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Blue trucks and Silver Arrows
Page 64
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A trio of Mercedes trucks spanning 75 years of transporting racing cars has gone on show in Germany.
Words: Cairn Barnett Mercedes-Benz recently celebrated the end of another year of top-level motor racing by gathering together a selection of racing car transporters, ancient and modern, at the company's new museum in Stuttgart. A pair of Actros artics from the worlds of Formula 1 and DTM (German touring car championship) were joined by representatives from two earlier
eras. The oldest is a Lo 2750, the more conventional looking of the two old-timers, which recreates the 1934 season, when Mercedes entered Grand Prix racing and began the Silver Arrows' epic battle with Auto Union. The conflict continues to this day in DTM with Audi taking the honours in 2009. The Lo 2750, the designation referring to its low-level chassis and its payload in kilograms, actually began life in 1936 as a water-sprayer for Munich's municipal sanitation department before being restored and converted to exact 1934 racing car carrier specification.
Exact replica
The other transporter doesn't have an official name, but is known to its friends as "The Blue Wonder'.' Its spectacularly forward-control design disguises the fact that it is based on the lengthened tubular frame of a 300S coupe, powered by the engine from the 300SL sports car. Body panels and dash are from an ordinary 180 saloon, while the trim reflects that of the race cars it carried. This car is an exact replica — the original 1955 car was unforOvably scrapped in 1967 As a racing car transporter, it had a short life as Mercedes withdrew from motorsport following the Le Mans disaster, but it went on to work as an exhibition vehicle in the USA and as road test support vehicle in Germany. •