London 28 March, 2013
The double Formula 1 Grand Prix-winning Mercedes-Benz W196
which helped five-time world champion Juan Manuel Fangio to his
second drivers' championship in 1954 – to be offered for sale by
Bonhams at the Goodwood Festival of Speed on Friday 12th July
– has already attracted enquiries from potential buyers on three
continents.
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The 2½-litre straight-eight single-seater – chassis number
00006/54 – was the first open-wheeled, 'slipper'-bodied postwar
Mercedes-Benz to win a Formula 1 Grand Prix, and its innovative
design marked the introduction to the sport of the following
technologies:
• Fuel-injected engine
• Mercedes-Benz all-independent suspension
• Multi-tubular spaceframe lightweight chassis design
• All-round inboard-mounted brakes
• The in-line or straight-8 engine lay-down configuration to
minimise the car's overall height
• Power take-off from the centre of the engine's long 8-cylinder
crankshaft to minimise vibration
• Desmodromic valve actuation
Fangio's victories in the 1954 German and Swiss Grands Prix
were the first to be achieved in succession by the frontier-
technology Mercedes-Benz factory Formula 1 team in its postwar
racing come-back.
During just 14 months of Formula 1 racing before it was retired
from racing by the German factory team at the end of 1955, the
car contested five World Championship-qualifying Grand Prix
races. Driven first by Fangio, it was later assigned to junior driver
Hans Herrmann for the 1954 Italian GP, where it finished fourth.
In that year's Spanish Grand Prix, Hans Herrmann's race in 00006
ended with engine trouble. The car was then used in just one
1955 Grand Prix – the Italian event – when, driven by Karl Kling, it
ran in second place behind Fangio's sister Mercedes-Benz before
suffering gearbox failure.
The car was then re-prepared to full race standard and consigned
to the Daimler-Benz Museum on December 22, 1955.
In June 1965 it was exhibited in Munich and during 1966 it was
shown at both Le Mans in France and Hockenheim in Germany. It
then appeared at the 1967 British Grand Prix at Silverstone,
before being run in a tyre test at the Unterturkheim factory test-
track, and displayed in Berlin. In November 1967 it was exhibited
at Stuttgart University.
Further public appearances followed in 1969 in Luxembourg,
Berlin and Hamburg. A Daimler-Benz Museum archive document
records that as of November 5, 1969, the car "should be available
at any time for R. Uhlenhaut" – the company's illustrious chief
engineer – "...for testing purposes".
On June 24, 1972, the car ran in engine tests at Unterturkheim
before on May 22, 1973, Mercedes-Benz officially presented it to
the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu, Hampshire, England.
In the 1980s the car was sold into private hands. It was preserved
first in the UK by Anthony – now Sir Anthony – Bamford of JCB
Excavators, then in France with Jacques Setton. It passed
subsequently into the ownership of a German businessman in
whose care the car was run at the Monaco Historic meeting, at
Goodwood, and in California from 1999-2000.
Today, after many years out of public view stored in a warehouse,
Mercedes-Benz W196 chassis 00006 is offered for sale by
Bonhams.
This is the only Mercedes-Benz W196 in private hands. It is the
only surviving Mercedes-Benz W196 to have won not just one
World Championship Grand Prix, but two. Its stature is immense,
not only as the iconic 'Fangio car' of the 1950s, but also as a
shining star of pinnacle Mercedes-Benz engineering and as an
icon of postwar recovery.
Images ... Peter Singhof www.ClassicCarPhotography.de
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