grober
MB Master
BEHIND THE NAME.
Mercedes-Benz racing cars became known as Silver Arrows as far back as 1934. Like so much folklore this famous nickname came about by accident. Back in the days when British racing cars were green, Italian red, and French Blue, the national racing colour of Germany was white. (Howard are you reading this) When the new W25s appeared for their debut [designed by Dr Hans Nibel -- twin cam, supercharged, straight 8, 4 litre, 420 bhp] in the Nurburg-ring paddock before the Eifel Grand Prix, that was indeed the colour of their paintwork. The celebrated Mercedes team manager Alfred Neubauer, presented the brand new cars for their pre-race technical inspection- and was gratified when they were one kilo under the 750 kilogramme maximum weight limit in operation at that time. The story goes that, for some reason, the precision of the Mercedes engineers attracted the suspicion of the Scuderia Ferrari team manager, Nello Ugolini, who was responsible for the factory Alfa Romeos. ( Nothing changes in Formula One really) Watching the W25s going through scrutineering, Ugolini, on an impulse, put his hand inside the cockpit of one of the cars, and pressed down on the brake pedal. There was no resistance: the pedal went straight to the floor……..
Ugolini immediately protested that the inspectors should examine the fluid levels in all the white cars. And his suspicions turned out to be justified.
Neubauer and his crew had no alternative but to top up the fluids and present the cars to the scrutineers once again. This time they weighed in at 752 kilogrammes…….
The W25 cars had been meticulously constructed to meet the weight requirements, and consequently there was nothing that could be removed to save the offending weight.
At the scene Hermann Lang was the chief mechanic on Luigi Fagioli’s car. He can recall the circumstances, although he can’t remember who suggested the solution: remove the paint, exposing the bare metal beneath it. “It could well have come from one of the mechanics because we were all standing around discussing what could be done about the problem,” Lang says. “The cars had been painted very carefully, in order to get an excellent finish, but the bodies were uneven, hand-beaten aluminium. This mean a lot of lead filler had been applied before the paint was sprayed on. And it was probably that, rather than the paint itself which caused the difficulty.”
After the white paint was removed, the cars were given a light coating of silver aluminium paint, and when they were weighed for a third time they were just under the limit, Soon after, it was an unknown press reporter who began to call the cars SILVER ARROWS.
This an extract from a Mercedes publication “The year of the Silver Arrows” to celebrate their success in the FIA World-Sports-Prototype Championships of 1989-90 editor Quentin Spurring.
Hope anyone who didn’t know this story behind Mercedes racing colours enjoyed it. Now you know why all those Mercedes are painted SILVER!!!
Last edited:
I think we all know the story, but a whole kilogram of paint??? 
Glad that things seem to be improving now. 
I am suffering from a bad dose of flu at the moment so maybe that explains it.
