The nine best Mercedes racing cars of all time

Mercedes-Benz W125 – 1937

Thoughts of early Mercedes-Benz racers evoke the iconic silver arrows, and none is more epochal than the W125.

Designed by Rudolf Uhlenhaut to race during the 1937 Grand Prix season, it featured a supercharged, 5.6-litre inline-eight, which produced a huge 595hp, 200 of which was available from just 2,000rpm. That season, the W125 reached race speeds in excess of 190mph, with a specially specced, 726hp V12-powered ‘W125 Rekordwagen’ reported to have hit 268.9 mph over a mile and a kilometre (not during racing).

Unsurprisingly it dominated the season, winning six of the 12 races and taking the top four positions in the 1937 championships, with Rudolf Caracciola talking the overall title. With Grand Prix engine capacity limited to 3,000cc the following year, the W125 held the title of the most powerful racing car for three decades, eventually being surpassed by large capacity Can-Am V8s in the 1960s. Its level of power remained unmatched in F1, however, until the arrival of turbocharged engines in the ‘80s.

Mercedes-Benz W196 – 1954

Fast-forward 17 years and the championship was a very different place. Auto Union and Alfa Romeo, who had dominated so many of the earlier races, were out of the picture, but Maserati and Ferrari were still going strong. Mercedes chose this year to re-enter the series after the war, and did so in fine style with another Silver Arrow, the technologically advanced W196. With a racing department again headed by Uhlenhaut, and drivers including the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss, they were on to a winner.

Sure enough, the W196, with its naturally-aspired straight-eight fitted with desmodromic valves and fuel injection, went on to win nine of the 12 races it competed in, taking two championships within 18 months.

Not only is it one of Mercedes’ most successful racing cars, the W196 is also one of the world’s most expensive, after selling for a huge £17.5 million hammer at Bonhams’ Goodwood Festival of Speed sale in July 2013. For almost three years it held the title of the world’s most expensive, until it was surpassed by a 1957 Ferrari 335 S, which sold for $35,730,510 in February 2016.         

Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR – 1955

The story of Stirling Moss’s 1955 Mille Miglia win is almost as legendary as the man himself. Over the weekend of April 30^th to May 1^st , 1955, with motoring journalist Denis Jenkinson in the navigator’s seat, Moss drove the almost 1,000-mile course through Italy in 10 hours, 7 minutes and 48 seconds, maintaining an average speed of 97.96mph, and crossing the line thirty-two minutes ahead of team-mate, and runner-up, Juan Manuel Fangio.

Both Moss and Fangio were behind the wheels of Mercedes-Benz 300 SLRs, which were effectively two-seater versions of the previous year’s W196 Grand Prix car, sharing much of its drivetrain, chassis, spaceframe design and straight-eight engine.

Admittedly, the 300 SLR’s straight-eight was constructed from sheets of a silicon and aluminium alloy, silumin, rather than cast like the W196, and was mounted on an incline in order to keep the bonnet low. Over the W196’s unit, the engine saw a displacement increase from 2.5- to 3.0-litres, which allowed it to produce 310hp.

The chassis differed between the two cars too, with the SLR adding torsion bar springs front and rear, plus double wishbones at the front and swing axles at the rear. The designers kept the W196’s in-board mounted drum brakes, which helped to lower the unsprung weight. The chassis was clad in a magnesium alloy open two-seater sports car body, which featured a hydraulically operated rear deck that doubled as an air brake, as well as adding rear-end downforce during cornering. Headlights and a few other road-going effects were added to make it a bonafide endurance racer.

Unfortunately, Moss’s success at the Mille Migla was overshadowed by the Le Mans disaster later that year, when Pierre Levegh’s 300 SLR was catapulted into the air in an accident which killed him as well as 83 spectators, and led to the cancellations of the French, German, Spanish, and Swiss Grands Prix. As a result, Mercedes withdrew from racing and shelved the SLR.

