing alone—Alfa Romeo was one of the big rivals.
In the 1930s, German state involvement in motorsport meant racing success could be tied to national prestige. The host describes Hitler’s government putting money into auto racing and supporting teams to help them build competitive Grand Prix cars.
Auto Union was a German racing team and car brand. The episode says they showed up with a strong new race car and challenged Mercedes in the 1930s.
Concept
nationalism
Here, nationalism means countries using racing results to show pride and strength. The idea is that winning on track is also a way to prove your country’s engineering ability.
The Gordon Bennett races were an early era of international car racing. In this discussion, they’re used as an example of how countries competed to show off their strength.
Fuel injection is a way of getting gasoline into the engine more precisely than older carburetors. In race cars, that precision can help the engine respond better and make more power.
Term
downward-bends technology
This phrase is describing a “trickle-down” idea—technology developed for a high-tech field gets reused in a different field. Here, the speaker suggests racing benefited from advanced aircraft-engine know-how.
Aircraft engines are engines built for airplanes. The point here is that some racing technology came from what engineers learned making engines for aircraft.
Telemetry is how a race team gets live data from the car while it’s running. Instead of only guessing from feel, engineers can see what the car is doing.
Driver feedback is what the driver tells the engineers about how the car feels. It can include things like whether it turns well or feels unstable.
Person
Olin Hout
The host is talking about Olin Hout, an engineer who helped Daimler-Benz get back on track after World War II. They credit him with bringing practical road-car thinking into racing when it was time to compete again.
Car
W194
The W194 is a Mercedes-Benz race car that Daimler-Benz used to come back to top-level racing in the early 1950s. Even though it resembles the famous 300 SL Gullwing, it’s built for racing, not just adapted from a normal road car.
The 300 SL Gullwing is the famous Mercedes-Benz road car people recognize by its shape. The host is saying the race car (W194) looks similar, but it’s not the same thing as the road car.
The 300 SL Gullwing is a classic sports car made by Mercedes-Benz. It’s well known for its doors that open upward like wings. It’s the street version people recognize, especially when the conversation shifts to race cars built for competition.
Concept
make do and mend
This phrase means “use what you have and fix it,” especially when resources are scarce. The host uses it to describe how the team had to improvise to get back into racing soon after the war.
Formula One is the highest level of open-wheel racing. In this story, Daimler-Benz is waiting to see what the rules and future of it will be before deciding how to spend its limited budget.
This describes an engine with six cylinders lined up in a row, with about a 3.0-liter total size. Six-cylinder inline engines tend to run smoothly, which helps in long races where the car has to stay consistent.
A space frame is a car frame made from a welded “skeleton” of tubes. It’s built to be both light and very stiff, which helps a race car handle well and survive hard use.
This is a frame design that uses triangles to make the car’s structure harder to twist. Because it’s “stressed,” the frame itself is meant to take a lot of the forces instead of leaving that job to the body panels.
Term
arrow-cheating silver body
This is a description of the car’s shape being designed to slice through the air better. In racing, better aerodynamics can make the car faster and more efficient.
Le Mans is a famous race where cars have to keep going for 24 hours. It’s not just about speed—teams also have to make the car last, and the rules strongly influence how the car is built.
Carrera Panamericana was a tough long-distance race where cars drove big distances at speed. The host is saying this Mercedes was strong enough to win it.
Le Mans is one of the biggest endurance races in the world, and it lasts 24 hours. The host mentions it to show how successful the Mercedes-Benz W194 was across multiple top races.
Rudy Caracciola was a famous racing driver from Germany. The hosts mention him because he had major Mercedes-Benz results and was connected to earlier Mille Miglia wins.
Car
Mercedes Benz SSKL
The Mercedes-Benz SSKL was a powerful Mercedes-Benz from the early 1930s. The host mentions it because it represents the earlier generation of Mercedes success before the later W194 results in the Mille Miglia.
Term
dirt disposal
In racing, cars can get hit with dirt, spray, or debris that can hurt grip and performance. The host is saying Mercedes-Benz had a better way to deal with that kind of mess than other teams.
Fuel injection is how an engine gets fuel in a more precise way than older carburetors. It helps the engine run better and respond more accurately, especially under racing conditions.
Formula 1 (F1) is the top tier of open-wheel, single-seater racing with strict technical rules set by the sport’s governing body. Here, the hosts describe how Mercedes’ plans shifted as the path to F1 became clearer through regulations.
The FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile) is the governing body that oversees major international motorsport rules and championships. In the segment, Ferrari threatens to take the dispute to the FIA over sportsmanship and conduct.
Reims refers to the Reims circuit area in France, a venue used for major motorsport events in the 1950s. The segment places Mercedes’ shift toward Grand Prix racing in the timeframe leading up to their Formula 1 arrival at Reims in 1954.
Car
W196
The Mercedes-Benz W196 is a landmark Formula 1 car from the mid-1950s, notable for its distinctive aerodynamic shape and racing success. In this segment, it’s described as breaking some F1 design conventions of the era, with a flatter, more streamlined body and a large front intake.
A streamliner body version is an aerodynamic race-car body style designed to reduce drag by enclosing and smoothing airflow around the car. The segment contrasts the W196’s streamliner configuration with an open-wheel version, emphasizing how unusual the design was.
An open-wheel version is a race car configuration where the wheels are not fully enclosed by bodywork. The segment uses this to describe a less-common W196 variant, noting it as unusual compared with the more famous enclosed streamliner look.
Normally aspirated means the engine doesn’t use a turbo or supercharger to force air in. “Two-and-a-half liter” is the engine size—how much space the pistons move through.
Supercharging uses a pump to cram extra air into the engine. That extra air helps the engine make more power than it could with just normal air intake.
Inboard drum brakes mean the braking parts are mounted closer to the center of the car, not right at each wheel. That can help the wheels move more freely, but it’s a different setup than the brakes most people are used to.
Fuel load just means how much fuel is in the tank. As you burn fuel, the car gets lighter, so teams adjust the setup to keep handling predictable.
Car
Lancia D50
The Lancia D50 is a well-known Formula One race car from the 1950s. Here it’s discussed as the main competitor to Mercedes’s car, and the host suggests it might have performed even better with more of them running.
Person
Vittorio Iano
Vittorio Jano was an important Italian engineer who helped design race engines. The host is using him as an example of the kind of engineering talent that influenced later racing decades.
“Three-liter” means the engine’s size is about 3.0 liters. In racing, engine size often determines which class you can compete in, so it matters a lot.
This refers to the major global series for endurance and sports-car racing. The host is saying the Mercedes 300 SLR was built to compete for the biggest events in that championship.
An air brake is a flap or panel that sticks out into the airflow to slow the car down. Instead of relying only on the brakes, it uses wind resistance to help slow you and can also help keep the car planted.
Disc brakes are brakes where pads squeeze onto a spinning metal disc to slow the car. They’re known for strong stopping power and good heat handling compared with older brake designs.
A movable aero device is a part of the car that can move to change how the air flows around it. That can help the car stick to the road or slow down more effectively, depending on how it’s positioned.
“Electron” is a special lightweight metal alloy made mostly of magnesium. The idea is to make the car lighter without giving up strength.
Person
Max Furstallman
Max Furstallman is mentioned as a reference point when the speaker describes Fangio’s arrival in Europe. The segment doesn’t provide enough context to clearly identify him beyond being associated with the story’s timeline.
Car
Mercedes W165
The Mercedes W165 is a specific Mercedes racing project. The hosts say Mercedes was considering it as a Formula 1-style car, and they believed getting Fangio was crucial for success.
Noibauer is a Mercedes person involved in planning the team’s racing direction. In this story, he pushes the idea that Mercedes could win if they got Fangio.
“Pre-war” just means before World War II. In racing history, that’s important because the sport changed a lot after the war.
Term
figurehead
In this context, “figurehead” means the main star or the person everyone looks to as the leader. The speaker is saying Fangio was that central presence for Mercedes.
Stirling Moss was a top British race driver. The story here is that he impressed Mercedes even when he was driving cars that weren’t the best, which made him stand out.
They’re mentioning a specific long-distance race (a “500”) that Moss’s father competed in. It’s just being used to show the family had racing experience.
Pace notes are like a driver’s cheat sheet for the road ahead. They’re written down so the driver can remember the important details and drive more confidently and quickly, especially on long routes.
Sports car racing refers to endurance-style competition where cars are built for long stints and overall race performance rather than just short sprints. In this segment, it’s the context for why route scouting and pace notes mattered for going faster over long distances.
A co-driver is like a navigator sitting next to the driver. They help by reading instructions and upcoming road details so the driver knows what to expect.
John Fitch was a well-known racing driver. In this part of the story, he’s involved in the team plans and the decision-making around the new race approach.
A sidecar championship is motorcycle racing with two people—one rides the bike and the other rides in the sidecar. The episode mentions it as a major racing achievement from 1949.
Jenks was a motorsport journalist who wrote about races for readers. The hosts describe him as traveling around Europe to cover big events and sending back reports.
The Porsche 356 is an old-school Porsche sports car from the early days of the brand. Here it’s mentioned as the kind of car Jenks would arrive with when covering races.
Term
toilet paper roll
That phrase is a nickname for the pace-note setup. It suggests the notes were arranged in a long, strip-like way—almost like a roll—so the driver could reference them quickly.
A “1000 mile race” is a very long race where you can’t just drive flat out the whole time. You also have to plan for things like fuel so you can finish and stay competitive.
Hand signals are a way for the crew to communicate with the driver using gestures instead of talking. The hosts say it worked better because the driver couldn’t hear instructions while pushing hard.
Hockenheim is a famous race track in Germany. The hosts mention it because that’s where they tried out a modern communication idea for drivers and crews.
A headset system is basically a driver-crew communication setup using a microphone and headphones. The story says it didn’t solve the problem because at maximum effort the driver couldn’t hear the audio well.
The Mercedes-Benz 300 SL is a classic Mercedes sports car. Here it’s mentioned as part of Mercedes-Benz’s mix of entries, bridging road-car roots and race-car performance.
