With the airplane engines, that was more common in Grand Prix racing in the 20's. In the 30's, airplane engines really only persisted in land-speed record vehicles. With these Grand Prix cars from the 30's it was actually rather the other way around. The German cars were used to develop materials, chemistry and designs that were later used in airplanes. This has, of course, a shady political background - the Versailles treaty banned Germany from developing many kinds of military technology, and the government-sponsored racing program was one of the ways to circumvent it. To be specific, there are clear reasons why airplane and car racing engines started diverging significantly in the 30's. First and foremost, an airplane engine is basically a stationary engine for the most part, it has to run at constant low RPM for hours and hours at maximum fuel efficiency (not maximum power), it can have very large piston displacement and can be relatively heavy. Whereas a Grand Prix racing car constantly changes RPM, always accelerating, has to be very light and nimble. Of course, with fighter airplanes, the engine had to be able to go from that stationary mode into overdrive for a few minutes to deliver maximum power during a dogfight, that is where German airplane engines really benefited from the automobile racing know-how (e.g. methanol or water injection). Second of all, major developments in supercharging happened in this period, which caused further divergence of car racing engines and airplane engines. There were already three major types of superchargers: centrifugal turbochargers, centrifugal superchargers, and displacement superchargers (like Roots or Lysholm). An airplane is operating at an altitude, and again, runs on stationary RPM for the most part. Because of that, the centrifugal superchargers and turbochargers, which have higher efficiency if tuned for the particular power band, are preferred (while Germans preferred superchargers, Americans preferred turbochargers, that choice was not really clear until about 1942 when altitudes became so high that turbochargers were a clear better choice). But a Grand Prix racing car, constantly changing RPM and constantly shifting gears, needs to be more punchy, and also needs good packaging, Centrifugal superchargers are typically huge flat radial things, and turbochargers had a giant lag in these days. That's why all manufacturers converged on using a displacement supercharger, usually Roots. Although notably, in Indianapolis where the cars of course ran at almost constant RPM, centrifugal superchargers were also successful. Then again, fighter airplanes required a switch from the stationary fuel-efficient mode into a full-power mode, and that's where they employed multi-stage and multi-speed superchargers, which is something where certain Grand Prix racing know-how was useful again, because they used two-stage superchargers and switchable superchargers.

It was more like, “See that Zeppelin, make it thinner and wider and put it low to the ground with 4 tires and a screaming engine from a Heinkel HE 100 and we’ll be set for the next race.”

@@flashpeter625 This is a great answer. But I want one thing to add. In the early 30's a new formula was introduced which limited the maximum weight of the car. This was made to prevent manufacturers building bigger and bigger eninges. I guess without such a limit the late 30's would've brought things like a minimized Mercedes-Benz T80 ^^

@@Deutschmaschine0 Yes, I imagine they would like to use *huger* engines, but only on some tracks. They did that on Avus after all, because Avus used the "formula libre" regulations. For example the Mercedes V12 DAB engine, which was used for speed records and on Avus, was originally intended for the 1936 W125 GP car, but the engine turned out too heavy, so they went with their lighter I8 instead. Despite this, the 750kg formula obviously did not prevent the manufacturers from growing the engine power. Material science was advancing fast, which allowed for lighter chassis and thus potentially heavier engine every year, plus heavier supercharging. The regulators finally got scared when the 750kg formula cars threatened to get close to a 1:1 power/weight ratio in 1938. So for 1938, the new 3/4.5-litre formula introduced maximum engine displacement and minimum weight, the same concept all modern regulations have. This meant that both Mercedes and Auto-Union lost a half of their engine displacement and gained 100kg of weight. They were supposed to be much slower. The transition to the 1938 rules was IMO the craziest one-year step in racing history. Within months, they recovered almost all of the power loss by developing V12 engines with higher revs, more supercharging, basically doubling the specific power. Mercedes had to address the narrower power band by using a new 5-speed gearbox. They improved the chassis and suspension. As a result, they lost no speed on most circuits. And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to development. These new 3-litre engines were thirsty, so the manufacturers had to place huge fuel tanks, which influenced the whole design. But because it was not initially clear if the 3l supercharged or the 4.5l atmospheric engines would be better, some manufacturers worked on multiple engines at once. Delahaye used a 4.5l V12 and actually won some races over the Germans thanks to reliability and lower fuel consumption, so it was close. Alfa-Romeo worked on I8, V12 and V16 engines in the same time - and did not develop any of them well enough, which is a reason why they generally sucked in 1938. In case their supercharged V12 did not play out well, Mercedes allegedly had Porsche work on a backup engine, a 4.5-litre atmospheric V24... xD Bonus, as you mentioned "minimized T80": For 1938, because the new rules gave more weight to play with, Daimler-Benz considered streamliner designs for regular Grand Prix races; one their own, and one supplied by Porsche. The Daimler-Benz design was, of course, conservative (I assume this was ultimately developed into the W154 streamliner), while Porsche's design was a radical rear-engined missile with tight packaging. Porsche's design was less draggy, but also less stable, so it was scrapped. Only one scale model for wind-tunnel testing was ever made. The blueprints were found in Mercedes archives. Look up "Mercedes-Benz T-90" to find a picture of the blueprint. It is glorious.

