RE: Silver Arrows recreated: Time For Tea?
Wednesday 3rd December 2014
Discussion after yesterday's Time For Tea continues to raise controversy but hopefully today's brew accompaniment will be slightly less contentious. In fact, it doesn't even feature a video so we should be safe.
Mercedes vs Auto Union on the 'Donington hop'Obviously the funding and inspiration for expressing German technological might on the world stage isn't front and centre of these images but, frankly, it doesn't need to be. What Mercedes has done is recreate - using a complicated combination of photography, CGI, live action and good old fashioned story telling - a selection of the most dramatic moments from a most dramatic era of motor racing.
Silver Arrows recreated: Time For Tea?
Incredible moments from Mercedes' Silver Arrows history dramatically recreated in spectacular style
It is instead a selection of still images recreating key moments in the dramatic history of Mercedes' Silver Arrows racing cars as they duelled with Auto Union and Alfa Romeo in the 1930s. This contest had all the makings of a classic adventure - an epic rivalry between two powerful foes, an arms race of technology and horsepower, heroic drivers living and dying attempting to tame these monstrous cars and ... Nazis. Oh, what was that about avoiding controversy?
Mercedes vs Auto Union on the 'Donington hop'
So we have busy pre-race preparation in the Nurburgring paddock, the stripping of white paint off the W25 to get it under the weight limit and create the myth of the Silver Arrows, Hermann Lang powering on to victory in the 1939 Belgian Grand Prix past the burning wreckage of his dead teammate's car and much more besides. Fabulous stuff, the detail of how the images were recreated almost as compelling as the pictures themselves.
Discussion
rogerhudson said:
A silver arrows triumph without Hunlein strutting his stuff, most unlikely. The pictures may be sharp but the history got the airbrush.
No question. Of course, German law is a bit funny about Swastikas and the like, but in historical non-retouched pictures they are in abundance. As I recall ( I may be wrong), they were on cars too…I seem to remember some on at least the Auto Unions.Edited by RDMcG on Wednesday 3rd December 17:51
The guys who created the artwork were at Goodwood Revival this year, their work is exceptional. I had a good chat with them and they were extremely enthusiastic and knowledgeable. The subject is a favourite of mine, I could have happily chatted for hours!
http://silverarrowsproject.com/
When I am in a position to do so, I will be getting one of their large prints, they have got to be worth the money when you see what goes into them (the detail is astonishing, too). For now I have the postcards which I shall be turning into a little poster of my own
http://silverarrowsproject.com/
When I am in a position to do so, I will be getting one of their large prints, they have got to be worth the money when you see what goes into them (the detail is astonishing, too). For now I have the postcards which I shall be turning into a little poster of my own
Edited by 0llie on Thursday 4th December 11:17
Well imho the images are rather nice, they don't look 100% real, they look almost painted, yet in the grandstand shot the people are too real for that, as they are real people, but whatever.
pita trying to save them, is there an obvious "click here for desktop sized images" button that I'm missing?
got the one of the AVUS by looking through source code, anyone know what those cars are, the ones with the enclosed wheels?
pita trying to save them, is there an obvious "click here for desktop sized images" button that I'm missing?
got the one of the AVUS by looking through source code, anyone know what those cars are, the ones with the enclosed wheels?
If it is they over used that code, as it appears to be mid-engined with wheels in body, wheras the W126 is more typically front engined with open wheels (or in some cases each wheel having a fairing)
I mean this one
I mean this one
scarble said:
If it is they over used that code, as it appears to be mid-engined with wheels in body, wheras the W126 is more typically front engined with open wheels (or in some cases each wheel having a fairing)
I mean this one
Yeah, that code is certainly overused, as it was used again about 10 years ago! Mercedes have historically had an issue with model numbering...I mean this one
I've edited my post now to add the more common name of the body type used; google that and you'll see many photos of the car.
ah thanks, also I found the website for the project, rather than the MB website, bit easier to navigate the gallery on this one and each image has a description.
http://silverarrowsproject.com/about/
eta: ok looks like the W25 Rekordwagen was actualy front engined and may have just been a different body on the same chassis as the W25 formula racer.
The mid engined car behind it is AU not MB.
http://silverarrowsproject.com/about/
eta: ok looks like the W25 Rekordwagen was actualy front engined and may have just been a different body on the same chassis as the W25 formula racer.
The mid engined car behind it is AU not MB.