Car
Mercedes-Benz saloons
“Saloons” here means regular Mercedes-Benz sedans, not race cars. The point is that Mercedes-Benz entered a wide variety of cars in the same event.
Car
Mercedes-Benz 722
“Mercedes-Benz 722” is the race number assigned to Sterling Moss and Denis Jenkinson’s Mercedes-Benz entry, matching their start time at 7:22 a.m. The host highlights how the number became famous and visually iconic—painted in large “big block” letters on the car.
Denis Jenkinson was a British motorsport figure and race driver. In this episode, he’s the co-driver with Sterling Moss for the Mercedes-Benz at the Mille Miglia.
Rudy Caratula is mentioned as the driver who won the Mille Miglia in 1931. The episode uses him to explain how rare it was for a non-Italian car to win before the Mercedes-Benz moment.
Place
Breccia
Breccia is the place the host keeps referring to in the Mille Miglia story. It’s where the race action is happening, and it’s part of the “722” coincidence being described.
LIVE
Team manager Alfred Neubauer watches Juan Fangio take a Mercedes up to the starting
point of perhaps the greatest international road race of them all, the Milimilia.
Another Mercedes in the German team with English ace Sterling Maas at the wheel and a third
is driven by Carl Kling, ahead of them are a thousand miles of some of the toughest racing
in the world, right across Italy.
This is horsepower heritage, I'm Maurice Merrick.
My guest this week is motorsport historian Colin Johnston and the subject is what many
consider to be one of the greatest races of all time, the 1955 Milimilia.
Here's my conversation with Colin Johnston.
Enjoy.
Colin, I must say I really enjoy your writing, it is enthusiastic, it's right up my alley.
Where did you get this passion for vintage motorsport history?
It's a good question, it's always been with me.
I discovered, for people who don't know, I'm from Northern Ireland so there's a lot of motorsport
here and I grew up going to see the rallying and the motorbike racing so it's kind of always been
in the air here. I discovered Formula One 40 odd years ago and way back then kids, what you had
to do was you had to go to the library because there was two weeks between every Grand Prix
and if you know if you watched Nicky Lauder race on a Sunday and you thought it was the best thing
ever, the only thing to do was to go to the public library and find some books about it so
inevitably from the get go I was looking back in time to a certain extent but I just love history,
I love motor racing but I love big personalities and great stories so that's what's taken me down
that route in terms of a passion and it's evolved to whatever it's become now by dint of it's really
just the technologies caught up with me. I've been talking about motor racing and motor racing
history for decades and it's just gone from the schoolyard to the workplace to the old
internet forums to social media to to writing about it now and it would be more of a formal way
but yeah I just love stories and I love motor racing. Before we get into our discussion today
which I think is going to be fascinating for people, I do want to mention your website which is
racingdaydreams.com and I really encourage people to check it out. I'll have links in
the show notes by the way, Colin. That's very kind of you, thanks for that. And today our big
subject is what I want to call the Mercedes miracle. Perhaps it wasn't a miracle but
there are some remarkable things that happened and the center of our story is the 1955 Millimilia
which is a 992.3 mile road race through the public roads of Italy and when was the first
Millimilia run? I think it was 1928? 2027 I think? Certainly in that period. Yeah it had run for
30 years with a couple of inevitable gaps but from 27 to 57 I think. And the remarkable thing about
the 1955 race is the incredible breakneck pace of Sterling Moss with his navigator Dennis Jenkinson
in the 300 SLR, the beast of a Mercedes and here's the thing that's so astounding. In 1945
the Mercedes-Benz factories are smoking piles of rubble and in 10 years they have developed
this supercar. The technology in it we'll talk about all that but I mean it's so astounding.
It is. I read that the Great British journalist Lawrence Pomeroy visited Stuttgart 1946 somewhere
about there and one of the first things he did was he went to see what was left of the Mercedes-Benz
works and if anybody knows a little bit of history of Stuttgart, Stuttgart was
hammered and I think 80% of the Mercedes works, the Daimler-Benz works, were gone just
three hours ago and Pomeroy visited the ruins and got speaking to the guy who was acting
director of Daimler-Benz at that time and at the end of the conversation the director of
Daimler-Benz turned around to Pomeroy and said when will they let Mercedes-Benz race again?
So he's literally standing in the middle of the smouldering wreckage of their factories.
They have no route to market, virtually no product. The country isn't even a national state
but already Mercedes-Benz is thinking about how they're going to go racing again so I think
that's the core of the story that we're going to be looking at. Yes and I don't know about Mercedes-Benz
but I know that other German manufacturers produced whatever they could to survive after the war.
I know that BMW made pots and pans for a time, just consumer goods, whatever it took.
Yep absolutely and but this was the second occasion that Daimler and Benz had gone through this
because they had the same situation after the First World War effectively, not the same sense
of destruction to their works but I've just recently written a piece for the Mercedes-Benz Formula 1
website to mark 100 years of the merger of Daimler and Benz to form the Mercedes-Benz company that
we know today and part of that is from the aftermath of the First World War and financial
crash and just poverty and just the horrors of recovering from this wartime period and yes back
then Mercedes were making typewriters and bicycles and very much the same score after the Second
World War. They're making do what they can and they're pressing as hard as possible to get some
sort of production running again. Thankfully they were left with the tooling to their successful 170
road car, their small road car and off the basis of that they're able to make a few vehicles and
get a start made again but yeah it's astounding. I suppose ultimately they had no choice but it's
remarkable what they achieved in such a short period of time. Absolutely and in the 1920s there's
a very interesting figure that will come into our story in the 50s and his name is Alfred Neubauer
and I tell people about Neubauer what a character. What a character. A self-made man, a man who
literally not only created his own life and his own caricature but created an entire profession
for himself. He was the man who effectively created the team manager in motor racing.
He was a racing driver and a close associate of Ferdinand Porsche and when Porsche moved to
Daimler to work for building the Mercedes cars in the 1920s Neubauer came with him,
decided that his racing days were behind him. His racing days weren't terribly spectacular in the
first place but basically made the role of team manager for himself because he had observed how
crazy races could be and the big trigger for it was the 1826 German Grand Prix where Rudy
Carracciola was winning and he didn't know he was winning and it was craziness on track. Everybody
just went hella for leather in the races and the timekeepers tried to keep up so Neubauer was the
first man to say I'm going to take charge of logistics, I'm going to have signals, I'm going to
have flags, I'm going to have timing. We are going to be on top of this organizationally but he could
do that because he was such a larger than life character and from the 1920s right through to
the mid 1950s he was the heartbeat of Mercedes Benz racing team. Right and he wasn't an engineer,
he wasn't on the technical side of things but he was a logistics genius and he had learned this,
of course he had natural talent for this process but he had been a logistics officer in the first
war and he had been in charge of the logistics for mechanized artillery, gun tractors, those gun
tractors coincidentally were built by Austro Daimler, designed by Ferdinand Porsche, that was
how they made their first association I think so he had this logistics background from the war.
Absolutely and it could into play when resources were really finite. His first big example of
applying great logistics to a problem in motorsport as I say in 2060 he started this whole thing of
we're going to organize the team. Come 1931 when again in a dip in the world economy Mercedes Benz
aren't really doing any racing but Neubauer entered Rudy Carachola with a private Mercedes Benz
into the Milimilia in 1931 and spoiler alert they won and they won with it was Neubauer,
it was Rudy Carachola and his co-driver, it was Rudy's wife and it was two mechanics
to cover a thousand miles of Italy with depots and fuel stops and against the entire mate of
Alfa Romeo and all the rest. So that was his genius, that really was his genius and
it comes into play then again as Mercedes Benz rises once again and returns to ground
pre-racing after the Second World War. Hey guys I want to take a quick break to say if you enjoy
Horsepower Heritage there are a few ways you can support the show go to buymeacoffee.com forward
slash hp heritage and become a patron there's a link in the show notes you can make a one-time
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the show thanks for your support and now back to the show. Carachola of course is Italian but
Rudy Carachola was a German his family had come from Naples that that branch of the Caracholo family
was in Naples it was in Germany in I think the 1600s. Absolutely the shifting borders and the
shifting workforces of central Europe all through the 19th century and Rudy Carachola then was born
in Ramagan close to the Belgian border where his family ran a hotel on the riverside and was
a remarkable character was I don't think gets enough consideration and gets enough plaudits in
the grand scheme in that era in the 20s and 30s and whatnot he's rather overshadowed by
Nufalari and one or two others but Rudy Carachola was a fantastic racing driver and did some really
big things in our sport and is central is central to the Mercedes and Mercedes Benz story because
it's quite nice that Rudy Carachola was born in 1901 and he was born something like two weeks before
the first ever Mercedes car started to race so there's this sort of symmetry
between Carachola and Mercedes brand it seems very fitting considering all the great things he did
at the wheel of a Mercedes Benz and he would go on to be a three-time Grand Prix champion in the 1930s
yes three-time European champion for anybody not big on history this was big time racing
the effectively the equivalent of the F1 world championship we have today the European championship
for Grand Prix racing in the 1930s I really wanted three times in 1935 37 and 38 at the wheel of
remarkable Mercedes Benz Grand Prix cars against huge competition with Auto Union and with Alfa
Romeo and the rest right and at that time by the middle 1930s of course Hitler's government was
putting a lot of money into auto racing they wanted to be supreme so these are the years of the
definitely there was German government support their most definitely was
again it's maybe slightly over over egged that side of things a wee bit what there was was
potential for these companies to get really good government contracts by proving how excellent
they were at their engineering so there was the the German government did put up a stipend to try
and get a competitive Grand Prix car at the start of the 1930s what they didn't anticipate was that
Mercedes Benz thought they were going to get that no problem this upstart team of Auto Union this
new Grand Prix car designed by Ferdinand Porsche I stepped up and said we would like it as well
so the money was split between the two but there was various bonuses and whatnot but
and it is true the government supported them but it's also near when the French government
and French people were trying to raise money as well not very well to generate a better Grand
Prix presence for France and similarly in Italy the government was very much behind the racing
team so a real return to nationalism really probably like the Gordon Bennett races in the
early 1900s there was this sense that the big nations were stepping up and realizing the
importance of Grand Prix motor racing to prove their national strength just to be the big guys
flying the flag but also to improve their engineering and to improve the quality of their
engineers and the processes that we see today through Grand Prix racing are all high-end motor
racing how it can drive on engineering solutions and it's a great platform to train up engineers to
move on to all their branches so it was a great era of really fantastic competitive racing and as
you say it was technologically from 1932 to 1940 it blazed through technology in terms of
the advances made it in motor racing and of course the war brings all of that to a swift
close but after the war do you think Colin that Mercedes had a little bit of an advantage over
other nations given the technology that they had developed in the 30s?
