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A Silver Star
Monday October 14, 2009 would have been the 100th birthday of Bernd Rosemeyer. Who's that you ask?
Put simply, he is one of the greatest racing car drivers of all time, and the man on which much of Audi,s motorsport heritage is built on.
Rosemeyer was one of the brightest stars during the iconic battle between Mercedes-Benz and Audi forerunner, Auto Union, in 1930s grand prix racing. It was a period known as the era of the Silver Arrows, due to the silver finish both teams used to keep the cars as light as possible.
While Mercedes-Benz had a fleet of star drivers -- including Rudolf Caracciola, Herman Lang and Manfred von Brauchitsch -- and a conventional front-engined car, Auto Union experimented with rear-engine technology.
Dr Ferdinand Porsche designed the Auto Union C Type grand prix car for the firm, and while it was a technical masterpiece with its supercharged V16 engine mounted behind the driver, it was a handful for the drivers to come to terms with.
Despite some extremely talented men such as Hans Stuck and Achille Varzi on the roster, Auto Union failed to match Benz in 1934 and went looking for new talent.
At this time Rosemeyer was an up-and-coming motorcycle racer for Auto Union brand, DKW, but he wanted to drive the fastest cars in the world and was tested by the grand prix team.
His first test was at the daunting Nurburgring in late '34 and despite orders to arrive in racing overalls, Rosemeyer instead wore his best suit telling the team manager that he felt he should dress appropriately for his important car racing debut!
Needless to say Rosemeyer impressed in the test and was added to the Auto Union GP team for the 1935 season. He wasted no time revealing his natural talent to the world by finishing second to Caracciola in only his second race -- which was again at the Nurburgring!
To put that into modern perspective, Lewis Hamilton's impressive rookie season in Formula One came after 10 years of grooming and thousands of kilometres of F1 testing.
The final grand prix of 1935 was held in Czechoslovakia and Rosemeyer not only scored his first win but also meet famous German pilot, Elly Beinhorn, who he would marry the following year.
In fact 1936 was a great year for Rosemeyer in addition to his marriage to Elly (which was the '30s equivalent of Michael Clarke and Lara Bingle -- only Beinhorn was famous for her flying adventures around the globe, not modelling swimwear), because he utterly dominated grand prix racing.
He won the European Championship (forerunner to the F1 world title) in such commanding fashion Mercedes-Benz didn't bother contesting some of the final races in order to try and catch up in '37.
He became a hero across Germany thanks to his charismatic personality. Despite the heavy Nazi presences in the country at the time, the non-political racing driver often made light of the Nazis much to the delight of the fans.
More wins came in 1937 but Rosemeyer was fighting a lone hand against the Mercedes-Benz team because he was the only driver to master the oversteering Auto Unions.
Adolf Hitler's desire to prove Germany's engineering dominance resulted in world land speed record attempts being run down the recently completed autobahn near Frankfurt in late '37. Auto Union and Mercedes duly sent Rosemeyer and Caracciola respectively to tackle the task.
Rosmeyer promptly established a string of records in both a regular grand prix C Type and a special streamlined version usually raced at the flat-out AVUS circuit. Despite the narrow roads and even narrower tyres Rosemeyer became the first man in history to break the 400km/h barrier on a public road.
He was so dominant that Mercedes were once again humbled and left empty-handed. This prompted Mercedes to arrange another attempt early in 1938; which Auto Union naturally attended to defend its records.
But the windy, wintery conditions were not suited to these sorts of high speed runs, but Caracciola and Rosemeyer carried on anyway in a bid to get it over and done with.
Unfortunately for Rosemeyer during his second run on January 28 his streamlined Auto Union was hit by a gust of wind and blown off the road at over 400km/h. He was killed instantly and found away from the wreckage lying peacefully underneath a tree.
In that spot there remains a memorial honouring this national hero.
He was survived by Elly and his 10 week old son Bernd Junior. Elly remained a pilot until aged 72 and lived until she was 100, passing away in 2007. Bernd Rosemeyer Jr became a successful orthopedist and still lives in Germany today.
You only need to look at the recent Audi advertising campaign to get and understanding of how important Bernd Rosemeyer still is to the four-ringed brand. The billboard and print campaign featured Rosmeyer's C Type doing a burnout and was the latest in a number of ads to feature to Auto Unions. The silver racers often appear in Audi presentations to the press too.
The reality is, as impressive as the C Type Silver Arrow was, it success was almost entirely down to Rosemeyer. He mastered the car like no one else and Audi still relying on that success to sell R8s and the like to this day.
It may not have shone for long but Rosemeyer's star burned brighter than most.
Walkinshaw's grand green machine
The very last W427 was delivered to its owner this week.
Though not officially the last to roll off the production line -- which totalled 137 -- the one-off W427 was repainted in Lamborghini's classic Verde Ithaca colour. The car is destined for Queensland and the new owner is over the moon with HER new stablemate to the GTS already in the garage.
Walkinshaw Performance added the finishing touches to the muscle car during the week. The interior features full black leather trim with double-stitching in green to match the duco.
Walkinshaw is now at new digs with HSV in Clayton. The crew has filled the workshops formerly used by the Kelly brothers racing outfit and is already very busy preparing the VE2 models for a line-up of customers.
Our sources told us it was always HSV and Walkinshaw Group's intention to bring the WP and Elfin operations 'in-house' at Clayton. Until last month Walkinshaw Performance was based in Melbourne's Braeside.
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