@@flashpeter625 that really was specific

F

F

F

F

That is a sad end to such a distinguished career in racing. I read, if I remember correctly, that Otto Merz's car is fitted with two experimental rain tires or some such thing, but they fitted one on the front and one on the rear, in the other side. The different grip levels that arrangement gave at high speeds, in the wet, might've contributed to his fatal crash.

in 4 words v16 with drum brakes

And bycicle tyres

-Cross-ply tyres -drum brakes -cars built around fighter engines with +1000nm of torque at just 1000rpm -no sports suspension -no advanced aero tech = 0 downforce -rarely well rounded weight distribution -no traction control or abs -engines had weird fuel injection systems + engines mounted directly infront or behind the driver = big combust + big squish yeah they really tried to kill drivers back then

I'd say that the 1953 BRM V16 still had that 1930s spirit for sure!

@@fernandoueno8668 The bloody tyres are what always gets me. They are essentially impossible to handle and could break on any broken piece of surface, and you would have wheelspin at 150mph because the tyres simply weren't able to handle.. well, anything.

Also, the AVUS was used as a race track until the 1990s but by then it had become a very tamed and abridged version, nothing spectacular at all.

@@MiguelGLD How late did this track use that banked corner? Can't imagine it lasted much past the early days

I believe the banking was demolished in 1967. The German Grand Prix was run with it a few times after the war!

@@andrewhayes88 What Jake says, until '67. After that it was completely flat, just a regular turn and not a great turn either. The tower and grandstand are still standing, and you can also find some left-over guardrail if you care to look for such remnants.

Damn... Wish I'd seen that on my last trip to Frankfurt.

*uck the bloody bricklayers - who gives a sh1t? I might as well say let's not forget the people that made the valve caps for the tyre tubes ffs! Bricklayers indeed rofl ..

@@ThePaulv12 we can acknowledge that it's a lot of work to built that and you don't have to be a dick about it.

@@Daniel-xo5ej Thank you.

@@vitameat It's a GAME. You guys are losing your grip on reality. A GAME. What is it? A GAME..

@@ThePaulv12 you displaying some fatherless behavior.

Great remarks. I thought the cause to be cross winds as Porsche stated later that these cars were very wind sensitive for obvious reasons. Had he knew about the windy weather he wouldn't have allowed Bernd to go he said in the aftermath.

@@jamesbehra2690 The wind is the explanation I've seen as well, which would certainly seem plausible. Auto Union had to go later, as Mercedes-Benz had the first runs of the day. The modified Type C Streamliner would definitely be an interesting machine to recreate, likewise the Type D Streamliner that ran in Practice at Reims for the 1938 French GP.

@@jamesbehra2690 there are several permutations of this aspect as well - the crosswinds (which were substantial) supposedly caused the rear wheel cover to cave in, which tore up the skirt, which caused the vacuum bubble to go pop. This seems most plausible and was somewhat substantiated by photos from the trap cameras that showed some odd discoloration in that area that was either the aluminum in the process of deforming or a trick reflection of the sunlight/shadows (the picture was really rather poor and didn’t exactly allow for conclusive determinations.) The other theory is that winds managed impact the car directly into the side which caused the rear wheel to lift off just a little, which caused the bubble to pop and the continuous winds then got underneath the car and basically picked it up and smashed it into the road.