I would say that probably did because when a big part of the story of Mercedes Benz
returning to Grand Prix racing is the fact they come back with fuel-injected engines which
necessarily is a downward-bends technology that has been developed through three aircraft engines
primarily they have an advantage as well because they come from such a strong starting point
you may say well England Britain has come out of the war in a better position why have they not
developed these great racing cars because pre-war their racing was geared more towards
watcherettes and sports car racing and despite the push they were never big time at the Grand Prix
level so there was not that starting point so Mercedes and a downward bends had just had a
lot of knowledge and a lot of experience and as soon and thankfully they had a lot of their big
presences within the team and the great engineers had survived the war so they were just in a
position when there was some finance provision to go racing like motor racing today
you can't unlearn what you what you know so those guys were eager and ready to go racing again so
I think their big advantage would have been just the previous knowledge within the organization
within the men who were responsible for racing team. Right and namely that would be Neubauer as
team manager but Rudy Ullenhout as the technical director. Yes Ullenhout is a fantastic character
really interesting character someone I've been looking into recently there'll be a piece down
the line very shortly about Ullenhout. Good. You know it's an anniversary of Ullenhout's birth
Ullenhout was a sport in London as Muller was English and a fascinating character very outward
looking internationally minded man who again after the First World War was kind of forced to
travel with his family and had a very interesting outlook on life and was a great engineer a great
engineer who came as an apprentice to downward bends start working on road cars and something
repeats through Mercedes history is the fact that a good engineer is
and so often through the history of the company you see people have come from the shop floor
I've gone on to do great things within the racing team just by dint of being recognized that they
are a talent and a great engineer is while they're working on a diesel road
car or on a Grand Prix car. So Ullenhout very quickly found himself in charge of the engineering
side of the Grand Prix team when Mercedes had such a terrible season in 1936 where the development
of the car got so badly wrong it was time for a new broom and he was brought in then to oversee
the engineering side of the racing department and his great talent as well was he was a fine
driver which made the difference and in an era where not only was there no technical way of
measuring the car that we do now with telemetry etc etc driver feedback really wasn't a thing either
we were still at the generation of guys who just jumped in and drove. I mean there are
guys who had come from you know cable breaks and no front brakes and now we're driving this
big Grand Prix car so let me just you just drive it you know just get in and do the best job you
can and you have talent and you get on with it but really being able to drive himself then
to drive pretty rapidly was able to jump in the Grand Prix cars do the laps themselves do the times
and also then traded it well he used the lessons he learned from road cars things that are taken
for granted today things that you'll perhaps call and chop and brought in simple things like
let's just make sure we've got all four wheels on the ground all the time and the wheels are upright
you know the basics you know let's just let's just keep it simple guys it's not supposed to bend
and let's keep all four wheels on the ground I will take that as a starting point so yeah so
Olin Hout was a fantastic talent and then it is elemental to the rebirth of Daimler Benz and
he's after the war in terms of road car production and then when it's time to go racing again of
course he's back to his old tricks in charge of the engineering side of that. Yes and so
by the early 1950s Daimler Benz orchestrates its return to the international competition stage
and the key machine here is the W194 which people will recognize the road car model being the
300 SL Gullwing but the W194 is a purpose built race car it looks similar to a Gullwing but in
fact not the same car how do they accomplish this? It's a really interesting story and it comes back
to again this necessity it's great engineering but there's an element of make do and mend as well
because it's only this handful of years since they had virtually nothing very quickly after the war
as they say they want to go racing they initially think we're going to go on pre-racing again that's
what we've done we're see these bands and they quickly run into problems with that they try to
revive old cars from 1939 they take them to Buenos Aires and it goes badly and oh right okay what are
we going to do? So right from the start of Formula One when Formula One's really starting to get going
1948-49 they're looking at Grand Prix racing again but they're unsure as to how the Formula is going
to go do we bring back old pre-war cars etc etc and the way the formula was going things were
looking a bit precarious with Formula One it's our 1951 that's all up in the air Alfa Romeo's
leaving the sports not a great ship so the board of management backs away from plans that were made
there was plans for a Grand Prix car but no no no hang on we don't know what's happening with
Grand Prix motor racing don't know what the formula is going to be we're not putting the money into
that but instead let's look at a sports car but the budget's small you're going to have to do it
off the back as much as possible of production car technology and as quite often is the case
constraints apply to anything increases the amount of creativity that's required and the amount of
creativity that's brought to the problem so they design this racing sports car a small racing sports
car a three-liter car straight six engine based on a production engine and what Ullenhout does
is he designs space frame chassis for it something he's actually been doodling at the end of the
war sort of between jobs this idea of this lightweight stressed triangulated chassis
and they wrap it in this arrow-cheating silver body which is very much like in your mind's eye
when you see the Gullwing cruising through the city or down the boulevard today that Gullwing
look very much looks like that but this was a smaller purpose-built racing car to go and win
the great sports car races of that time known today for being the Gullwing and that was out of
necessity the first ones actually effectively had a small hatch just the side windows popped open
the guys had to jump in and out of it a bit it was a bit like the Dukes of Hazard kind of had to
sort of dive in through the window and but that was I was a bit flaky and when it came time to enter
the mall the automobile club the west said that does not constitute a door you've got to think
again these are the regulations so Ullenhout went away and looked at where the chassis tubes were
looked at what he could do and the only solution because of the high effective sill with this
triangulated chassis was to put on these Gullwing doors hinge from the top and that was just pure
engineering as the desire to go racing the constraints applied by it having to have some
sort of production base somehow to it and the confines of the rules of the Le Mans 24 hour race
created Mercedes great sports car perhaps the first supercar one of the most iconic cars in the world
and I'm sure it didn't really matter to the drivers whether it was a window hatch
or a door hatch because that thing was a flying coffin any way you look at it if it had overturned
there's no getting out of that car yeah well that's true it was a
fiercely machine and it was a quick machine it was a 175 brake horsepower but yeah if it's upside
down you're in trouble having said that it was a strong enough car that won the Carrera Pan
Americana and the car that won the Carrera Pan Americana had a vulture on the highway that high
speed came in through the windscreen and you know not only did everybody walk away they continued
on and won that great road race so so yeah it was tough and the Carrera was a bit of a proving
ground for the Milimilia was it not I mean the W194's first entry into the Carrera Pan Americana
was 52 52 yep it did all the great sports car races that season it won Le Mans 24 hours that was the
one where Pierre Levegue and I want to say the Talbot Lago yes did 22 and a half hours or something
crazy like that that famous story where at the end of the race did the car just let him down at
moments in discretion his part threw away this remarkable potential win and Mercedes won that
they won that they won the Carrera Pan Americana and there was the Eiffel Rennon and there was a
support race to the Swiss Grand Prix as well which ended up being Rudy Caracola's last race
and then they entered the Milimilia in 1952 with the W194 this first 300 SL and they finished
second and fourth and in fourth place was Rudy Caracola who had won it in 1931 on the Mercedes Benz
SSKL so an incredible contrast between Ferdinand Porsche's design from the 1930s until the 1920s
and this new little racing car so it was a great drive by Rudy but they achieved great things
considering the origins of the car and the performance of the car the output of the car
they achieved fantastic results just by a dent of great engineering and great organization
and great drivers and their big competition in these years is Ferrari, Jaguar,
Maserati's in there too but they seem to have a technological advantage over their competitors
they do and it's interesting because you were talking about this wonder of this return of
Mercedes and there's something in a lot of my writing about Mercedes that I do from my own
website or from Mercedes F1 I'm always keen to point out that they had a dirt disposal when
everybody else had a dirt disposal they did a better job of it because I think sometimes we
look back at Mercedes Benz across decades and we think of it as being a bit of a steamroller
perhaps you know Mercedes turns up and wow the results see when everything and then they go away
again but there's as much jeopardy in this hard work as anybody else put in and the results
quite a lot of results could have tipped the other way and they couldn't have been great successes
but they had that experience from the 1930s that was still really coming into play
they had achieved so many great things and as I said they they had so much understanding
they did great things for that 300 SL but then that was set aside they had plans to run it
into 1953 in a different version they made a prototype of this first little girl when they
made a chassis number 11 was a proving ground for what a next generation of that car could be
with fuel injection and it's like a 300 recourse power version but at that time the route to Formula
1 was starting to open up for Mercedes Benz regulations were set in place Formula 1 had
stabilised a bit Mercedes Benz wanted to get back into Grand Prix racing so at the conclusion of
that successful 1952 season they wrapped up the sports car racing full of time being and actually
they put out a press statement in a very slightly high-handed Germanic way saying that basically
we have we have turned up with our sports cars and as you see we've won nearly everything
so we're the best so we're going to go away now thank you very much
we have nothing more to prove it was in polite words they basically put out a
press statement and Ferrari took it particularly badly as you would expect and threatened to
take it to the FIA and said this is unsportsmanlike and terrible and Mercedes are so good just turn
up any circuit of their choosing and we'll beat them but Mercedes decided that they needed to focus
on a Formula 1 project and return to Grand Prix motor racing so from that period then at the end
of 52 through to the arrival in Formula 1 of Mercedes Benz at Reims in 1954 their focus really
was on on Grand Prix motor racing again and the car was the W196 which broke with some of the
design conventions of F1 at the time it was much less a torpedo shape and more flat and it certainly
streamlined a massive front intake really a very futuristic looking car yeah a lot of people focus
quite rightly on the on the streamliner body version which first appeared
the all-enveloping bodywork enclosed wheels Grand Prix car but I agree with you that the
more standard for one of a better phrase open wheel version of the W196 was a very unusual
racing car for the time it was fairly low but as you say it was it was wide and the suspension
was enclosed by the bodywork and yeah it was a very different solution to as you say to the
essentially pre-war cigar tube kind of shapes that we were we were seeing at that time but again
forward thinking and a new approach from Mercedes Benz as well because in this new formula it
necessitated a two-and-a-half liter normally aspirated engine and for 20 odd years more Mercedes Benz
had been synonymous with supercharging you know that would have been what brought them so much
success in motor racing so in that regard as well as a new way to go Grand Prix motor racing for them
but remarkable success with that and fantastic technology within the engine of that positively
