Supercharged Grand Prix Cars 1924-1939 (full version)

ah in 1924 a new Grand Prix car first appeared it was destined to become the most successful racing car of all time designed and constructed by an Italian living in France who called it simply his type 35 his name Ettore Bugatti from 1924 to 1930 350 Bugattis flooded onto the racing circuits of Europe enabling France to assume a dominant position there then followed a three-cornered struggle between France Italy and Germany which was to produce some of the most exciting racing ever seen between Grand Prix cars which have become legend bugatti had been the early pacemaker and during the thirties the cars raced on in the hands of amateur drivers yet our bugatti had created the car remains an enigma for his previous designs had given little hint of what was to follow the type 29 for example which was entered for the French Grand Prix at Strasbourg in 1922 the meeting was over 500 miles on the muddy circuit was in an appalling condition the race developed into a duel between Bugatti and fear the Bugattis were doing well over 115 miles an hour on the straights but their bricks and road-holding still needed development two of the theater had dropped out but nazar owes over took the leading Bugatti to win the race as this contemporary print shows the next year Bugatti decided on a fully streamlined car it was unkindly dubbed the tank the tanks were certainly fast but their wheelbase was too short and they handled badly on the fast circuit at tour consequently Seagrave on a British Sunbeam upon the 1923 French Grand Prix at the end of the year the Bugatti tanks were sold and he produced a completely new car the type 35 it's difficult now to reconcile the appearance of this most elegant car with it's unlikely forebears the beautifully constructed 2 litre engine had eight cylinders in line a straight eight it was fed by two simple carburetors and produced a modest 90 horsepower the secret of the type 35 Bugatti lay in its workmanship together with excellent steering brakes and suspension all of which produced unsurpassed Road holding for its day the pleasing body which set a trend for racing cars might have been influenced by the 1923 fits nevertheless when the new Bugattis first appeared for the 1924 French Grand Prix at Lille they created a sensation among the opposition was another new car the Italian p2 Alfa Romeo but Seagraves Sunbeam led from the start before a hundred thousand spectators the Sunbeam broke the lap record but then began to misfire allowing the Alfa's to overtake the new Bugattis which had been going well also unaccountably began to slow down Frederick's loses control Disgaea runs into a stone wall at the bugatti pit the reason for the accidents is clear tire failure the new and much admired bugatti alloy wheels had been designed with the idea of making brake adjustments quickly but always original bugatti had specified a non-standard tire size and the batch hastily produced for the race had proved faulty the fiat s-- to drop out and so with the fierce Sun Beeman Bugattis out of the running and Alfa Romeo driven by Campari wins in those days they drank champagne Seagrave Sunbeam had finished fifth its misfiring traced to faulty Magneto's this is Seagraves 1924 car with one of the surviving leo on Grand Prix Bugattis the Sunbeam seems lacking in refinement but in one way it is the more technically advanced its engine is supercharged the first successfully supercharged engine was the American Miller 91 with its large centrifugal blower geared from the engine to 50,000 rpm forcing the mixture into the cylinders but such compressors are only efficient at high speed at Indianapolis in America there are gently banked curves the cars run flat-out for the entire race the supercharger boosted the speeds up to a hundred and fifty miles an hour but the overstressed engines often failed causing catastrophic accidents the Sunbeam was the first European Grand Prix car to be successfully supercharged it drew a petrol heir charge from the carburetor compressing it and pumping it into the cylinders to supercharge them the blower used differed from the Miller centrifugal type it was far more efficient consisting of two figure-of-eight paddles intermeshing rather like an eggbeater as they compress the fuel mixture the roots compressor as it's known possesses the virtue of efficiency at low speeds it could pressurize the induction system even when the engine was idling enabling the Sunbeam to accelerate cleanly away from a slow corner which a centrifugal supercharger could not do after the disappointment of tour Seagrave won the Spanish Grand Prix the last time a British Car and Driver would win a Grand Prix for the next 30 years bugatti declined to countenance supercharging declaring it unsporting there might however have been another more practical reason as Hugh Conway the Bugatti authority explains began he was a strange mixture of of instinctive design ability and lack of technical competence and he certainly wasn't able to design a supercharger himself in fact in the end he got somebody else to do it for him but he objected one suspects because he hadn't got one available and he would have been handicapped it was as a result of not having one in 1926 the formula changed to one and a half litres supercharged even Bugatti knew that he would have to use a compressor to