The Greatest Mercedes You’ve Never Heard Of

Mercedes dominated the early years of Grand Prix racing with Auto Union while Ferrari won in Voiturettes. After controversial rule changes to the 1939 Tripoli Grand Prix, the W165 was created.
In the latest of our new "A Short View Back to the Past" series, and with the help of archive footage from Motorsport.tv, Autosport's Chief Editor Kevin Turner looks at perhaps the greatest Mercedes racer.
Do you have a favourite motorsport tale you’d like us to revisit? Please let us know in the comments.
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[@CreamAle]

I don't care what the next topic is, just want the narrator/host to be the same.
That was great.

[@aydankhaliq2967]

A video on the W154 or W125 would be pretty cool.

[@adamvelo1041]

Great video, I’d personally heard of this car before but mostly because I was interested in pre war Grand Prix cars recently. Next video covering the FISA-FOCA battle in 1980-82 would be awesome

[@puebespuebes8589]

Those old Mercedes are the best sounding F1 ever by far

[@andy34g7]

Every auto car maker: Oh yeah let's go racing to win
Mercedes: Allow us to introduce ourselves (Proceeds to dominate whatever racing series they're in)

[@norabiddogz8673]

Except Le Mans

[@myraldie]

@@norabiddogz8673 well they did dominate lemans with sauber

[@norabiddogz8673]

@@myraldie They won on the one occasion in '89 with the C9. I wouldn't call that dominating. Compared to Porsche dominating with eight wins in the 962 alone before their wins in the modern LMP1 era.

[@devandrasimanjuntak1646]

@@norabiddogz8673 yeah, it’s like somebody cursed them at Le Mans or something 😂 In 98 they won every race in the GT1 class except Le Mans, in a CLK GTR that was modified specifically for Le Mans. Talk about bad luck lol

[@norabiddogz8673]

@@devandrasimanjuntak1646 😂😅 The CLR GT1 aeroplane you mean! Yeah. Merc has had very good cars in the Sportscar/Endurance Championship and have done well, but they always get really unlucky in La Sarthe. 1955 especially was dreadful for them and motorsport in general.

[@vintageman91]

Heard about quite a bit since im into vintage race cars.

[@raykewin3608]

History repeats itself.

[@petesomeguy]

I vote for a John Cooper episode please :)

[@KeyWestChrisRehm]

In his book, Caracciola went into detail of his attempts to take the cars to Indianapolis. Rudi had spent the war in Lugano, Switzerland. Additionally he lived there since 1931, I believe. However, he was a Swiss citizen for years at this point. Through his connections with the Mercedes factory in Stuttgart, he managed to convince them to lend him the W165s for Indy. If memory serves me correctly, they were delivered to an agent in Zurich. There were massive complications with the Swiss government not releasing the car to Rudi.with there being a wazoo amount of leagal paperwork that they would not allow the cars to be released. Issues as to who actually owned the cars and was in part of a war debt. This was in 1946. Rudi did go to Indy and signed with The Joel Thorne Special team. During testing some said he hit a bird, while others suggested someone threw a rock at him, but he crashed in practice and was hospitalized with a brain injury. Speedway owner, Tony Hulman insisted that Rudi recover at his personal home, just outside Indianapolis, with his wife, "Baby" Hoffman, at his side. They became the best of friends and Carracciola's trophy collection, has been on display at the Indianapolis Speedway Museum for at least fifty years. I don't know how the two W165s got back to Stuttgart? However, I'm certain it was a headache ofa leagal, boring papertrail. On a side note: A W154 was somehow brought over to Indy, by an American who entered it into the '500.. It was said that the car was just too complicated for the team to figure out. I think that was in 1948, or 1949? Thanks

[@VamsidharaChakravarthy]

Spiderman ohhh spiderman ... Spiderman ohhh spiderman...

[@wildanfjr]

This is Khezu from Monster Hunter

[@DaniMacYo]

Pumpernickel.

[@JustinSeara]

Never heard of? What the fuck? The auto union Mercedes is legendary. Anybody with even a shred of interest in racing/F1 history knows this car. Come on

[@dayasingh799]

Oh like this new rule change then

[@Sauceyjames]

Good they stuck it to them

[@Scoots1994]

Porsche 908/2 and the Targa Florio

[@samcolliver4433]

Maybe they should race the old one instead of w13

[@myraldie]

Italian team: mercedes would'nt win today
Mercedes: allow us to introuduced our car

[@laiyufeng8070]

Hello There

[@ryandavies7978]

Incoming comments about the 2022 regulations being brought in specifically to curb mercedes dominance

[@dante6207]

of course

[@JLneonhug]

History repeats ;)

[@danverss6176]

It's possible, 2006 was an attempt to stop ferrari and brodgestone's domination. Most rule changes are probably for dethroning the current dominator anyway

[@Pidea14]

@@danverss6176 I agree

[@ryandavies7978]

@@danverss6176 clearly not this one, this one has a specific aim and was first proposed in the early stages in 2017

[@PPpaladin]

traditions

[@philippruest5577]

The Mercedes (and Auto Union) race car develipment got massive fundeding from the regime.

[@Nakkisampyla]

Only one race