That Mercedes cars are traditionally silver because in the 1934 racing season new weight rules were introduced, and Mercedes’ car was slightly too heavy? To lose that bit of extra weight Mercedes decided to drop the white paint traditional to German cars, and raced in bare aluminium. The cars became known as the Silver Arrows, and that’s why Mercedes favour silver for their cars.
Auto Union did the same thing and became known as Silverfish, which is why Audi is quite keen on the colour too; although these days they seem to lean towards my favourite colour, black.
4 responses
Interesting.
The question that springs to mind, however, is how you found out…
It was on a show about Le Mans sometime last week! Obviously I’ve diligently researched the matter since to check for truth and accuracy! :)
Very interesting, I’d heard of the Silver Arrow range before alright, now I know the inspiration! I was thinking though that the story sounded ludicrous, like, paint, is that not feather-weight? And then I remembered how heavy a tin of the stuff is! (presumably then it wasn’t just a heavy tin)
Nah, liquids are heavy. Think about the weight of a full pint in your hand, and how quickly you have to drink it to save your hand from severe strain.