In 1934, a motor racing icon was born.
That icon was the Silver Arrows of Mercedes Benz, which first appeared at the Nurburgring on June 3rd, 1934. The cars were named W25, and the rumor was that the previously unseen bare silver bodywork came as a result of the team trying so desperately to bring the cars in under the 750kg weight limit that they stripped the vehicles of their traditional white paint!
The raw aluminum panels created a huge stir, as did Manfred Von Brauchitsch winning the race and resetting the track record. Ongoing success followed for Mercedes in the years to come with the continual development of the W25 – they’d win the 1935 European Championship outright with Rudolf Caracciola, as well as taking victory in 1936 in both Algeria and Monaco.
MORE: Best of the Cahier Archive – Mercedes Benz Silver Arrows
If you’d like to see the Silver Arrows in action, and to learn of what it was like to pilot such monsters – be sure to check out our video collection of Silver Arrows documentaries.
All images thanks to Mercedes AMG.
80 years later – The Birth of the Silver Arrows is a post from Motorsport Retro, bringing you classic motorsport, cars, motorcycles and gear every day.