Iconic Race Cars / #6

Germany's dominant car between 1934 and 1939 was Auto Union and Mercedes-Benz. For decades each country had its traditional color in car racing. Italians are still famous for their Rosso Corsa red, French Blue de France blue, British for British racing green, sponsored by national pride, and private bank accounts. German cars were white.

The cars? Silver arrows

Why silver arrows, if they were white?
It was determined that they were 1kg overweight and the quick-thinking team stripped bodies of their paint to reveal raw aluminum. They've dominated the Grand Prix and the press named them Silver Arrows. Name stuck with German racing cars for decades.

These unthinkably fast supercharged cars were making as much as 650 BHP in 1937, a figure not greatly exceeded in Grand Prix racing until the early 1980s, when turbo-charged engines were common in F1.

The names Rudolf Caracciola, Bernd Rosemeyer, Hermann Lang, and later Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss, will always be associated with the eras of these racing cars.

Did you know?

The Silver Arrows of Mercedes and Auto Union cars reached speeds of well over 300 kilometers per hour (186 mph) in 1937, and well over 400 km/h (249 mph) during land speed record runs.

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