The Silver Arrows Era: How Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union Redefined Racing

Dominant – that’s the word to describe the W154 (sometimes called 163) that engineer Rudolf Uhlenhaut fielded to contest the 1938 and ’39 grand prix seasons. In the hands of Rudi Caracciola and Hermann Lang the car took victory after victory while other racing nations – France, Italy, Britain – were left gasping in its eye-stinging wake.

Manfred von Brauchitsch in the 1938 Swiss GP, running with distinctive red grille

Once again a rule change intended to calm soaring speeds had backfired. After battles between Alfa Romeo and Bugatti in the opening years of the 1930s it was the Germans who had grabbed the reins and hitched ever more horses to their wagons, both Auto Union and Mercedes-Benz conjuring huge power from complex machines which trampled over the grand prix and hillclimb seasons and astonished British spectators at Donington. Legendary team manager Alfred Neubauer presided. With Alfa Romeo having forged the single-seater path with the Tipo B, blazing one final time at the 1935 German GP when Tazio Nuvolari defeated the home teams, Ferdinand Porsche’s Auto Unions proved that a rear engine gave unbeatable traction, but suspension design was only slowly shifting towards the ‘stiff chassis, soft springs’ realisation, and these brutal machines were brutes to handle – unless you had the lightning reactions of the brilliant Bernd Rosemeyer. Between the two silver-liveried marques trophies accrued and lap records tumbled. Rivals scrapped over the leftovers.