The Silver Arrows
A look at how Mercedes’ racing heritage and rich history helped them rise to the pinnacle of the automotive world

By Nehaal Peerbhoy
Let’s start with a small game of sorts. First step, pick five famous people in the ranks of celebrities, sportsmen, politicians, businessmen and professionals. Next step, go online and check to see which cars they drive. Eureka! Chances are it’s a Mercedes-Benz. For more than a century, Mercedes cars have captured the imagination of every proud individual with his share of weight in his pockets. Whether an affluent businessman or the surprisingly well-to-do grocer across my house, the arrival of a new Merc has always been met with an elegant stance, shoulders by the side, paunch pushed in and chest boldly displaying the persona of a proud and established member of society. The neighbours take turns to send over sweets and cards hoping that someday they may be ferried to a wedding in one such Benz.

I clearly remember a childhood incident. A classmate of mine was proudly talking about his uncle who often came to pick him up from school. His uncle apparently owned a sprawling mansion in South Bombay, was married to a Bollywood actress, and had a fancy for expensive Swiss watches. I somehow felt dutifully obliged to step in and put my non-existent uncle on the same pedestal. I started by lying about the big television in his house and the castle he lived in which he bought from the Maharana of Mumbai. By some superb twist of tale, my classmate was still winning this argument as no one bought the castle story. I had to win that argument somehow as pride was at stake and that’s when I came out with my ace. He owns a new Mercedes! Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

These days in India, even though there are other prestigious car manufacturers in the likes of Jaguar, BMW, Audi, Porsche, to name just a few, Mercedes still holds a lot of weight.

PIONEERS OF THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
Mercedes-Benz trace their roots to Karl Benz’s creation of the first petrol-powered car in 1886 - called the Benz Patent Motorwagen - and also Gottlieb Daimlier and engineer Willhelm Maybach’s conversion of a stage coach by adding a petrol engine later that year. The 1886 Patent Motorwagen is regarded as the first-ever production automobile, making that a true achievement for the German marque.

Mercedes is a division of its parent company Daimler AG, and the parent company’s name first appeared in 1926 when Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler merged companies to form the Daimler Benz Company.

The birth of the iconic brand name ‘Mercedes’ is all credit to a rich and affluent Austrian businessman with a vision for the modern automobile and a passion for motorsport. Emil Jellinek purchased his first Daimler-Benz way back in 1896 and fell in love with it instantly. The car Jellinek purchased was a 6 horsepower model with a 2-cylinder engine and a top speed of 24 km/h. He immediately asked Daimler to increase the top speed and power, and also became an active supporter in the company through his investments. He was subsequently supplied with a new 8 horsepower 4-cylinder car capable of speeds of 40km/hr. This was the first 4 cylinder engine produced in the world. By 1899 Jellinek received 29 Daimlers and had still not quenched for his thirst of power and speed.

Jellinek raced these high performance cars in races in Europe under his daughter's name, Mercedes. At the beginning of the 1900s, Jellinek entered into an agreement with Daimler-Benz to use his daughter's name as a brand name for all their product lines. The first car Daimler built with this new tag was the creation of Willhelm Maybach, the-then Chief Engineer of Mercedes-Benz. The car created quite a stir at the turn of the century with features like a lowered centre of gravity, pressed steel frame, lightweight high performance engine, and honeycomb radiator. It featured cutting-edge innovation, and is regarded as the first modern age automobile.

Slowly, Mercedes’ high performance cars started becoming practically untouchable in any form of motorsport . This led to a rapid increase in popularity and sales, especially amongst the rich and famous. Jellinek officially changed his name to Jellinek-Mercedes, and often joked that it was probably the first time that the father adopted his daughter’s name!

A STAR IS BORN
Daimler now had a successful brand in Mercedes but lacked an enigmatic symbol. It just so happened that Paul and Adolf Daimler, the two sons of company founder Gottlieb Daimler, remembered that their father had put up a star above their house saying that this star would at one time in the foreseeable future bring prosperity to their company and so it did. The Daimler board immediately accepted this idea, and in 1909 registered two stars - three and four-pointed - as the registered trademarks. The four-pointed star was however, never used on the cars. In 1910, the three-pointed star became a three dimensional star which commonly appeared on the radiator or front grill of all the cars - making it a trend that continues even till today.

