Fed up with seeing their major races won by the Germans in the 1930s, the Italians allowed only 1½-liter entries in their 1939 races to eliminate their opposition. They reckoned without the astonishing skills of the Daimler-Benz Racing Department.
The most glamorous Grand Prix race of the 1930s was not at Monaco, not at Dubai, not at Singapore. It was in Northern Africa in the Italian colony of Libya, at Tripoli. To the racing teams, especially those emerging from winter in rainy France or foggy Germany, sailing to Tripoli in May was a liberating journey to a paradise of Arabian opulence under the sun and palms. Only when the hot, salty ghibli blew from the sea, stirring up red sand and biting fleas, was this exotic land less than hospitable to its distinguished guests?
Replacing an antiquated circuit near the capital city of Tripoli, around the Mellaha Lake that gave the track its name, Libya governor Italo Balbo decreed into existence a new, fast, eight‑mile circuit that also served as sections of local highways. Its facilities were so magnificent that Dick Seaman called it, “the Ascot of motor-racing circuits.” The wide track was surfaced in smooth asphalt.
As a celebration of the greater glory of fascist Italy, the 1939 Tripoli race was shaping up nicely with one awkward exception: the winner was certain to be German. The last Italian victory had been in 1934. Subsequent years had seen three wins for Mercedes‑Benz and one for Auto Union, the silver cars not only winning, but invariably occupying the first three places.
To give Italian racers a chance to win something, Balbo allowed the 1½‑liter Voiturettes to compete in a separate class along with the big boys in 1937. Maserati was the winner. In 1938, Alfa Romeo and Scuderia Ferrari collaborated on designing and building a new car for this class, the straight‑eight Type 158 “Alfetta”. So Europeans were not unduly surprised in September 1938 when the Italian sporting authorities announced that next season all their single‑seater races would be restricted to 1,500-cc cars. The first event of the new year was the Tripoli Grand Prix.
Mercedes racing chief Alfred Neubauer first learned of the switch in Italy’s races at Monza on September 11th after the Italian Grand Prix, which was an embarrassing fiasco for Mercedes‑Benz. Neubauer’s spirits weren’t lifted when the president of the Italian motor-sports federation gave him the news “with a smile sweet as honey.”
The Italians knew full well that the major German firms had no such cars. However, at a special meeting convened at Untertürkheim on September 15th, engineering chief Max Sailer asked the responsible engineers what kind of 1,500-cc car they would build and how they would go about it. When he asked, “Can we build a 1½‑liter car by May of next year?” the designers protested that that was far too little time, especially in view of their other workloads.
They were overruled by the blunt, bespectacled Sailer, veteran of 25 years of racing. He directed them to start work on such a car at once. By mid‑February of 1939 the labors of eight to ten draftsmen under Max Wagner (chassis) and Albert Heess (engine) brought to completion all the main working drawings for the new car. Components were being machined and delivered to an “inner sanctum” within the Racing Department where the first W165 began to take shape.
Only two cars were actually to be completed for Tripoli, bearing in mind that tests and the race might show a need for changes in the design. As the senior man and the most successful man at Tripoli respectively, Rudy Caracciola and Hermann Lang were to be the drivers.
It was clear from the start that this, the first 1,500-cc racing car from Untertürkheim since the 1922 Targa Florio, could only stand a chance of success if it drew as much as possible on design ideas that were thoroughly proven. The most radical decision was to use a 90‑degree V‑8, the first engine of that configuration ever built by Daimler‑Benz for any automobile.
Like the bigger Mercedes-Benz racers, the new engine had all roller bearings in its bottom end, four overhead cams, four valves per cylinder and supercharging by a Roots-type blower. At its racing rev limit of 7,500 rpm, its output was 246 bhp. This was impressive power for the 1½-liter category at that time. One of the newest Voiturettes, the Alfa Romeo Type 158, was then developing little more than 200 bhp at 7,500 rpm.
As on the bigger W154, the angled drive shaft entered the five-speed transaxle assembly at the left end of its bottom shaft. The cars for Tripoli were fitted with different sets of final-drive gears, Lang’s set for top speed and Caracciola’s for acceleration. “We had two different rear-axle ratios,” said Lang, “because we weren’t sure how the car would run.” Established lines were followed in the design of the ladder‑type nickel‑chrome‑molybdenum steel frame with oval-section side members, de Dion rear suspension and parallel-wishbone front springing.
From Max Sailer on down, the racing staff was present at the fast Hockenheim semi‑oval for the all‑important trials of the first of the new cars. There was some confidence that the tests would be successful. “We managed to get one car ready for a test run at Hockenheim,” said chief racing engineer Rudolf Uhlenhaut, “but we tested all the parts of the engine first on separate test beds — valve gear, con-rod bearings and so forth — so when we assembled the engine every part had been tested and it worked straightaway.”
As was traditional, Caracciola was the first to drive the new car. Then Lang took the wheel. Both were surprised and delighted by the strong performance of this little “fire engine”. The drivers covered 300 miles in the new machine at satisfactory speeds with a minimum of problems. Nevertheless it was not a rigorous test that risked the cars too much. Lang, “We didn’t drive it as hard as we could.”