Sauber-Mercedes C9 – 1987

Born from a collaboration between Sauber and Mercedes-Benz, the C9 was a Group C prototype destined for greatness in the World Sportscar Championship. It was the second such model, after the not so successful C8, which had been built for the 1985 24 Hours of Le Mans, and failed to finish any of the four consecutive editions it had competed in. Admittedly, a Sauber C8 did win the 1986 Nürburgring 1,000kms in the hands of Mike Thackwell and Henri Pescarolo.

Despite retaining much of the C8, the designers evolved the C9 significantly, strengthening the light alloy monocoque chassis and rotating the rear suspension from vertically positioned spring/damper units to a horizontal layout. The radiator was moved to the nose of the car, the rear deck redesigned and the wing mounted solely on a central support, all in order to improve aerodynamics.

The model featured the same Mercedes M117 5.0-litre V8 engine as the C8, again prepared by Swiss engine specialist Heini Mader. It had been lightened, fitted with more efficient KKK turbochargers and produced around 800hp, almost on par with its 905kg weight.

The C9 was campaigned from 1987 to 1989 in three World Sportscar Championships seasons, and 24 hours of Le Mans. In its final year, the C9 saw the success that Sauber and Mercedes had been hankering after, winning both the drivers’ and teams’ WSC titles. It also took that year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, becoming only the second ever Mercedes to do so, after the W194 all the way back in 1952.

Mercedes-Benz 190E DTM Evolution II – 1990

It may not be as sleek as many of the others on our list, but the shouty AMG-Mercedes 190 E 2.5-16 Evolution II DTM touring car has more than earned its stripes.

By 1990 Mercedes had officially been competing in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, or DTM, for two years, but despite taking numerous race wins, and Roland Asch finishing second in the 1988 standings in his 190 E 2.3-16 Group A car, they were yet to achieve a championship.  

The arrival of the 190 E 2.5-16 Evolution II DTM was to change that, with the a 2.5-litre, four-cylinder producing a huge 373hp, with a top speed of 185mph. In order to gain homologation for the series, Mercedes built 500 models, before optimising the racing variants.

The second-generation Evolution model (the first debuting the previous year) was designed specifically for the series, and shared the same lightweight nature as its predecessor, with virtually no interior trim, and many body components, including the bonnet, boot lid and spoiler, made of Kevlar.

It entered the series in 1990, and in 1991 first saw success when Klaus Ludwig finished second, and Mercedes-Benz took its inaugural DTM constructors’ title. In 1992, Ludwig won the championship, Mercedes drivers Kurt Thiim in second and Bernd Schneider in third place. Suffice to say the Stuttgart-based manufacturer took the constructors’ title again that year. In its final season in 1993, Roland Asch took the Evo II to a runners-up finish in Class 1, also collecting Mercedes’ third DTM constructors’ title. In just three years, the car had a taken a total of 52 victories.

Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR – 1997

The wide-bodied weapon that is the CLK GTR has more than earned its position on our list – and not just thanks to its incredible looks.

In 1997, the inaugural FIA GT Championship for production-based sports cars took place, and manufacturers were champing at the bit to get going. While other manufacturers entered models derived from pre-existing road cars, Mercedes-Benz took a different approach and developed a cutting-edge carbon-fibre monocoque chassis, with double wishbones and pull-rod actuated coil-springs over dampers on both ends. It also had a six-speed sequential gearbox and an AMG-tuned version of Mercedes' 6.0-litre quad-cam V12 which, thanks to mandatory intake-restrictors, made 600hp.

Its carbon-fibre body panels had the loosest of resemblance to the CLK road car (of which only 25 examples were produced) it was ‘based’ on, with just the grill and the dash interchangeable.

It reportedly took Mercedes just 128 days to complete the first two cars, and the as-yet-un-homologated models debuted at the Hockenheimring in the opening round of the FIA GT Championship. However, the lack of development time showed and both CLKs retired before struggling to match the pace of the McLaren F1 GTRs at the proceeding rounds. Skipping the 24 Hours of Le Mans (which had been gratuitously added into the Championship) in order to focus on developing the car, Mercedes returned to the series with a vengeance, with Bernd Schneider and Klaus Ludwig taking a one-two victory at the Nürburgring, before half a dozen subsequent wins, including Sebring and Laguna Seca. These were enough to secure Bernd Schneider and AMG Mercedes the 1997 drivers’ and constructors’ titles.

Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 – 2010

Unveiled in 2010 alongside its road-going counterpart, the SLS AMG GT3 is a privateer-fielded GT3 car of which 49 examples were sold.

It shared a 6.2-litre aluminium V8 with the road car, with air-intake restrictors capping the power at 500hp and the torque at 600Nm, which was put to the track via a six-speed sequential gearbox, carbon-fibre driveshaft and multi-disc locking diff. The wide, low aerodynamically-optimised body featured a front splitter, a rear wing and a long diffuser under the tail. Suspension was accounted for by double wishbones, with the front boasting anti-dive and the rear anti-squat geometry. It also had ventilated carbon-ceramic disc brakes all around.

During tests, the SLS AMG GT3 finished in an impressive third the Dubai 24 Hour, before the 25-car initial run saw 26 wins in its debut season in 2011.

At the following year’s Dubai 24 Hour, the SLS AMG GT3 locked out the podium with a 1-2-3 victory, before the model went on to score 32 more victories, with the Münnich Motorsport team ultimately finishing first in the FIA GT1 Championship team standings.

Mercedes-Benz F1 W04 – 2013

Following Michael Schumacher’s retirement, McLaren’s ‘record-breaking rookie’ Lewis Hamilton defected to Mercedes for 2013, joining seasoned racer Nico Rosberg in the new F1 W04. And after a difficult 2012 season, the 2013 season also brought about a reshuffle of the engineering team, which included recruiting Aldo Costa from Ferrari, Geoff Willis from the HRT F1 Team and Mike Elliott from Lotus F1. Notably Toto Wolff left Williams to become Mercedes’ Vice President of Motorsport.

With few changes to technical regulations that year, the F1 W04 was an evolution of the previous year’s F1 W03, with an aerodynamically enhanced front wing design – doing away with the ‘stepped nose’ – and a repackaged rear, which included a second-generation Coanda exhaust. The car retained its 2.4-litre V8, moulded carbon-fibre and honeycomb composite monocoque and pushrod front suspension and pullrod rear suspension, which was designed to optimise tyre life and performance.

Between Rosberg and Hamilton, the F1 W04 achieved three race wins, nine podium appearances and eight pole positions, with Mercedes F1 finished with a respective runners-up place in the Constructors' championship. Considering how poor 2012 had been, 2013 was a big step in the right direction. A sign of things to come, perhaps?

Mercedes-Benz F1 W05 Hybrid – 2014

Once again a year of monumental change in the Championship, 2014 saw the introduction of a revised engine formula, with the 2.4-litre V8 engine configuration that had featured since 2006 replaced by a new 1.6-litre turbocharged V6 hybrid.

Teams had known about this change since mid-2011 and Mercedes F1’s answer was the W05 Hybrid, which was designed and developed under the direction of Aldo Costa, Paddy Lowe, Geoff Willis and Mike Elliott. Featuring an all-new, 1.6-litre V6 turbocharged engine – the PU106A Hybrid – Mercedes regaled it as the ‘first ground-up, all-new Silver Arrow since the double World Championship winning W 196 R in 1954’.

2008 World Champion Lewis Hamilton, then in his second season with the manufacturer, and Nico Rosberg, who was racing with Mercedes for the fifth consecutive year, both piloted the model, making its competitive debut at the 2014 season opener Australian Grand Prix.

And so began a season-long battle between the two, with their repeated success marking a record-breaking year for Mercedes. Ultimately, after a dramatic showdown at the season finale in Abu Dhabi, Hamilton took the title, with Rosberg 67 points behind in second. Mercedes took the Constructors’ Championship with a huge 296 point lead on runners-up Red Bull-Renault. Between the two drivers, the W05 Hybrid had won 16 of the 19 rounds – 11 by Hamilton alone.

The most recent car to make our list, the W05 has more than earned the right to stand alongside its esteemed ancestors, even if the following year’s W06 and 2016’s W07 were even more dominant.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.