Silver Arrow Racers at Goodwood Revival

A once-in-lifetime opportunity to see at least 10 Silver Arrows together will be a major highlight at this year's Goodwood Revival event.

By Estella Shardlow on Thursday 9th February, 2012

Seventy-five years after their first UK appearance, the renowned pre-war Silver Arrows racers will take to the tarmac driven by top-level drivers in a high-speed showcase.

The 2012 Goodwood Revival, which takes place between 14 and 16 September, will see Silver Arrows Mercedes-Bens and Auto Union Grand Prix cars once again driven in ferocity at a British motor circuit for the first time in over seven decades.

Among the iconic Mercedes-Benz W25, W125, W154 and W165 taking to the legendary Goodwood track, will be examples of the Auto Union Type C and Type D, as well as cars from ERA, Maserati, Riley Bugatti and MG.

To complete the spectacle, the cars will be housed in an authentic recreation of a period paddock, based on the distinctive structure at the Bremgarten circuit Switzerland.

The introduction of the 750kg maximum weight limit in 1934, along with the promise of significant funding from the German government, led to the arrival of two of the most evocative names in motor sport history on the Grand Prix scene: Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union.

Built with little regard for cost, their cars were, quite literally, miles ahead of the opposition, and dominated Grand Prix racing from 1934 until the outbreak of was in 1939.

Abandoning the traditional German racing white in favour of bare metal the cars quickly gained the nickname “Silberpfeil” or Silver Arrows; creating a legend that lasts to this day.
By 1937, when the cars raced in the UK for the first time, power outputs were approaching 600bhp – a level that would not be equaled in Grand Prix racing until the turbo era of the 80s.

Such was the speed and sound of these machines, and the astonishing feats of the daredevils who drove them, that the English motoring crowd – more accustomed to seeing Rileys, MGs and ERAs with less than half the power of their German equivalents, were left speechless.

Low-speed demonstrations by individual Silver Arrows are an impressive sight, and this will be the first time that so many of these cars have been driven together at full racing speed since the Yugoslav Grand Prix, on the 3 September 1939 – the day after World War II broke out.