actuated inlets the fuel injection system inboard drum brakes for lower on sprung weight a lever to
adjust back suspension when the fuel load goes down change the camber just all sorts of Mercedes
Benz solutions it was a close run thing as to whether it would appear about first race
but once it did and once they got it running cleanly because that was a tough weekend for them at
Raymond 1954 they never look back it was a fantastic two seasons and for in Formula One for
for the Silver Arrows yes and an elegant car I would say the construction of it is not as obvious
as say a Lancia D50 or the Alphetas they those cars were much more oh workshop I suppose
does that make sense versus the W96 which there's a there's an air of aeronautics in the car
yes yes I get that and of course the Lancia D50 was the the big competitor to it or the car that
should have been the big competitor to it and a car that might be in some regards was a better
Grand Prix car if you know if Alfred Neubauer had got three D50s to run you know the D50 might have
been better showing of things yeah and I just think it's interesting because all of these companies
have a perceived character about them and and there are a million jokes about Italian cars versus
German cars and this is where all that comes from after all all these years of development and
different approaches yep it does it does and also there there are challenges that are being rematch
from the 1930s you know so uh Norbar and Ullert Hart knows Vittorio Iano and you know knows Anzo
Ferrari from the European Championship 20 years before so um but but yeah yep there's perceptions
about cars and you're right it comes it comes from that motor racing it comes from those sort of
national i-datals embodied in the racing cars which brings us to the 1955 Millimilia April 30th
and May 1st of that year and the Mercedes team includes of course the 300 SL Gullwing but also
the 300 SLR which is essentially a sports car version of the W196 absolutely it shares it
shares the same model number uh because retrospectively the the formula one car is the W196R
for Rennwagen and the 300 SLR is the W196S for sports wagon or sports for Rennwagen
so yes effectively it's taking it's taking the Grand Prix car of the day I was going to say
expanding the capacity of the engine there was more detailed changes to the engine on the construction
but effectively a three-liter version of the Formula One engine and modifying the chassis
rethinking the chassis in terms of being a two-seater sports car with all enveloping body
and it was a remarkable thing they tested the first one at Monza sort of October 1954
and this new sports car this new two-seat sports car had less drag was more efficient
than the Grand Prix car with the Streamliner body on it they were making step changes all the time
and always always learning and always applying those lessons learned so yes this was this was
a racing sports car a three-liter racing sports car designed for the world sports car championship
as it was uh back then to go after all the big races and a three-liter car against competition
which was sometimes you know three and a half liter you know four and a half liter cars as well
but again but applying partially necessitated by it kind of had to be based on the Formula
One car it's the only way could make sort of business sense for want of a better phrase
but also with their efficiency and their organization they reckoned they had the
speed in that in that three-liter car to take on all the all the big players across sports car racing
the 300 SLR is a slippery shape from the front it resembles a gullwing but the head lamps
are covered and fared back there's a large air intake for the radiator and a separate air intake
for the uh the engine short racing windscreen perspex windscreen a two-place cockpit and the
driver's side is has a wonderful fairing that tapers off on the rear and this car also has an
air brake eventually yes that's a lovely description of it actually that's that's a really
nice description of it because it's it's an elegant brood of a car and i'd encourage anybody who's
in europe go to mercy these bands museum and see it in in the metal it is smaller and prettier and
also more frightening looking that it isn't any in any photographs but yes um yep it had it had
all those features a high air intake for the engine on the bonnet was something that had been
introduced to the grand pre-cars as well for 55 uh just by dent awfully i'm having a different
intake manifold and what i'd also wanting to get the earthly engine up out of the way of
papers and rags and leaves and stuff but yes eventually it would have an air brake the 300 SLR
which was which was a response response really to the disc brakes on the Jaguar and it was something
that it appeared it appeared earlier but it was something that was really brought in for the
mall for the 24 hour race um and for anybody who hasn't seen it if you can imagine the whole
rear deck of the car being hinged from the very back of the car so the section behind the driver's
head would rise up in one big flap when he actually had a lever and it would be like a giant seal it
would catch the wind and he could press a lever and bring it back down again brought in as i said
because they were running these huge drum brakes which were pretty effective but they weren't the
discs that Jaguar had but also very quickly Bufangio and Moss realized that there was an air
dynamic component to this and that if you maybe actually left it halfway up going fully s's at
the mall this thing pressed down on the rear wheels of your car and you could rock it flew there so
it was it was a prototype sort of movable aero device as well to a certain extent
it probably eventually would have moved on to having disc brakes of their own but at that time
it it wasn't an option and the technology wasn't available to them so what are we gonna do and
they come up with this rather outlandish but very effective solution which of course everybody
protest everybody protested against it at the mall you know i wasn't aware that the air brake
was not in place for the milimilia but it was in place for Le Mans which you know they're they're
only a month apart the speed this team moved is incredible um i i've always i've always loved
these stories and i've always been interested in these men and moss and the Mercedes and all
but over the last three years i'm very thankful i've been allowed to tell some of these big stories
for the Mercedes F1 team which has given me the time and the effort is to really dive in deeper
and when you start looking at as you say as you start looking at timelines
and you start looking at the things that are achieved it's it's crazy it rivals motorsport
today and again it's something that i'm always very keen to point out that these men were just
like us um the milimilia for example they're doing all their training for the milimilia
and the races approaching on the last day of April the cars and cells are only built in
march and april of 1955 incredible and i've got a book up there on the 300 slr i call it the bible
it's on the top shelf there was recommended by the museum and i managed to find an english version
of it and it's the chassis by chassis story and all the cars for the milimilia all these most famous
cars the chassis are all welded by one guy over the course of two and a half days you know and you
can see that you can see this guy you know did did two in the morning and he had his lunch and when
he came back after the lunch the next one he welded was slightly heavier than the one he made
before lunch um so they're just the timelines and just the what we're coming back to the
organization and the precision and the logistics were just outstanding we should also mention that
the body work is of electron which is an exotic magnesium alloy yep of course famously infamously
at limo lap that would be a very bad thing but yeah very much cutting cutting edge of this time
trying to trying to see if there's much weight as possible colin you mentioned these men these
remarkable men and so let's talk about this team of drivers that noibauer has assembled
who's the heir apparent in the mercedes team i think it's carl cling is it not
per carl cling he should have been the heir apparent but from the get go really Mercedes
wanted fangio of course from very very early days carl cling of course is the great german hope
for motor racing and was a very fine driver but from early days from like 51 when noibauer and
ulan howt are going to formula one races and sort of really closely looking as to whether
mercedes can get in at this point into motor racing they realize that fangio is the guy for
for people who don't know or people who might be think of fangio as this cherry chubby bloke in
the old newsreel film fangio fangio arrived in europe like max furstallman okay he was an older guy
but fangio arrived from argentina 1948-ish but 1949 not summer of 49 he arrived as the real
deal fully formed on just one race after across sullen france
that led in 1949 and i was like wow this guy so very quickly mercedes said and i think it's
one of the memos when they were talking about reviving their pre-war watcher at the w165 as
a potential formula one car noibauer said to the the committee he said with fangio and that car
we can win but the thing was they needed fangio so yeah so fangio was very much the the figurehead
of it you know long story short they eventually got him they wooed him for years and they got him
in the team when they arrived from the one but fangio was a man but car cling then yes
ended up rather playing second fiddle uh to to fangio certainly not 1954 period
but really ullin howt had also realized that in his words driving had changed in
1951 when they were looking at bringing back the old cars rudy caratula had said i'm not interested
anymore um you know these cars aren't great are our times done with these and ullin howt wasn't
sorry to lose him in a way because ullin howt had realized by watching these new generation of
drivers that driving had changed and in his line it was people run faster people swim faster why
shouldn't they drive faster in the 1950s so so cling cling cling was awfully old school perhaps
i just didn't have the speed that that that a man like fangio had um but then of course they wanted
to bring on a second generation a new generation and and amongst that on the german side was
hands herman who passed away most recently and of course some young fellow from england
by the name of starting moss yes and moss caught noibauer's attention because he saw moss
doing very well in cars that were not so competitive and date and date like anzo ferrari had seen
moss before um you know moss as a as a kid had won uh the rac tourist trophy over here actually
had done draw it in a jaguar and i caught ferrari's eye and then ferrari had lost his chance with moss
noibauer had spotted moss uh giant killing in small cars and you know formal threes and in
formal two races and whatnot and had basically said to moss's father alfred we're interested in
in in the boy but we need to really see what he can do we need to see him in good machinery
so the following out on bottom aserati bought a 250f for the 1954 season and moss did great things
in that moss did a really good job in that and that was sort of this proving ground and then
yep was signed up for the 1955 season from Mercedes Benz uh for both Formula One and for the sports
car championship with this soon to be released you racing sports car in the 300 slr moss had a
little bit of this in his blood of course his father who was a very successful london dentist
had been an amateur driver in the 1930s and in fact i think even moss's mother did a bit of
racing herself yeah as as fallar um raced in the nd 500 had a start and i think he finished the nd
i want to say like 146 14th yeah there we go i think it's 14th yeah yeah cool cool and yes as
moller as moller was uh moller did rallying as moller was very talented and the family was
involved with uh show jumping and horses as well um yeah as moller was a talented driver as of course
was his sister pot moss who was a fantastic rally driver she i don't think she gets enough credit
she's always talked about in terms of winning uh they cooked it down prizes whatever she
pot moss was as good as many of the men if not most of them um back in that era at the end of
1950s and started in 1960 she was she was a great rally driver um so yes a talented family and also
a modern example people people talk sometimes about it being a modern phenomenon of um sons of
racing drivers and sons of wealthy people or people with disposable income are the ones who
may get motor racing um and it's interesting to look back as sterling moss a great natural talent
of our sport also came from that slightly privileged background and also came from a
background where where motorsport was front front and center and his family when he was growing up
and moss had already developed a reputation for being able to drive just about anything uh fondio
was the same way later on jim clark had that reputation some drivers were exclusively f1
others were exclusively sports car but but moss seemed to be able to do it all in 1955 he's 26
years old which is an old man by today's f1 standards of course uh but he did race f1 and