When the tests ended, out of the shrubbery stepped the well-known figure of Wilhelm Sebastian, Auto Union’s equivalent of Rudolf Uhlenhaut, stopwatch in hand. The surprised Neubauer yelled, “Hey, have you lost something?” Came the reply from his old friend, “A whole race, I’m afraid: the Grand Prix of Tripoli!”
Max Sailer approved the W165’s participation on the spot and word was sent to the Tripoli organizers. On April 11th they issued the final list of the 30 cars that would be allowed to run. They included two Mercedes‑Benz, six Type 158 Alfa Romeos, four factory Maseratis and 18 private Maseratis.
When practice for the race opened on May 4th it was clear that the previous best 1½-liter practice lap of 4:12.2 was in for a drubbing. Lang was fastest at 3:45.7, ahead of two Alfas in the higher 40s and Caracciola at 3:52.7. Less troubled by winds on the following day, Luigi Villoresi opened up his tricky, streamlined Maserati for a timing of 3:41.8, a speed of 131.6 mph that won him pole position. During a tire test the next day, Saturday, Lang approached that speed with a lap in 3:42.3.
Caracciola was anything but pleased with his under-geared car and the apparent preference being shown Lang, whose car could lap consistently faster. Lang, on the other hand, recalled that “we both would have liked the lower ratio, which was better for acceleration, but Caracciola was the older man, so he got it.” Clearly, as Lang said, “We did not see eye to eye.”
Neubauer’s strategy was for Lang to run more quickly in the race and extend the opposition at a higher risk to his engine, using partly‑worn tires and making a tire change, while Rudy was to run right through on a single set of new tires at an easier pace, stopping only for fuel. The two different approaches seemed to offer each driver a chance for success. At the pre‑race briefing it was obvious that each driver was hoping to win this race his own way. Max Sailer finally made the position clear:
“Look, gentlemen, I can well understand that both of you want to win, especially in view of our excellent chances. Please, however, let me appeal to your common sense. More is at stake than your personal glory. This concerns the crowning of months of effort by our designers and mechanics. This concerns the Mercedes star! Please do not wear out the cars competing against each other.”
Temperatures were high and the ghibli rippling the tall palms on race day. Wielding the starting flag for the Tripoli Grand Prix, Neubauer recalled, Italo Balbo suffered from “delayed ignition”. Watching the official signal lights instead of Balbo’s banner, Lang scooted off to a perfect start that stole a clear jump on the rest of the field, including his teammate. “I was still angry over some arguments that Caracciola and I had during the practice sessions,” said Lang. So much for the injunctions of Max Sailer! “I got everything out of the car there was to get.”
From its pole position Villoresi’s streamlined Maserati surged forward — then failed to go into third gear. It and two more new factory-entered 4CL models retired on the first lap, the remaining one occupying fourth place behind Caracciola. Giuseppe Farina kept his Alfetta in second place for a few laps, making a race of it but continuing to lose ground to the leading Lang. The Untertürkheim plan, in short, was working to perfection.
When Lang stopped for fuel and fresh tires he saw faces around him that were hopeful but not jubilant. These men had seen too many races to anticipate victory. He faced quite another crowd at the finish: “The mechanics pulled me out of the car to carry me on their shoulders, nearly breaking my legs in the process.” Lang had been able to ease off during the race’s second half, coming home almost a lap ahead of second‑place Caracciola at an average speed of 122.9 mph.
At the nucleus of a masterful engineering effort, the W165 Mercedes‑Benz scored one of the most stunning and memorable victories in the history of motor racing. The Italians were humiliated. At the prizegiving in front of the huge grandstand, Italo Balbo was obliged to hand trophy after trophy to the men from Stuttgart. “Next year,” he sneered at the Italian contingent, “I guess the Germans can come with scooters and they’ll still win.”
Indeed, until war broke out in Europe in September 1939, Mercedes was preparing its W165s to compete in the 1940 season, fitting their engines with two-stage supercharging to get higher boost more efficiently. Hidden away for the duration with other Mercedes racers, the two little jewels were not forgotten by Rudy Caracciola, who asked for and received a verbal promise that he would get the two W165s to resume racing in peacetime.
In the turmoil of 1945, the W165s were delivered to Switzerland, where the Caracciolas lived, but poor paperwork meant that they ended up at the Swiss-owned Mercedes-Benz importer, only to be seized by the authorities as German property. Even so, Caracciola and his mechanic managed to prepare and test one early in 1946 with hopes of competing in the Indianapolis 500-mile race but were stymied by lack of the necessary export approvals.
After being won at auction by the Swiss importer, the two W165s were back in Stuttgart by 1951. This was timely because Daimler-Benz had decided to compete in the post-war Formula 1, for which supercharged 1½-liter cars were eligible. In June of 1951 orders were cut to build five new W165s and five spare engines.
But when the decision-makers attended the German Grand Prix on July 29, 1951 they witnessed a titanic battle between the supercharged Alfas and the unblown Ferraris. The parade had moved on, outpacing the W165’s potential. Thus they remained those rare cars that were built for a single race — which they won.
