1924 Mercedes Targa Florio

This is a car that was displayed in the paddock at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1995.

It's a 4-cylinder inline 2 litre Mercedes, one of three cars that contested the Targa Florio race in 1924. The race took part on the mountain roads near Palermo in Sicily over 4 laps of the 108 kilometre long circuit. The cars were driven by Christian Werner, Christian Lautenschlager and Alfred Neubauer who finished in first, tenth and fifteenth places respectively in the overall standings, and in the first three places in the 1,501 to 2,000cc class. Alfred Neubauer became the Mercedes Benz team leader from 1926 until racing ended in 1939 before the outbreak of war, and was team manager again in 1954 and 1955 when Mercedes Benz returned to racing for those two years.

The cars were painted red for this race instead of the German racing colour of white, and this was apparently because spectators in the wilds of the Sicilian countryside had a habit of cheering on the red Italian cars and obstructing the path, and even throwing stones at cars of a 'foreign' colour.