so the mercedes team we've got sterling moss wanman well found joe carl cling haunts herman
and an american john fitch who was uh i think a fighter pilot in world war two
and a very um a very analytical guy and later on contributed quite a bit to safety in racing
absolutely john cooper fitch i would love to have a drink with john cooper fitch what
what an amazing character um great sports car racing did some a couple of formula one races
as well was part of that mercedes team that raced at w194 in 1952 um had raced the crara pan americana
and been part of that group back then and as you say it was a was an aviator in the second world
war i believe he was the first man ever to shoot down a jet fighter that's right over germany and
it was i'm trying to think it was the german the german mercedes benz press guy i think was in the
waffa during the war and they the tlm used to share a car on long journeys and uh trade stories
and and the the idea that um all the old aviators were all gentlemen and uh that business was all
passed now so we'll talk we'll talk about it in a very gentlemanly way and and and share our stories
and share our experiences but he was he was a fantastic character yep and talking about this 55
race uh john fitz is central not only to the performance of one of the cars in the race
but he's central to the story as to how and why the winning mercedes benz was able to go so fast
because he was the guy who along with another man came up with the idea that we could use
pace notes to go faster in long distance sports car racing the first formal use of them i guess
you'd say was in the career of pan americana was it not it was yes not in that 52 race um they had
notebooks effectively and yes they very forward thinking again again just another example of
a simple thing a great organization and planning if you're scouting the route and you're driving
the route you might as well make notes so that had been successful back then and john fitz was
aware of that um the sports car program was approaching with mercedes benz for 1955 and
he thought he might he thought there might have been way back in there for him again he was still
in touch with the guys i believe he lived in switzerland so he thought there was maybe way
back in there and he had been talking to the great motor racing journalist denis jenkinson
and they've been chewing the fat over this and they basically had decided that the way he would
go about these long distance races would be you would take a co-driver and you would use these
pace notes and if you worked it out you would use your co-driver effectively as an auxiliary brain
just give him all the thinking in terms of what's coming up ahead and you would relay it to the
driver and the driver would know what to expect and this this is the way forward and they thought
if you get in limber city's team you might be able to try that out sometimes that sounds like a
good idea i mean after all at 150 miles an hour and greater you you really need two brains
yeah especially especially in these machines on the open road you know for anybody who hasn't
really got it yet you know in the race we're talking about as a 1,000 mile single loop around
that lake you could spend a lifetime learning it but you know something that's a small bump in the
road at 100 mile an hour and 170 mile an hour is a whole different proposition so yeah yeah it was
it was a really great approach but but how to do it then was then then the big idea how can you do
this in an open car how can you really make this happen and so those two men had talked about it
and then starting most assigned for the sports car team and John Fitch found out that there
might not be a place for him on the team eventually there was eventually he was
he was given a 300 SL road style goal wing as an entry for the 0 but when it
became apparent that he wasn't going to get the big drive and Sterling Moss was going to be one
of the sports car team um Sterling approached Jenks and said i've heard you've had this idea
what about it and Dennis Jenkins went back to John Fitch and said would you mind would you
mind terribly if we move forward with this big idea we had but me and Sterling Moss and and
Fitch said absolutely it's the way to go try to make it happen go and win the 0
Dennis Jenkins in 1955 is 35 years old he's the continental correspondent for Motorsport
magazine and a former sidecar racer and a bit of an eccentric wouldn't you say
yes yes sadly i never met the man um but by all accounts yes um eccentric in
in all the best ways as you say it was he was 1949 world champion with Eric Oliver
in 1949 sidecar championship and he discovered motor racing in the 1930s when he was at school
had spent a war years as a conscientious objector and had worked in engineering
and during that time had begun to come involved with motorsport magazine in England and by this
period he was as you say the continental correspondent covering all the big races
basically from Easter to Halloween every year Dennis Jenkins Jenks as he was fondly known or
DSJ as he was known to his readers because his initials appeared at the end of each piece
um Jenks would live out of his car effectively across Europe from race to race following the
motor racing scene sending his reports back and as you say he was eccentric but he was brilliant
and opinionated and forthright and analytical and i mean all those things in an entirely positive
way it was the archetype and it's he's the man i think that everybody who writes about motor racing
looks up to for his style and his passion and his exactitude and just that that warm
feeling of drawing into the sport as well he was a remarkable writer and a really interesting guy
he was a little bit of a proto beatnik if you ask me i mean he had the kind of longish
almost a goatee but kind of too long to be a goatee uh horn rimmed glasses not a flashy dresser by
any means kind of just a basic shirt sleeves type of guy bumming around the continent in a car or on
a motorcycle following the racing never i don't think he ever married uh he kind of lived in a
a little tumbledown shacks from time to time uh sometimes without even any uh running water or
electrical service i mean just a very fascinating guy he he was singularly focused on motorsport
that was the most important thing in his life and much beloved uh to his readers also quite an
opinionated writer yes excellent should be more of them well i mean after all so much
equivocation is done in in automotive writing because there's that impulse not to upset corporate
automotive industry and nowadays it's all about access as well um you know we we live we live in
a word now where um your accreditation is may may be held over you so but back in jenks's day
um yep he would just rock up in his little Porsche 356 park in whatever field the racing
drivers were parking in and just walk into the park and start talking to people who were his
friends or his friends no doubt a lot of them were friends he was also very opinionated about
some of the people he was seeing every week in these products you know he who holds barred
in terms of his reporting and and all the better for that but yeah a different world a different
world but a fantastic writer jenks is sterling moss is not so secret weapon and they have of
course you talked about the pace notes jenks has an innovation with the pace notes which
moss calls the toilet paper roll yes so in the Mercedes fashion there's all this training and
practice is going to happen for the melee medium they've got this 1000 mile race so technically
and in terms of the drivers there's so much to be worked through and worked out and as part of this
the drivers are going to do so many laps and work over sections of the circuit again and again
to learn it and also to run the numbers in terms of fuel efficiency entire where all the boring
things you need to do in motor racing to be successful so jenks starts about taking notes
as they go and they start generating these notes and he has pages and of notes and
they every time they go over the route they fine tune it and he's sitting at 150 mile an hour
sitting in a saloon car scrambling away so the problem is how are we going to relay this message
how is this going to work in 170 mile an hour open top sports racing car racing around Italy
so two things first of all they decide that they're going to have to rely on hand signals
interestingly they did test a headset system at Hockenheim being Mercedes Benz there's also
a solution we'll put look at your microphones and headsets very modern and you can go with that
and Sterling very quickly realized that when he was going flat out when he was going
as jenks would describe it 10 tenths really going for it that he couldn't hear anything anymore
and apparently they talked about it with a doctor later who said that's that's true that's a
psychological thing that when you're concentrating so hard you know other senses shut down to a
certain extent so they've been the idea of headsets and microphones and decided that they would relay
directions and structures to each other by hand signal interestingly jenks always said then
he didn't know much about these rally driver types because he knew from experience that
paste notes and and headphones don't work so you know he was quite dismissive of modern rallying
but how then to deal with all these pages and pages of notes that he had generated and in the end
Sterling commissioned a small aluminium box to be made a roller box two riddles and knobs on the
outside to twist through a narrow 18 foot long piece of paper and all that was written all of
these directions mile by mile marker stone by marker stone corners town centers stops hay bales
jumps level crossings all written out by jenks on this bit of paper that he'd all tipped together
and made this big long piece of paper wrapped onto the roll and he could sit with this toilet
roll holder on his knee and wind his way through the directions and relay these directions to
Sterling as they went flat out to win this motor race and it proved very successful it worked very
very well he wrote it in shorthand right because after all you can't you can't do longhand in
this situation yep it was symbols me notes rather like a mix between what you
identify as like a modern rally paste note and like tulip diagrams that kind of thing
does that toilet paper roll still exist last i heard of it Sterling always had one in his office
at home but i believe it wasn't the original one i believe and i don't know what's happened to its
but i believe that jenks always refused to give up the original one and held on to it
so after jenks passed away i'm not sure what happened to it
i don't know if mercedes-benz have it or what has happened with the original one
well i mean it's a marvelous artifact and hopefully it's still out there somewhere
oh i'm sure it is i must ask perhaps mercedes museum have it somewhere
so as you say they've pre-run their race several times over characteristic of alfred neubauer
nothing is left to chance call in the race begins in the wee hours of june 1 pre-dawn
and the slower cars are off the line first right all sorts of little you know it's starting
more so with said every heard dresser in his fifth 500 loads of tiny cars there was lambretta
there was you know there's two cvs it was myriad fate 500s and then working up through all different
cars then as you get past midnight you're getting a quick saloon cars and mercedes-benz had these
world championship 300 slr racers going for the big win as i've said they also had
two or three 300 sl effectively the road going going that we know today they had some of those
they also had three or four diesel mercedes-benz saloons they were going for that that that class
as well and again very modern way on promoting technology and sell more diesel diesel mercedes
bends so um so i don't think there's ever been a works team that has turned up with a greater
range of cars to enter for one race from a from a 170 diesel uh two or 300 brake horsepower
top of the line racing car so yeah so all through the night these cars are going and the early cars
just have regular race numbers but when you start to get into the cars that are the big cars going
for the win they have a race number assigned to them that corresponds with their start time so
we see the example famously that uh sterling moss and denis jenkinson are going to start
their mercedes-benz at 722 in the morning so their race number famously is 722 in big block
letters and there's one really interesting fact about that one really just lovely synchronicity
mercedes-benz are going for the win in the mille mille the only time previous to this in all the
years at the mille mille the proper mille mille was won by a non-italian car was that time in 1931
when rudy caratula won it on the mercedes-benz that's the only time rudy caratula crossed the
finish line in breccia to win in 1931 and the time that rudy crossed the finish line was 722 in the
morning wow i did not know that i've got goose bumps now i've got goose bumps when i worked
that out years ago um and sterling moss and denis jenkinson are sitting in the pre-dawn in breccia
with 722 on the side of their silver arrow sitting on the start ramp incredible 24 years later
i suppose the greatest competition is from scuderia ferrari the primary machine for the
team is the ferrari 376 s which is a straight six designed by lampretti and it's a 3.7 liter