Dan Trent said:
TA14 said:
article said:
we have busy pre-race preparation in the Nurburgring paddock, the stripping of white paint off the W25 to get it under the weight limit and create the myth
not that rubbish again"The history of the Silver Arrows
By Doug Nye Last Updated: 3:15AM GMT 01 Mar 2009
Doug Nye reveals the myth behind the livery of Mercedes-Benz racers - often referred to as the Silver Arrows
This has been a motor-racing annus horribilis, not only for McLaren but also for its major shareholder, Mercedes-Benz. Around the time the "Ferrarigate" espionage story was breaking, a fuss of a different kind was enveloping DaimlerChrysler.
This year's vulgar McLaren-Mercedes livery has evolved from their previously gorgeous silver-grey, which dates back to the works Mercedes that dominated grand prix racing from 1934-39 and again from 1954-55, building the legend of the "Silver Arrows".
Mercedes' contemporary racing manager was Alfred Neubauer. In 1958 he related rollicking tales of his racing years in Quick magazine, the German equivalent of Picture Post. Ghosted by a young journalist, Harvey T. Rowe, Neubauer's story was later edited into an autobiography, published in English as Speed Was My Life, which included the tale of how he had saved Mercedes' bacon during the debut of the Nazi-backed W25 grand prix car in 1934.
A new grand prix formula had just been launched, including a maximum weight limit of 750kg. With financial support from Germany's National Socialist government, powerful cars were developed by both Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union.
The rear-engined 16-cylinder Auto Unions raced first at Berlin's Avus track in May, but Mercedes ignominiously withdrew its new front-engined eight-cylinder cars before the event. Neubauer told how these white-painted W25s then proved overweight during scrutineering for the next race, the EifelRennen at the Nürburgring in June. Another non-start was unacceptable; in Berlin, a former house painter was expecting a return on his government's investment.
What to do? Neubauer had a brainwave: "Scrape off the paint!" Next morning, in bare metal, the new cars met the 750kg limit and works driver Manfred von Brauchitsch won the race. "And so silver replaced white as the German national racing colour - the Silver Arrows had been born." This became the legend, which in recent years Mercedes-Benz has promoted globally. However, the German journalist Eberhard Reuss took exception to this and published an article that debunked the much-enhanced story as a lie. A huge fuss mushroomed, assuming such serious proportions that DaimlerChrysler convened a symposium in Stuttgart to re-examine the legend.
Reuss brandished the 1999 testimony of 1934 team mechanic Eugen Reichle: "The cars had never been painted white, so there was no paint to grind off." But the autobiographies of Neubauer (1959), Brauchitsch (1964) and a 1980s interview with mechanic/driver Hermann Lang all repeated the paint-stripping story. The ring of truth was added by the respected (late) Mercedes engineer Rudi Uhlenhaut. Four to one was surely confirmation?
However, Reuss pointed out that Uhlenhaut wasn't even with the team before 1936, that white as the German racing colour had previously been ignored in favour of silver not only by Auto Union at Avus in 1934, but also occasionally by Mercedes over the preceding 10 years. Photos of the W25 practising at Avus in 1934 indicated it was silver, as Reichle recalled, not white, so why should white paint be stripped off at the Nürburgring the following month?
A consensus emerged that Neubauer was more likely to embroider than to lie. His reputation was vigorously defended by the admirable Harvey T Rowe. He recalled how in 1958 he had asked Neubauer only one question before the great man began barking a torrent of machine-gun recollections into the microphone without pause until the tape ran out. "I never did manage to ask a second question," said Rowe wistfully.
Mercedes' trawl through its archives had produced crucial documents but nary a mention of paint removal. Critically, as early as March 1 1934, the company's original press release for the new W25 GP car described it as "ein silberne Pfeil" - a silvered arrow. Even more stunning was a radio commentary covering the 1932 AvusRennen in which Paul Laven, Germany's Murray Walker, described Brauchitsch's Mercedes-Benz bursting into sight: "Hier kommt der silberne Pfeil." Meanwhile, posts on Autosport magazine's online "Nostalgia Forum" pointed out that the EifelRennen race was not run to the 750kg formula at all, but a free formula that rendered weight irrelevant. However, it was still argued that Mercedes knew weight would be critical in that year's major grands prix, and so in rehearsal at the Nürburgring the 750kg target still had to be met. Other posts cite precedents for last-minute paint-scraping as early as 1904, suggesting perhaps that Neubauer had either confused events or made himself the hero of an old anecdote.
The Stuttgart symposium's review of contemporary factory photographs finally proved compelling. Photos since used as evidence that early W25s were painted white proved to have been heavily retouched, and the original negatives yield plain evidence of a silver finish. If the cars were ever stripped, it was of silver paint - and the heavy leaded filler beneath it - not white. And not, it appears, at the Nürburgring."
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