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.

Mercedes Benz Kompressor Club

Several members of Germany's Mercedes Benz Kompressor Club for vehicles produced between 1927 and 1934 attended the Coys International Historic Festival Meeting with their cars in July 1994 and took part in a demonstration run around the circuit.

Pictured here in the paddock are some of those cars and on the right is an earlier model, 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 programme of the event had this note about the Kompressor Club:

 

1924 Mercedes Targa Florio

Cars from the Mercedes Benz Kompressor Club which caters for owners of the supercharged sports cars built between 1927 and 1934 were present at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1994. Joining them was this earlier Mercedes car.

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.

Mercedes

This car accompanied several 1920's and 1930's Mercedes-Benz cars on a demonstration run round the Silverstone circuit at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting in July 1994.

It's one of the three 2-litre supercharged 4-cylinder 1924 Mercedes cars that took part in the Targa Florio race in Sicily that year. One of those cars, driven by Christian Werner, won the race, but I've seen two conflicting reports about final placings of the other two cars. Christian Lautenschlager finished in either 10th or 11th place, and the car driven by Alfred Neubauer (later Mercedes-Benz team manager in the 1930's and 1950's) was either 15th or 16th.