displacement 280 horsepower so a little bit less than the 300 slr but also a lighter car i think
yes they also had a bigger car that obviously they knew the threat that mercedes-benz was and
this is ferrari's home territory they own this race and this is the big challenge they set down
in 1952 when they were so hacked off by the press release from mercedes-benz this is the moment you
know where they said you said mercedes you had the best cars in the world well come on we'll juke
it out on the roads of italy this is that moment so ferrari has to step up to the mark so yeah they
had they had that 3.7 they also had a bigger car again they're a 4.4 um which was
360 brake horsepower right which is shoehorned in their chassis so there's there's a mix of these
cars but they're big capacity high-powered cars um and this really is ferrari giving everything
they've got again it's a contrast that perhaps mercedes-benz are organized and formulated
and have calculated how they're going to do it and there's a sense perhaps a ferrari are just like
let's just put together the quickest thing we can you know the two approaches right the 4.4
liter car is a privateer entry though is it not it's eugenio castellotti i believe castellotti
oh i would need to check i thought castellotti was a works entry but i could be wrong i thought it
was a last-minute car oh could be the ferrari put together because i think i think we'll
maybe put that big engine in a different chassis i would i would have to double check but but certainly
part of the greater ferrari assault on the race right and of course it's common practice that
privateer entries do have some factory support after all and they're hedging their bets
yeah it's the greatest drivers they can assemble for the melee media because they really fail
that there's a threat from these silver arrows and they're right to be worried moss and janks are off
and immediately they're trying to catch not just the ferraris but a couple of their teammates
yep cars are all set off at minute intervals so everybody's racing off into the dawn themselves
and heading the open road but it's apparent really quickly that the ferraris are super quick
heading out of breccia heading east across the bottom of legarda heading towards verona
and very quickly that moss and janks are aware that castellotti who started after them is this red
dot in the rearview mirror and he is super fast and this is really disheartening because if they
can see him he's made up a couple of minutes on them already so they arrive at padua nose to tail
and they arrive at 150 mile an hour coming into the town center this is this is what this racing
is like if anybody's done a lovely holiday in a part of the world and totaled about in a rental
fate you know it's hard it's hard to imagine charging into these ancient
town centers at 150 mile an hour um nose to tail side by side but yes disheartened by being caught
so suddenly arriving at town center and moss makes an uncharacteristic error and locks up the brakes
in the slr and goes straight on through the straw bales and has to sort of slaughter them the first
gear and recover and they're in position in to watch castellotti leaving town blasting out of town
but they say he's leaving black trails and rubber behind him with every gear change he is this is a
monster car but they're thinking that can't last yeah he's beating on the car well i mean they all
are to a degree that overshoot by moss he misses that turn i don't know whether that is just moss
being over exuberant maybe there's a little bit of a momentary miscommunication between them but
no matter the circumstance he's into the hay bales that could have been the end of their run
right there luckily the car holds together it's not it's not catastrophically damaged no it's not
and when you look back across the greater history of these cars across the season
it's remarkable how robust these these Mercedes Benz racing cars are and that one car in particular
we'll get there no doubt but this particular car that moss is on this day this is chassis number four
that has been built and this is its first outing and this actual individual car will be synonymous
with sterling moss for forever because he will race it across the season and will achieve remarkable
things and the overarching story is this car can take whatever you throw at it and so it is proven
luckily luckily straight away but on the race in to Ravenna on the coast which is the first control
they arrive in there and not that i know it but the word is a Castellaris the fastest or virtually
the fastest i think the two Ferraris are very similarly timed and they discover the Castellaris
having to get rear tyres put on so there's a sense that they don't know whether they're behind
they feel they're behind because he's been so quick but there's a silver lining the Ferrari's
eating its tires already so they've arrived they've arrived on the Adriatic coast they've gone through
that lovely valley in that south of Lake Garda they're now on the coast and they're on that
coast road running all the way down to Piscara and already the Ferraris are having various tire
troubles this is going to be a theme that the Pirelli's just are up to the heat it's incredibly hot day
and they aren't really up to the torque of these big engines that Ferrari have opted to run
so yeah now now they're on the Adriatic coast heading south on the road to the sun and this is a
really flat out section and they're sitting for long times flat to the mat and for an SLR that's
geared for this race it's around about 170 mile an hour and at that speed you're relying on
Jenks' notes you know and if Jenks went flat out stirring kept his foot in it they're in their
groove now racing along the top speed undulating and it's a hot day and if Jenks suddenly feels
unwell with all this heat and vibration the bouncing of this car at 170 mile an hour decides
he's going to vomit so turns his head over the side of the car and in that moment his glasses
are blown away by the airstream but it's Jenkinson and it's Mercedes Benz so there's always a plan
B so he reaches in there's a spur of her glasses and he puts him on and he continues like nothing
happened and crazy story to get it was on this stage as well on this stretch heading down to
Piscara at 170 mile an hour things happen in a bigger way and it was on this stretch that for
the first time the SLR 722 actually took to the air over a large hump on the road and again something
that at 100 mile an hour and in training was okay at 170 all of a sudden it was four wheels off the
ground so and a sterling always says that's the scary thing you know it's starting to tell the
story you're in the air and you don't know is it there or you know so you just have to
sit and wait and just wait and hope that it comes down four square and you're all right but they
race into Piscara which is the first the first control and the first service depot Piscara was
like a 30 second stop which is remarkable because they're already 200 on mile in into this race
and it was enough fuel to get them over the mountains to Rome if you imagine they've done
they've gone across the top of Italy they've come down the Adriatic coast now they're gonna cross
over the mountains cross to Rome the car isn't even turned off they fuel it up while they're
fueling it in this 30 seconds a policeman takes exception to this racing car sitting running hot
with fuel being poured into it and tries to reach into the car to turn it off and a fantastic
scene then Jenks slaps the policeman and Moss bangs it in the first gear and they go ripping off
from the from the pit stop waiting spinning up out of the town and again Sterling makes his second
mistake it's through the straw beals and up over a pavement and clatter clatter clatter but the car
still going and out of town ahead across the mountains to Achela and the mountains heading
towards Rome you know to trust the car at that point it's a dodgy thing right you don't really
know until you're at speed if you've actually broken something if a spindle is loose if a
wheel has been bent it's a big gamble absolutely these are remarkable cars these 300 SLRs and
this chassis number four if any car has a sole this 300 SLR chassis number four is that car
Sterling had seen it before I would see it again with sorry to be a bit of a cliche but with Italian
cars in Italian sports car races and later Mille Mille he will have a brake pedal it just snaps
but these machines are fantastic they're fast and they're so robust which is what you need for this
old-school road racing they charge through the mountains and Jenks tells about how in the mountains
really Sterling really came into his own how it was an absolute privilege Jenks was fearless
would he been a motorcycle sidecar racer and could sit with his notes but also sit and observe
and Sterling at work and be so aware of it and acknowledge that it was such a privilege to sit
next to a master like us and watch him dice through the mountains in this remarkable racing car
the trust that they had in each other it can't be underestimated no I can't I can't absolute
and there's a long history of catastrophe in the Mille Mille you know many drivers have lost their
lives over the years so now they're hurtling toward Rome basically the halfway point Rome
it's a halfway point they're at Achille in the mountains and it's a downhill rush towards Rome
and if I remember correctly it was on that stage that they had a level crossing rather too fast
and again the car ticks to the air there's a sense fluid that they never quite know
where the competition are or what everybody's doing a couple of times they get handed a note
what the positions are but their sense is that they just have to race as fast as possible
Sterling thought if we could do this at a 90 mile an hour average speed for the thousand miles
that would be like two or three mile an hour over the record speed if we could just do that
so they're really going off that sense and they know how fast the Ferraris are they don't know who's
out and who's in the race who and because it's a sense that the cars are all set off separately
only occasionally see other competitive cars cars that they're actually racing for the win
and they're racing down from the mountains down into Rome and this will be to Rufi's territory
that to Rufi knows these roads and they don't know it yet but they're only just leading just about
with all this chaos that's happening around them and there has been all sorts of crashes
and technical troubles for a different driver and the road into Rome is just
deep with spectators and again if anybody's in any doubt these these are roads that are closed
in terms of somebody has nailed a notice to the lamppost to say the road's closed for the mill
but you know Mullers with prams dogs postmen on bicycles you never quite know what's going
to appear from the side street like you would see the rally spectators in Portugal in the 1980s
they all press in and just open in time for the car coming. Sterling talks about how he had to slow
a bit but Sterling decides if he's going to have to clear these people he's going to have to wiggle
the car up the road on a flat chat he's wiggling this SLR so the people scatter out of the way
and they arrive into Rome and the stop for service and for the first time in 500 miles for the first
time in hours and hours the SLR is turned off for a minute or two. If I remember already Sterling
had to use the facilities but it turned out that the point that he decided previously that he would
be able to run behind a building and have a quick pee before jumping back in now has a grand stand on
it so I think maybe it wasn't quite as private as what was anticipated when he was scouting the
route. At this point now the 300 SLR gets a tank of fuel and it gets two rear tires and as I said
that's all it's going to need over this 1000 miles and they set off again and at this stage
the competition is starting to fall away. Kling and Herman and the older Mercedes are still in the
race and going pretty well they're behind moss and janks. Fangio is having a torrid day Fangio's
SLR hasn't run cleanly all day and it's pretty much been on seven cylinders all day. Having said
that and considering that Fangio isn't that far behind Fangio put in a fantastic drive in terms
of the red cars to Ruthie is really the only one left in the mix but again the drivers only get a
small sense of this so they just have to keep extracting as much performance as they can and
just press on. Among the Ferrari pilots Paolo Marzotto has had an accident. He had a big one
early on. Yep. Castellotti where's he in the mix? Castellotti on the Adriatic Coast it finally blew
up. He had stopped for tires at that time and then engine or gearbox went bang. He was flattered from
the get-go and 150 miles it was all done. Yeah. 722 is holding together remarkably well and they're
off again. They're off again heading north ultimately kind of towards Siena now. Kling in the sister car
has had a slow stop and they've had trouble getting the rear wheel off that and he's frustrated and
he sets off out of Rome and just on the edge of Rome he has a big crash and a spectator steps in
the road. It's worth to avoid a spectator and the SLR hits a tree and they're okay but the
Riddle of Race Kling breaks some ribs and is out for the rest of the Formula One season.
