Car Articles

Read articles on cars and car industry. Get fully updated on all information related to cars. Read exciting happening in the Indian and Global Car industry, tips to help you and more...

Old Articles

Neubauer's Silver Arrows Story

Back from 1926 to 1955, Alfred Neubauer was the racing manager for Mercedes Grand Prix. In 1958, he narrated tales of the earlier days. He spoke of his racing times in Quick magazine. A journalist, Harvey T. Rowe later edited the tales and converted them into an autobiography. A book was published in English titled Speed Was My Life. A controversial story too was included in the book. This was the story of “Silver Arrows”.

Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union built powerful cars taking help from Germany's Nazi regime. A new formula took position in the grand prix, the 750kg weight limit formula. Auto Union with its rear-engine 16-cylinder car raced first at Berlin's Avus track. Mercedes, however, withdrew from taking part just before the event started. It had 8-cylinder W25 cars with engines in the front. For the next race, the EifelRennen at the Nürburgring, these W25s proved overweight during the inspection. Retrieving from a race for the second consecutive time would be too disgraceful for Mercedes. Wouldn't the white-painted W25s be able to participate a second time? No!

Now Mercedes had to save its face. What could it do? An idea struck Neubauer. “Scrape off the paint”, he said. Wonderful! The cars, now in bare metal, met the 750kg condition for the 1934 race. Next morning the driver Manfred von Brauchitsch won the race for Mercedes. Silver, the color of metal, replaced white as the German national racing colour and Silver Arrows was born. This Silver Arrows became the legend which Mercedes-Benz now promotes globally.

This story, however, saw a controversial twist in German journalist Eberhard Reuss' article. The famous story of the birth of Silver Arrows was exposed as a lie. The matter became quite serious and Daimler Chrysler gathered a formal assembly in Stuttgart to re-examine the legend. The 1934 team mechanic Eugen Reichle's testimony was published in the article. He said, “The cars had never been painted white, so there was no paint to grind off”. However, Neubauer's and Brauchitsch's autobiographies were enough proof for the story. A 1980s interview with mechanic and driver Hermann Lang also repeated the same paint-stripping story. The Mercedes engineer Rudi Uhlenhaut supported the story of these three. Four is to one; is the voice of the majority proof for the truth?

The German journalist did not give up. Reuss pointed out that Uhlenhaut was not even with the team before 1936. He also said that both Auto Union and Mercedes always preferred silver and had ignored white as the German racing colour even before the 1934 race. He had photos of the W25 practicing at Avus in 1934. The colour was silver and not white. The team mechanic Reichle asked why white paint had to be stripped from the silver car when there was no white paint at all.

A unanimous decision emerged that Neubauer was more likely to add fanciful details to the story than to lie. His character was completely defended by the venerable Harvey T Rowe. He recollected how in 1958 he had asked Neubauer only one question and the great man started pouring forth a heavy downflow of machine-gun memoirs into the microphone without pause until the tape ran out. “I never did manage to ask a second question”, said Rowe full of wishful yearning.

Mercedes looked through all its archives which contained crucial documents. Not one of those made a mention of paint removal. As early as March 1 1934, the Mercede's press release for the new W25 GP car called it the “ein silberne Pfeil” meaning “a silvered arrow”. Not just that. A 1932 radio commentary covering the AvusRennen in which Paul Laven and Germany's Murray Walker described Brauchitsch's Mercedes-Benz. Just as it arrived, they exclaimed, “Here comes the Silver Arrow”!

There was yet another online magazine, Autosport whose “Nostalgia Forum” brought to notice that the EifelRennen race was not run to the 750kg formula at all. It said the W25 raced at a free formula that did not have any car-weight limitations. In spite of this, it was still squabbled that Mercedes felt that weight could prove to be dangerous in that year's major Grand Prix, and so, during the rehearsal at the Nürburgring, the 750kg target still had to be met. There were some other magazine posts too which quoted silver models as early as 1904. They suggested that Neubauer must have either confused events or made himself the hero of an old interesting and amusing story.

Even to this day one cannot tell for sure if Neubauer spoke the truth, lied or just fancied something and weaved a beautiful fable. The controversy still continues.

» Read more Articles On Mercedes

» Read more Articles On Mercedes-Benz