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Uhlenhaut was just 30 when he took over technical responsibility at
Mercedes’ racing team. Born in London, his mother was English and
his father the London head of Deutsche Bank. His fluent English helped
cement a fine relationship with Seaman, who initially spoke little German.
Although he didn’t race, Uhlenhaut was an excellent driver and did much
of the development testing himself. ‘Today, racing drivers seem to have a
better grasp of the technical side of things, but back then they knew very
little,’ he said many years later. So Uhlenhaut pounded around the Nürbur-
gring (and other circuits) with a handful of mechanics to help him.
Better and more successful Mercedes GP cars resulted, including the
W125 and W154, which dominated the 1937 and 1938-9 seasons respectively.
After the war (during which his English ancestry meant the Gestapo viewed
him with suspicion), Uhlenhaut returned to Mercedes-Benz and designed
the world championship-winning W196 GP racer (which powered Fangio
to the driver’s title in 1954 and 1955) and the iconic 300 SLR sports racer, as
famously used by Moss to win the 1955 Mille Miglia. He continued to do
much of the development testing himself and attributed his early deafness
to driving very loud cars.
Uhlenhaut was the greatest GP engineer of his time, and the W154
perhaps his masterpiece. There was no world championship before 1950,
yet in 1938 it won every major Grand Prix apart from the Italian and
Donington (effectively, the British) races – both won by Nuvolari in an Auto
Union. It was beaten only twice in 1939, in France and Yugoslavia (again, to
Auto Unions). Its last GP was that Yugoslav race, run in a park in Belgrade
on 3 September 1939. It was the same day that Britain declared war on
Germany, and two days after Hitler’s tanks crossed the Polish border.
It was the end of Hitler’s Silver Arrows. It was also the end of a five-
year period of unmatched grandeur and drama in Grand Prix racing, of
astonishing technical progress, of elegantly beautiful 200mph pre-war
monsters, and of unparalleled political posturing and interference. Having
successfully dominated GP racing, Hitler would turn his attention to
dominating the world.Ulenhaut did developmenttesting himself and attributedearly deafness to very loud carsA saddle fuel
tank ran over the
driver’s legs to
balance weightGlycol coolant
allowed
temperatures
up to 125°C▲▲▲▲19 52 300 SL
All supercars need ludicrous
doors, and for that we can
thank the original 300 SL, which
marked Mercedes’ return to
competition after the war. Its
super-light tubular frame couldn’t
support proper doors, hence
flimsy roof-mounted hatches. Its
eventual road-car spin-off kept
the gullwings, turning entry and
egress into a crowd-pleasing
kerbside performance.
Mark Walton1969 300 SEL 6.3 ‘Red Pig’
The Red Pig marks the beginning
of AMG. When Merc crammed
the 600 limo’s V8 into the W109
S-class, it created the 300 SEL
6.3, the world’s fastest four-door.
Even more startling was AMG
racing one at the 1971 Spa 24
Hours, where it came second.
The Red Pig was so fast, so
heavy, that Matra bought it to test
plane tyres. Fate unknown, the
example AMG shows is a replica.
Ben Barry1954 Blue Wonder
Merc’s ’50s racers weren’t just
fastest on track – they were
fastest there and back, too. The
Blue Wonder transporter featured
a 240bhp straight six from the
300 SL and a low, forward-control
cab that helped it reach 105mph.
It was scrapped when Merc quit
racing after the ’55 Le Mans
disaster. Decades later, Mercedes
spent seven years and 6000 man
hours building a replica.
Chris Chilton2006 C-Class DTM
I had a one-lap passenger ride
in the C-Class DTM at Brands
Hatch. This was the Indy circuit,
so my lap was less than a minute.
And it was a C-Class in name
only – under that bloated skin
was a 4.0-litre V8 making 476bhp,
driving the rear wheels through
a six-speed – bang! – sequential
transmission, weighing less than
1000kg, with super-wide tyres for
unearthly grip. I so nearly puked.
Colin Overland125 YEARS OF MERC RACERS
CAR’s writers pick their winners from Merc’s racing past