Fancho continues on to Ruthie at this stage is still in the fight and young Hans Herman is having
a really good race on the other SLR and is keeping within striking distance of Sterling Moss. I want
to say maybe about four minutes between them at this stage so there's all the play for and the
leading contenders there's only about 10 minutes between maybe the top six contenders for this race
so it's still all the play for and of course there is the old adage the 0 the motor racing
that he who leads Rome never wins a 0 After the fuel fill it's not clear if the fuel
filler wasn't quite right or if it was overfilled but at one point they go round a corner and the
fuel sloshes through either the vent or a cap it's not quite 100% and fuel sloshes over the top of
them covered in high-grade fuel but that Jenks just misses one or two notes and Sterling's all right
because he remembers this part of the road and they continue on but is on this stretch of the road
then heading towards Sienna that to Ruthie's car finally gives up and unbeknownst to Moss and Jenkinson
they're leading the race they don't know what to Ruthie's out they don't know how bad a day that
Fangio is having and actually at Sienna Mercedes will try to replace the injector on Fangio's car
and try to make it better and they aren't aware that young Hans Herman is keeping them honest
and in this regard it looks like a two-horse race between the two Mercedes of Sterling Moss and
Hans Herman as they head towards the passes of Radicophony pass and the footer pass heading back
into the mountains heading north again towards Brescia. Yeah and this may be the most treacherous
section in terms of its geography and road conditions. Yes it is and it comes as well after
so many hundreds of miles of racing where men and the cars are exhausted and that's what happens to
Moss and Jenkinson because on the Radicophony pass unbeknownst to them they've been running out of
brakes on the 300 SLR it's not apparent to them because again it's amazing engineering they would
find out later or learn how it would work out later that they had just miscalculated the wear
there was just there was not enough friction material on the shoes and these giant drum brakes
that they had but thankfully the Mercedes was designed instead of the drum brakes being hinged
and going like that they were designed for two cylinders so they went like that so as long as there
was metal left on the shoe metal to metal they'll continue to self adjust so they didn't realize
they were running metal to metal and at the top of the Radicophony Sterling touched the brakes
and one wheel grabbed and the car spun around and ended up in a ditch but again this remarkable
tough racing car in the bottom gear and he guns it and it drags itself out of the ditch on the top
of this mountain pass it gives it a wiggle it's fine I'll have to go again oh my goodness
edge of your seat stuff right there now is it true that Moss had popped a benzadrine pill at some
point I mean during the war you know pilots on both sides were taking pep pills in order to stay
awake on those long sorties I believe so I believe Fangio used them once again I believe that Sterling
took one of Fangio's pep pills ultimately spoiler alert when this race is over and the
celebrations are ongoing having raced 1,000 miles and having attended celebrations in Brescia
Sterling without any sleep then jumped into a car and drove to Stuttgart to celebrate there as well
and from there again just kept going I went on to Cologne so I think Sterling was well awake
for for the for the couple of days around around a million milia but it's a fascinating bit of
history you know it's it is obviously it's something that wouldn't be acceptable or allowed
under sporting rules nowadays but it's it's another sign of those times that I'm not thinking as you
say leading back to the war years right now we would categorize that as a performance enhancing
drug and you'd be out absolutely absolutely and you know even at 150 160 miles an hour
on a long straight stretch you could easily be lulled into shutting your eyes and that would be it
absolutely yeah the drone of the engine it's incredibly hot day it's a really hot day and
you've got the engine in gearbox bleeding all this heat under the cockpit as well
yep so if you're sitting there and the drone not 170 the head would nod it could so out of the
mountains and down the hill toward Brescia and they still don't know who's leading they think
Tarufi is ahead of them right yeah they think Tarufi's still in the fight they basically think that
their biggest threats are still there they haven't seen that Fangio has stopped in Siena to have worked
on to the car so is this sense like where is Fangio where is Tarufi they're on the road somewhere
they presume are they ahead are they behind they don't know the only threat to them is young
Hans Herman but unfortunately when he's sort of sitting within four minutes or so of Moss and
Jenks' time which is nothing in this race because you know another run off the road that is slightly
worse than the ones I've had or a puncture and that that could be gone in an instant but unfortunately
Hans Herman going over one of the passes all of a sudden the fuel filler behind his head on the
fairing pops open and fuel sloshes into the cockpit they aren't so lucky Herman realizes this is
happening reaches around for his sweater that he has and he's stuttered in the fuel filler tries to
straighten the car up but it happens again and they hit the side of the road broken whale out of
the race history could have been very different had he won 1955 million media and these are the
small things that that make the difference they're now within striking distance of the finish line
I think it's a relatively straight shot into Brescia
yes it is a pretty flat blast into Brescia and they're waiting for a certain point on the road
because preparation being everything Moss and Jenks have spoken for as to what to be prepared
to do and not prepared to do to stay in this motor race and the Mercedes team had calculated that a
300 SLR from 170 mile an hour would coast for five kilometers somebody's somebody's crunched the
numbers you know no AI or computers knows this but somebody had calculated that if you did 170
and you knock it out of the gear it'll go it'll rule for five kilometers and Moss and Jenks had
decided amongst themselves that they would be prepared to push the car for two kilometers at
any point during the race to reach control or reach the service area or reach help so they
had it marked on their notes and had it marked on their maps seven kilometers to go and they knew
they knew once they had reached seven kilometers to Brescia that come hell or high water
that 300 SLR was crossing the finish line and indeed they do in a total elapsed time of 10
hours seven minutes 48 seconds a new record and a record that will never be broken at the finish
to win in record time. Fangio come second and Malioli third making Moss the first British driver ever
to win this famous race. 97.96 miles per hour average speed for a thousand miles on Italian roads
in 1955 eight or nine mile an hour higher than the previous record average speed an incredible
result incredible speed and circumstance would say that it would never be beaten the 1956
millimetre would turn out to be a really really wet race it was horrible weller and the 1957
millimetre which ultimately would be the last millimetre that would be held the winner's speed
was just nowhere near that they couldn't they couldn't touch the speed of Moss and Jenks and
on that Mercedes Benz on that May day in 1955 remarkable man remarkable car.
And yet they don't know that they've won until really they're out of the car right?
Yep they're great by crowds no bar you've won and they they didn't believe it for a
while until all our cars came across the line and ultimately when Fangio crossed the line Fangio I
think in the end ended up maybe about on time about 30 minutes behind them and remarkable scenes
and they're just they're swept up by people they're put into a police car whisked away high
spirits just off the scale celebration and the Italians have been beaten on their home ground
on the mille mille by two Englishmen and a car from Stuttgart. The best that the Italians can
manage is Umberto Maliolli in third place for Scuderia Ferrari. Fangio is second, John Fitch
is in fifth place in a Gullwing so pretty good showing for Mercedes Benz.