@@Villoresi If I remember correctly, on a certain stretch of the road used for the record attempts, there is a clearing, while most of the stretch is lined by trees. Mercedes team manager Alfred Neubauer consulted a local weather station for the weather and wind conditions at the day of the record breaking, and got the reply that the wind would pick up later in the day, so they did their runs early. Rosemeyer though, wanted to break the records set by Mercedes and went out again, despite being warned that the wind is picking up. So when he reached the cleared part, the sudden gust of wind (obviously, the trees lining the sides of most part of the road sheltered the car from wind) destabilized the car while travelling more than 160mph.

@@jamesbehra2690 I think it may be Robert Eberan-Eberhorst, by 1938, Porsche had left Auto Union to concentrate on the Volkswagen project, and Eberhorst took over.

insanely good idea

Has anyone made that track?

With cars like the S76 Beast of Turin and the Eldridge Mefistofele... A man can dream...

Don't think there is a track for that yet

There really needs to be

It's literally driving on a wall

@@Panzer_Runner "*Wall* of death"

Exactly - I tried it in Papyrus Grand Prix Legends (I think 1996 or thereabouts). Despite graphics obviously were very much behind this the AVUS-track to my recollection actually looked more 'alive' than here. And YES, that banked corner... what a wrestle it was, driving a twisty 1967 Lotus F1 car by keyborad. Flipped off' that corner many a jolly time ;- ] My grandfather was motorsportsdriver and a couple of times champion here in Denmark back when AVUS was in use. Happy he didnt drive that one.

Today most people immediately understand that a shape like this is designed for speed. But in the 30's, when aerodynamic designs only started appearing, the concept of making the vehicle faster by putting more material on the bodywork was completely new for the vast majority of people. It must have been a wild time, and it was all about speed. Explosion of land speed records, fast trains, hydroplanes races, fastest ship across the Atlantic, fastest airship across the Atlantic, etc. Imagine you are born in 1907 in a city with most vehicles being still horse-drawn, and 2 people in the city have a rickety car. But by the time you are thirty, this thing goes up to 380 km/h on a circuit in front of you for 30 minutes.

Also, you seen aviation go from basic barely flying, to super sonic flight and even space travel. Also being able to see sputnik flying over is a vastly clearer night sky (not covered in light pollution), cities going from small to massive, and even taller buildings. Then there is things like radio going to TV, etc. That was the absolutely wildest time to be alive

Boomers unironically had better racing than us

Yeah. Bernd Rosemeyer's wife, famed aviator Elly Beinhorn, once watched her husband do those runs with the streamliners, and she is terrified by it.

Insane

To be fair those cars probably didn’t really hit 240 MPH.

@@matthewanthony4606 they did

It really depends on which airplane you are talking about. The Italian SM.79 Sparviero and the Soviet Tupolev SB-2 were quite famous for being able to fly just as fast if not faster than most fighters during the Spanish civil war. They could therefore even fly missions without escort fighters flying at roughly 200-250 miles an hour.

Ahah that was great!

Cliche

Balls joke, very clever. Do a fart joke next time.

i didnt see prue leith or greg wallace anywhere there!

They had to shift their balls around the car just like drivers do nowadays with brake balance

Thank you. I did not know that. I've "driven" this circuit playing Grand Prix Legends and I wondered what AVUS meant or stood for.

@@joshuarosen6242 Parts of the Track are still in use as a highway close to Berlin under the same name

@@randolfehret2335 I didn't know that either. KZfaq can be informative. Thank you. If I drive in Berlin, I shall seek it out. I'd love to drive along it in real life.

Probably because it's celebrating White history and it's now politically incorrect to do so?

@@British-Dragon-Simulations it doesn't have to be. There are plenty of great storirs of minorities in racing. And there should be more. I love racing and I won't let it be ruined by racists or closed minded people.