The three-pointed star is supposed to symbolise Daimler’s ambition of universal motorisation, i.e on sea, on land, and in the air. The three-pointed star is one of the automotive world’s greatest assurances of quality, luxury, and performance even till today. Millions of avid fans wear the emblem on their t-shirts and jackets, and millions of thieves risk their freedom to steal these off your pristine Mercedes-Benz. The Second World War saw Mercedes enter the dark ages of the automobile era. Sales were running very low, and only the aristocracy showed interest in - or could afford - such exclusive cars. At this turbulent time, Mercedes supplied engines, automobiles, coaches, and boats to the Nazi regime. Daimler-Benz is alleged to have exploited more than 30,000 forced workers and Prisoners of War in an effort to sustain production levels. In return, Hitler very publicly supported Mercedes through contributions in the form of investment. Mercedes were, in this manner, free to continue investment into Research and Development, and this showed results in motorsport where they ended up dominating each and every form of racing - much to the dismay of rival companies such as the newly purpose formed Auto Union, the only real Mercedes competitor.

Motorsport, in those days, was a matter of pure passion and gutsy determination. For India’s new base of Formula 1 fans, those days of racing are a far cry away from today’s corporate-driven, laboratory-tested racing. Drivers did not need to be super fit, young, or scientifically-trained. Those were the days of pure bravery when fatality rates were almost five deaths per year or even more - and that’s from a much smaller playing field! However, much like today, technology was transferred from the racetrack to the open roads. New gimmicks and technological innovation seen on racecars, and developed through painful hours at the workshop, were seen on road cars about two or three years later.

FROM THE TRACK TO THE SHOWROOMS
Mercedes have always been one such passionate racing team and trace their racetrack heritage to 1902 with their Mercedes Simplex car that dominated racing for years to come.
Mercedes were also the pioneers of aerodynamics in motorsport. The bird-beaked car of 1909 set a land speed record of 228.1 km/h that the company boasted was faster than anything moving on air, water or road. The Golden Era for Mercedes was the 1930s when racing division chief Alfred Naubaur was met by astounding success.

PODIUM FINISH
Teams were doing everything imaginable to increase speeds to compete with the German companies. In an effort to increase speeds in Mercedes’ garage by reducing weight, Alfred Naubaur, just minutes before the start of the race, ordered mechanics to scratch the paint from their cars. The result was a shiny silver car that was half a kilo or so lighter. This gave the German racecars a new name - The Silver Arrows. The Silver Arrows is a name popularly given to all Mercedes racecars since that day, and became so popular that Mercedes and Germany opted to have silver as their national racing colours.

However, soon after the Second World War and the end of Germany’s ascendancy in Europe, Mercedes pulled out of motorsport, signalling an end to an era of insane and ridiculous domination not even matched by the famous five years of the Schumacher era.

They, however, returned to the sport in 1952 at the legendary LeMans 24 hour endurance race with the 300 SL - boasting the famous gull-winged doors. (A new version of that car has been recently released and is called the Mercedes AMG SLS.) Mercedes won that race and took victory the next three years in dominating fashion until disaster struck in 1955. A Silver Arrows car was caught up in a collision with another competitor, resulting in the Mercedes being catapulted into the stands and killing several spectators. Mercedes immediately announced their exit from the sport as subsequently many races around the world were stopped.

MODERN-DAY TRIUMPHS
Mercedes, over the years since that fateful day, have also performed in various other racing leagues such as the German and British Touring Car Championships with their championship winning CLK-GTR, and the 1960s World Rally Championship with their W201 All Wheel Drive turbocharged rally cars. They re-entered Formula 1 in 1993 as only an engine supplier for the Sauber Formula1 team, and subsequently for the Mclaren team in 1995. Finally, Mercedes stormed back to a position of motorsport domination with Mika Hakkinnen’s double world championship wins in 1998 and 1999.

However, it is 2010 that will be considered the comeback year for Mercedes after they re-entered Formula 1 in a full-fledged manner. The Mercedes team is now a top-end competitor to all teams in the F1 grid and boasts one of the greatest legends of the sport as their driver, a certain German by the name of Michael Schumacher. Today, Mercedes cars worldwide utilise cutting edge innovation, and the Mercedes name is a byword for quality. To maximise this racetrack heritage for showroom sales and branding purposes, AMG has been set up as a unique engine-manufacturing subsidiary for their high end product line. Mercedes also collaborated with Mclaren in 2004 to make the limited production Mercedes Mclaren SLR (that used the latest Formula1 technology to create a gull-winged supercar harking back to the days of yore). After a dip in sales and mounting quality concerns in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Mercedes’ fortunes are once again on the upswing. This successful pairing of racing and showroom efforts is perhaps a fantastic feat of branding.

This of course leads us to the old adage - that we don’t buy products, we buy a lifestyle - and anyone buying a three-pointed star is sold on to the idea of a glorious history of technological innovation and racetrack heroics!