Early Memories and Mercedes Benz

I think it was the cutaway drawings of racing cars in The Eagle comic from 1950 onwards which first got me interested in motor racing. I remember later reading stories of the Mercedes Benz and Auto Union cars of the 1930s - the 'Silver Arrows' - and thinking how I'd have loved to have seen these cars in action.

In 1958, when I was 16 years old, Mercedes Benz sent 2 cars, a W125 of 1937 and a W154 of 1939 (at that time generally referred to as a W163) to the Richard Seaman Memorial Trophy meeting at Oulton Park for Peter Collins and Tony Brooks to give demonstration runs. It was a time when car ownership wasn't as widespread as it is today and the only way to get to Oulton Park from where I lived (Denton, near Manchester) was to get a train from Manchester to Crewe, another train from Crewe to Beeston Castle, and then walk about 5 miles from there to the circuit. The only alternative was to do the whole journey (about 35 miles) by bicycle which I did quite a few times as a teenager, but on this occasion I chose the train and the walk. I did use my bike though to go to Manchester of the Friday afternoon after school as the cars were on display in the showroom of a Mercedes Benz dealer in Manchester.

Some 12 years later, in 1970, and then again in 1971, a W125 which had been discovered in (I think) East Germany by Colin Crabbe actually took part in the Richard Seaman Trophy race and in fact won on both occasions. The two photographs below are of the car at each of these meetings.

More recently, in 2007, Mercedes Benz sent a W125 to Donington Park, now the venue for the Richard Seaman Memorial Trophy races and it gave a demonstration run driven by Tony Dron, seen below at McLeans corner.

For the 2008 meeting Mercedes Benz sent over to Donington Park one of the W154/163 cars which was again demonstrated by Tony Dron and the photograph below shows the car in the paddock with the Richard Seaman Memorial Trophy just in front of the windscreen.

The Auto Unions are another story and I'll come to that some other time.