​@@British-Dragon-Simulations You could even satisfy some of those postmodernist revisionists, for example by telling the tales of women living the dangerous public life in interwar racing. One example for all, Eliška Junková, who won a Grand Prix race in a Bugatti. But in general, I think that people who are interested in the history of racing, do not care about postmodernist drivel. So I feel free to discuss this history in honest manner, including the really controversial subject of the German state-sponsored racing program. Not that I care, but I never faced any backlash for that.

Anyone who looks at the interwar culture has to realize that racing of all kinds was incredibly popular. Crowds up to hundreds of thousands spectators showed up, sometimes even for regional races. There were no bigger events. Racing drivers were the rock stars of the era. Speed records of all kinds made the front page. One could say that it was a culture of belief in technology, transportation in particular. That belief was shattered by the second world war. No historian of the 20th century can miss this.

Really interesting, thank you for sharing! I will have to read up more on that

Don't forget Tripoli, 1939. The Italians thought that they had everything under control... but Mercedes had other ideas.

Yeah, two Mercedes Benz W154/39s beaten by a 2 litre supercharged Ferrari 166. Must've been quite a spectacle seeing that... That's what I like about Ferrari driver Jose Froilan Gonzalez. He seem to have gotten Nuvolari's knack for giant-killing feats on track. Later on in the season, he gave Alfa Romeo its first defeat *since 1946,* when he won the British GP. Then in 1954, once again, he had Mercedes Benz in the receiving end of his acts when he won a wet British GP, in a Ferrari that's not really that competitive. Unfortunately, the death of his compatriot Onofre Marimon at the Nurburgring later in the 1954 season had a huge effect on him, since afterwards, he raced less and less, mostly restricting himself to his home GP until 1960.

When did Mercedes crash into a crowd of people again? I know they stopped competing until pretty "recently"

@@andresvalverde5182 That was at Le Mans in 1955. They were out of racing as a works team for ~30 years after that. It should be noted, deaths at the '55 RAC TT at Dundrod also played a role in their withdrawal. It's one of the interesting things about the AMG SEL 300 6.8 "Red Pig" Touring Car, that they kind of had to keep up appearances that this wasn't a serious effort by Mercedes itself, though there was plenty of staff crossover.

It was also much shorter, being 2.5km (1.5mi) vs 20km (12mi)

@@ethanporciello8807 Oh. I didnt know that. I thought that they used a smaller version but not that its 1/8 of the original.

@@Armageddon_71 Yep, the "modern" Avus had chicanes and right angle turns, a similar taste as Norisring or some circuits on old airfields.

@@flashpeter625 Ah, good to know. Hopefully more turns than the Norisring though.

​@@Armageddon_71 Actually even simpler and faster than Norisring. It was the start/finish straight in the historical location, a 180 hairpin, back straight with a chicane, a right kink into an unbanked fast corner in the north (kinda below the former brick wall), and back onto the start/finish straight. In late 80's it was just below 5 km. Then they kept shortening it by moving the hairpin closer, and also made the chicane more severe to slow cars down before the north curve. It ended at 2.7 km in mid 90's. You can see the final layout here in the broadcast of the 1994 DTM race on AVUS: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/gM2WmM-ekq3YhqM.html If you look at the racing footage, you can see that the concrete barriers were really awkward in many places. Crazy racing, a lot of accidents. You can see a terrible crash at 7:12 in the video above from 1994. In 1995 the DTM second race on AVUS was cancelled after many cars piled up, and DTM never returned. Later in 1995 a driver was killed during a Super Turismo race, and the series never returned. Alexander Wurz had a crash here in Formula 3 as well. All of that was basically the end of high-level racing there, and in 1998 the circuit was discontinued.

Well speed racer is based off old motorsport

Fuck do you think Speed Racer is based on?

Sneaky smarts!

The direct fuel injection is the initial design in the V12 engine of the 1938 Mercedes Benz W154, but it never went into it. Instead, they put some a special carburetion system, with an extra carburetor opening up in higher revs to get more power, which just ended up giving Mercedes Benz headaches...

Oh I say, those rotters!

And the long straight emulates takeoff conditions for the engine.

i think everyone knew what they were doing, but no one had the will to do anything about it.

Now THAT would be wild...

@@The52car ya bud. It would have been the fastest track in the world for a longggg time if it had been built.

It would be some weird European NASCAR/indyvar oval then like thr monza oval. Not that I'm complaining.

