A Car That Was Ahead Of Its Times
Such a marvellous idea could only have been the handiwork of those perfectionists at Mercedes Benz, for no one else could have seen this project through. Make a nice carrier that will take a racing car to numerous events in Europe and design it so that it is easily the fastest and the best transporter anyone has ever seen. But how could have the company even thought of putting in so much funds in designing and producing a vehicle that they weren’t going to sell? What was wrong in using a simple van?
The tale behind the construction of the transporter involves adherence to one’s principles, zeal for one’s craft, and last of all, common sense. Mercedes Benz had been in the midst of a severe competition with other German teams in the racing scene before World War I. However, when Mercedes cam out with the V12 driven W-154, it won 12 of the 17 events up to the war, and staked the number one slot. Mercedes had remained aloof of Grand Prix racing till the season of 1954, and this happened due to a decision that was taken two years before.
Mercedes then created the transporter to announce that it was back, and it was to carry the W-196, a novel racing car with a famous Argentinean driving it. The transporter had to be made so that it was distinctive, without any match in its class, and had to be easily acknowledged as a Mercedes Benz creation. It even had to the speediest of its type, as well as comparably fast to any other car on the free roads of Western Europe.
If you managed to get to the tracks sooner than most, you will definitely get more time to practice and prepare. It also gave you ample time to send a damaged car to the plant for repairing and get it back to the tracks well ahead of time. From a technical point of view, the transporter had the best of the best that Mercedes could muster. The X-shaped frame from the 300 S sedan was extended and given it, along with the 3.0 liter, 6-cylinder engine and the four speed manual transmission that are so common in the 300 SL series of sports cars released by Mercedes. Each wheel was fitted with brakes that had hydraulic drums that were power-assisted.
However, the transporter’s most unique aspect was the grand framework. Many of the steel panels were based on, or modified from models that existed at the time. The windshield and the doors were derived from the ones that were used in the 180 S, and so too were the finishing on the inside. It had enough space to accommodate two spare tires, a loading ramp, tools, and all necessary equipment for the racing car.
The front axle was kept unnaturally far behind the single cab, which in turn was placed too low, but the result was that the look was one that was uniquely Mercedes. The final product, painted in clear factory blue, was an immediate hit. The truck could go faster than 100 mph, even when loaded fully with 6,600 pound’s a speed that is considered to be fast even today.
The transporter took to the road in mid-1954 and was an immediate hit at tracks in Europe as well as North America. In fact, at times, it attracted more crowds than the racing cars that it actually carried. Following the tragic event at the 1955 French 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race, in which a privately owned Mercedes Benz 300 SLR crashed and killed 80 people, the company actually pulled out of formula racing. By the autumn of that year, the entire racing division, including the transporter, was retired.
Even though there were plans of putting the vehicle and its valuable payload in the company’s museum, the total weight proved to be more than the floors could support and the idea was ditched. In the years following its termination, Mercedes Benz got such a huge number of requests that it decided to make a replica in 1993. With the help of an outside fabricator, and a handful of sketches and photographs, the vehicle was finally unveiled in 2000. A short, albeit magnificent, page in the history of Mercedes Benz racing had been restored for the amazement and wonder of all its fans.
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