That was a fantastic drive by Fitch. Fitch had a journalist with him who wasn't a motoring journalist
I don't think who wasn't a tremendous help but I think Fitch did try to do something along the
lines of some sort of notes but it was nowhere near the the scale of what Moss and Jenkinson did
but Fitch put in a fantastic drive that was a stellar drive to beat with the the power and
the reliability of the Mercedes Benz to outlast so many of the Italian cars but to beat so many
cars of higher classes to come home with that result really really was something fantastic
result all around. And yet with this triumph for Mercedes a month later it's a dark day because
on June 11th there's a terrible accident at the 24 hours of Le Mans. The primary car involved is a
300 SLR driven by Pierre Levegue. The car strikes the back of Lance Macklin's Austin Healy which
essentially becomes a ramp. Levegue is airborne and goes into the waddle fencing alongside the
grandstands over 80 spectators are killed of course Levegue dies the car burns we mentioned
the electron earlier that magnesium alloy and it just burns tremendously and Moss and Fangio are
both in the 24 hours of Le Mans as Mercedes team drivers and in the aftermath of the accident
there there's a kind of a cascade of things that happened the first of which is that Mercedes
withdraws from the race. Yes this accident happened about two and a half three hours into the race
and a race where Hawthorne on the Jaguar and Fangio on the 300 SLR were attacking it like a
Grand Prix it was a really fast opening section and it was time for the pit stops and that's how
that whole melee and that whole confusion the silliness that caused this horror of course
then Neubauer made a call back to Stuttgart to get ahead of the situation and the board in Stuttgart
called an emergency meeting and they sent the word back I think by midnight to Neubauer with the
decision get out of there which was obviously the right thing and I think about half past one in the
morning Neubauer went out and flagged down the cars and the Moss Fangio for the 100 SLR
unusually they were sharing a car there was two drivers in that car and they were leading at the
time by quite a long way and yep they packed up and went home it was just horrible and it was
the right thing to do. Jaguar went on to win it and that was mixed publicity for them as well that
that was an awkward situation to say the least. It was such a huge thing and it impacted so much
of motor racing and races were cancelled Formula 1 races were cancelled and sports car races were
cancelled because it was off the scale it was the biggest disaster that had been in the sport
at that time but eventually racing returned later that summer the Formula 1 returned
and the sports car world championship continued and it continued here actually just outside
Belfast for the RAC Tourist Trophy at Dundrad in September by that time the word was that Mercedes
Benz were not going to continue with Formula 1 for 1956 by that stage I was pretty much certain
certainly within Mercedes Benz that was was no unknowns what was going to happen but the sports
car championship looked like it was still going to continue into 1956 and beyond and to that end
development had continued on the 300 SLR racing cars there was an advanced version made looking
towards 1956 and there was two coupé versions made of the 300 SLR and those were planned for the
Carrera Panamericana of 1955 which was cancelled because of the Le Mans disaster the thinking
there being that they couldn't race through Central America in an open top car they would need
cover so the coupé versions were built for that so it was up in the air but the sports car
championship continued there was talk at the end of the summer that Mercedes maybe wouldn't
continue with the championship that the board of management would rather have them do promotional
tours instead of doing some of the rounds of the championship but then it's such a huge result
over here in Northern Ireland such a the one they don't draw TT so outstandingly that they were
back in the hunt for the manufacturers championship. Neubauer convinced the board that they had to
attend the Targa Florio which had been boosted to a world championship round to compensate for all
their races that had been cancelled earlier in the season and so they went to the Targa Florio
and won it and in winning it secured the manufacturers sports car championship of 1955
but it was at the Targa Florio that Neubauer learned that the sports car program would be
cancelled as well and so upon the return to Stuttgart the cars were ceremonially retired and
at a press conference the cars the silver arrows were covered up and that was the end of that
remarkable era of the silver arrow racers from Stuttgart. What a story Alfred Neubauer having
essentially nothing left to do at Mercedes and being of advanced age I think he was in his late
60s by this time decides to retire. I think if I remember rightly I think the Daimler Benz rules
of retirement at 65 I think maybe applied to him as much as I see a member of staff anywhere else
organization again another example of how the racing team is just an extension of the greater
company. Neubauer seeks to be racing manager as the racing program finishes and his position is
effectively filled by Carl Kling who steps up to be for what it's worth in charge of racing programs
and while there's no factory works racing happening it's been the case really through the century
that in quiet times like that Mercedes Benz would support privateers doing different things
would sort of give a bit of factory support here and there so it was that kind of thing happening
and a rallying program came out of that but at one point in the press it was mentioned not long
after Mercedes finished the sports car program there was a suggestion that perhaps Mercedes Benz
would build a handful of 300 SLRs and sell them to private customers which was closed down quite
quickly but it was in the air for a while and famously Sterling Moss said thank god they didn't
do that because I didn't want to have to race against them. Moss is known as the greatest driver
who never won a world championship in Formula One and why was that?
Sterling went his own path and Sterling was Sterling aligned himself with British racing cars for a
lot of his career and very early in his career Sterling was pissed off by Enzo Ferrari. Sterling
won that Don't Draw a TT for Jaguar at a very early age and off the back of that Enzo Ferrari
sent him an invite to go down to Barrie to race in Italy to race one of the Formula Two Ferraris.
This was it, this was a big opportunity and he was whatever age he was he was 21 or 22 something
like that and Sterling and his father made the journey all the way across to the far side of
Italy made all the way down to the race arrived in the paddock there's a Ferrari team all set up
Sterling jumped into one of the F2 cars to get a feel for it and the mechanic says who are you
get out of that car and it turns out Enzo Ferrari had changed his mind hadn't told anybody
and Sterling Moss didn't have a drive and it come all that way for nothing so that was that was
the start of Sterling Moss for 10 years doing everything he possibly could to beat those bloody
red cars so so so Sterling as I say at the at the private Maserati which which he kept on he
raced from Mercedes Benz and off the back of that fun Mercedes withdrawal he went to the Van
Wall team the new team being set up by Tony Vanderville in England and from there then raced
privately entered cars by Rob Walker. Sterling found a niche for himself and he did Grand
Pre-Racing in his own way and was very forward thinking in that regard and enjoyed it and had
some enormous days and finished second in the championship so many times but just never happened
and my thoughts on it really is that the fact the fact that Sterling was never Formula One World
Champion is pretty flat being Formula One World Champion does know it's made an awful lot you
know there's bigger things in motor racing and there's bigger things um you can leave your
stamp on the world and leave your stamp on life and motor racing without having to worry about
any of this championship nonsense. Just a nerdy note here you mentioned Rob Walker he was the heir
to the Walker Distillery fortune right as in Johnny Walker. As in Johnny Walker yep that's right
that's right yep and raced kind of in Scottish colours in the blue with the white band across the
nose. In April 1962 Moss is at I think a Formula One race at Goodwood and he crashes and it's a
very serious crash it leaves him in a coma for a month he's got paralysis on the left side of his
body for a good six months after the accident and he attempts to return but doesn't feel right in
the car he feels like he's lost his edge and he decides to retire a young man. Yep and I think
ultimately years down the line he came to the conclusion that he tried to return too soon
and that perhaps he'd given himself a bit longer his feeling was that when he came back to it he
was able to drive he's just a talented experienced guy but what he felt when he tried to make a
comeback or did some testing to see if he wanted to come back he felt that he had to concentrate
on it much more than what previously came natural what previously was instinctive he now had the
focus to achieve and he felt not regarded something was lost and as I say in later years I think
maybe he thought that he just probably should have given himself more time. I look at it slightly
differently because we were talking about 1962, 1963 and Sterling has said oh I could have raced
until the 1970s you know I could have raced until 1973 or 1974 which is bonkers when you think about
it. It is. But I actually think to be honest that accident at Goodwood probably saved Sterling
Moss's life when you look at that next 10 years of motor racing the chances of him making the
flute unscathed were probably very slim just time exposed to danger and I think as I say Sterling
Moss is bigger than Formula One and I think having Mr. Motor Racing in this world as an icon and as
an example for decades being out there in the world as Sterling Moss the character and the icon
and the inspiration I think that's worth much more to motor racing and fans
than another 10 years chasing a championship that doesn't matter. I couldn't agree with you more
Colin it most certainly saved his life and he became the dean of the sport and you know traveled
kind of as an ambassador worldwide and was seen at various events he was a bridge between the
two eras let's say the golden era of the 1950s and the modern day. You know something interesting
I learned about Sterling his name was in the London phone book just listed no frills he said he
preferred to use a van around London because he could park it anywhere and look like a tradesman
and he wouldn't get a ticket. Simon Taylor once told me that he took a ride around London on the back
of a Vespa with Sterling so they were riding two up and the guy drove like a demon through the
London streets and scared Simon to death just a character. Just a character and also he had
a rental properties around London he was a landlord and that was a wee business he had
but if you phoned up and said I've got a burst water pipe you know are the washing machines
not working or this electric switch is broken Sterling would turn up himself with his toolkit
and do the odd jobs in his property so you know fantastic character and a remarkable man and as
you say an icon in it was that bridge and thinking back for so many years then he appeared at what
now is called the melee milieu which is a glorious celebration of that old race a reliability
road rally effectively for cars that appeared in it back in the day and Sterling for so many years
went to that race to to be seen and to see and so often was at the wheel of an old Mercedes Benz
and sometimes quite often an old 300 SLR and certainly some of my favorite memories of that
race in that car coming from the 1990s and TV documentaries and futures about Sterling being
reunited with that car and that's that's where probably the passion for this particular story
comes from saying saying him back and as you say Sterling was such a great ambassador for our sport
Sir Sterling Moss yeah absolutely Sterling died in 2020 at the ripe old age of 90 I never had the
good fortune to meet him but the stories live on yeah I don't know if anybody could ever replace
him you know we have so many around Formula One we have so many grandees we have you know we have
our Jackie Sturks and we have our our Emerson Philippaldes who are now getting on in the age
now are the grandees of the sport nobody has the gravitas and the cultural significance of Sterling
Moss because in Britain in that era in the 1950s he was the great hope he was the boy and he was
he was in the sports pages he was going out and and winning for Britain and I don't think anybody
else ever ever touched that sort of that that connection perhaps maybe a Nigel Mansell character
but nobody who's as fondly regarded so widely as there ever been in Sterling Moss couldn't
agree more Colin Johnston once again the website racingdaydreams.com and on socials at CJ Grand Prix
check him out Colin thank you so much I had a great time it's been great I've loved it and it's
been fantastic being on horsepower heritage thank you so much to you and to all your listeners for
making me so welcome that's all for this episode of horsepower heritage if you like what you've
heard don't forget to support the podcast at buymeacoffee.com forward slash hp heritage
leave five stars and a quick review on apple podcasts or Spotify and follow horsepower heritage
on Instagram and YouTube and until next time I'm Maurice Merrick thanks for listening
you
About this episode
The hosts and motorsport historian Colin Johnston trace the “Mercedes miracle” of 1955 Mille Miglia—where Alfred Neubauer’s team-management instincts, Fangio’s figurehead role, and the Moss/Jenkinson pace-note system all converged. They connect the 300 SLR’s W196 lineage, electron-magnesium lightweighting, and hinged air-brake thinking to the race’s brutal public-road reality: brake wear, fuel sloshing, and near-disasters. Moss and Jenkinson’s 7:22 start, co-driver “toilet paper roll,” and coasting strategy culminate in a record-setting win.
On June 1, 1955 Stirling Moss and his navigator Denis Jenkinson climbed into their Mercedes-Benz 300SLR and set out from the northern Italian city of Brescia on a thousand-mile blast over public roads. Their objective: trounce the Ferraris and claim victory in the Mille Miglia.
The Mercedes team was meticulously prepared and the car was formidable, but perhaps no one was prepared for the astounding results.
In this episode, motor racing historian Colin Johnston tells the tale of what some consider to be one of the greatest racing performances of all time.