Someone would mod into assetto Corsa and gran turismo 7 if gt7 Comes to pc

they need to just remake GT4 for the ps5

@@dbspaceoditty absolutely... how many memories. Hours after hours spent with GT4, these are one of my best memories of my childhood... today there are highly advanced simulators, and I'm a great fan and supporter of AC, but if I look back... there was something magic in that game... it was so fun and ahead of its times :,) Every time I see the intro with the Ford GT, Le Mans with it's Dunlop Bridge, and the glorious music of Moon over the Castle playing, gives me goosebumbs and I'm not ashamed to say that very often, a tear drops down... There won't be any racing game like Gran Turismo 4, NEVER, no matter how SIMs will be advanced in the next future, phisically or graphically speaking! *GT4 FOR LIFE!*

I think Legion will update it soon, it's a GT6 model and there's usually updates to it. Chances are he'll do the other Streamliners as well

@@BenKill yeah, I'm a great fan of Legion too, he makes some remakable models for AC. I appreceate especially the sportcars models as a great fan of endurance and the golden era of Le Mans.

LOL

@@DanArnets1492 seriously, its a damn shame that it’s a load of garbage.

@@DanArnets1492 yeah, loved that game-had it on pc and the dreamcast port where you could only drive some tracks in 'in cockpit' view-loved especially belting round brooklands-as far as i know the only game ever to feature that amazing track

@@stevespooky9894 I also had that on pc and drove it with a joystick, ah the good 'ol days! :)

@@13opacus ah...yes... memories! lol!

Yes! Do something like the circuit layout they used in "Grand Prix."

They also started building another huge banked turn at the south end, but it was never completed. Then embankment for it was never removed and can be seen on google earth.

@@tippyc2 i cant see it on google earth tho the part where the turn is is blurred out on street view and on satellite its all forest

​@@vinzlaros You probably didnt go far enough south. 52.4452N, 13.2003E.

@@tippyc2 yup my bad i was looking at the point that says Model sudkurve

Both straights still serve as a regular highway. I drive on that piece of tarmac on a regular basis.

Ide do it of there was no traffic and I had the right car for it. There is no greater thrill in the world than speed.

The golden age is now. Back then was the wild west.

How old are you?

Torque steer was a big issue back then. The slim little tires combined with 500HP beasts of engines created some funky handling characteristics

Its probably more my relief that I didnt fly off the circuit! Glad you enjoy the video Bob!

But some of us are!

Too high a slope the car suspension will break or snap at the turn as the car go so fast and turn too fast for the suspension to handle

@@masternilla6652 - That's basically the reason F1 stopped using the Curva Nord of the Pista di Alta Velocita at Monza for the Italian Grand Prix. Too much strain on the suspension (and g-force on the drivers), and if they beefed it up to handle that one section, the suspension was virtually non-existent for the rest of the course. Incidentally, though, Olympic velodromes (bicycle rack tracks) have bankings that will often exceed 35°. In fact, I once rode a purpose-built track-racing bicycle on a 200-meter wooden track located in Shakopee MN - it's long gone, a victim of the Canterbury Downs horse-track project - that had corners banked at a maximum of over 55°. You had to be going like hell or you'd actually have fallen off the track, and you didn't move the handlebars even a fraction of an inch. Just hold 'em steady; the track turned YOU!!

The w125 if you look it up you should immediately find a link the open wheel auto union is on race department and the streamlined auto union is on the legion website

I guess those races would have Millions of attendants! How we fans are so captivated by vintage is quite impressive! Watching a 1930s car go faster than any "pocket rocket" of today is simply Awesome!

Do you know more books about pre-war racing? Lately I got interested in this topic and I'd like to learn about its history from more reliable source than Wikipedia.

@@ChrisEggII I'm currently working on a movie script about the lady drivers of the 30s so luckily for you I can recommend some. The Bugatti Queen by Miranda Seymour is excellent. A couple I haven't read yet are Grand Prix Saboteurs by Joe Saward which is bout clandestine operations by drivers during WWII and one which is very hard to come by because it's out of print currently called My Two Lives by Rene Dreyfus, and it's his life story from racing to serving in the army to running a restaurant in New York.