remain competitive his blown one and a half litre cars easily won the French Grand Prix that year for a very good reason that the only cars entered were street Bugattis but in the wings there were other contenders principally the straight-8 de l'arche the de l'arche was a completely new design the supercharger was driven from the crankshaft drawing the mixture through a large carburetor but the intricate engine which incorporated no fewer than 60 ball or roller bearings proved costly to produce the last race of 1937 was also the last Grand Prix held at the Brooklyn's track a DeLarge driven bad Benoir one it was the end of the unpopular one and a half litre formula because of the cost the days of factory support were drawing to a close only seven straight eight two larges were ever built from 1928 Grand Prix racing was to Formula leave which produced some unlikely contenders such as this four and a half litre bentley Bentley's sports car had won the LeMond 24-hour race in 1928 to try to repeat this feat in 1929 a supercharger was added which boosted the output of the engine from 125 to 240 horsepower the blower Bentley's as they were called did not win at limo but Sir Henry Birkin entered a stripped four and a half litre bentley in the 1930 French Grand Prix @po in southwest France eventually under 18 towered above the field Perkin on the Bentley past the pits at around 130 miles an hour and overtook car after car to the amazement of the crowd only one Bugatti driven by Felipe Ta'ala remained in front of the Bentley and the fastest lorry in the world as Bugatti is reported to have called it came second they toss allowed the winner was driving a factory entered Bugatti what kind of contract would he had cucum way it's quite clear an awful lot of the drivers asked if they might drive and actually paid their own expenses in order to drive racing cars and those happy days one or two of them had some sort of contract although we know for a fact that people like Chiron used to get given cars rather than money which they were then able to sell I don't think many of the drivers at for Bugatti received much in the way of a feed there was no shortage of Bugatti drivers during 1930 but the type 35 s engine though then supercharged and enlarged 2.3 liters only have a single overhead camshaft and Bugatti realized it was becoming dated well he knew by nineteen theatre 929 that he was being outcast on par that was quite clear and there's a complicated story but he did acquire a couple of American Miller cars which should be left by an American in Europe and took them to pieces and in fact copied the engine exactly in version of the 35 called the type 51 and that produced about 30 more horsepower than he'd ever seen before for a given size eventually the Miller engine had a double overhead camshaft one for the inlet another for the exhaust valves set at an angle of 90 degrees improving the gas flow and thus increasing the power the new engine was fitted to the type 51 Bugatti horizon invited Grand Prix driver John Watson to test a meticulously restored example well I think the engine certain performance the engine is very impressive it's got what I would call lusty power and it really does go from low down and I never really got it running at its maximum rpm but you can feel that that's the thrust and an urge which is very impressive the gearbox that I've found a little bit difficult because I'm not so used to this kind of gearbox but otherwise it's very pleasant indeed thing that I felt driving it was how much harder it is to drive because you have to drive much more physically and on my shoulders I mean after the few laps around here having to pull the wheel around I felt really worn out and I can't imagine how they drove for the length of time I did do many years ago at first I was very nervous about it but now that I'm more accustomed to I can understand why the owners of these cars enjoy them so much you're the more I've been driving it the more I'm beginning to enjoy it and it actually feels like a car rather more than maybe the current grumpy cars do because they are very much more refined Brooklyn's in sorry until 1933 the only British circuit the races were mainly for sports cars which had to be silenced local residents insisted on that but the benches Bugattis and mgs raced round the bumpy banking most weekends it was all the greatest possible fan Brooklands is no more it closed in September 1939 forever a k3 mg which often raised here drives along one of the few remaining sections the passenger is bill body editor of motorsport and Brooklyns historian lap record 140 3.44 by air engine maker Rosen John Cobb said it felt like leaning too far out an upstairs window fell further than you want to do now for comfort he was a pretty passive man so he said that he must have never been thought of this lightly neither the drivers nor the select summer crowd at Brooklands cared much about drawn Prix racing that was a European sport most of the races here were handicaps no previous experience was necessary we can't get a weekday and pay attention together and anything you like I came my mother once we were founded in 1928 I think house one said b14 wouldn't do more than our 45 all the towers fell off after about 100 yards or you know but they didn't worry a bit and I'm quite sure at the end of the day they didn't even count the heads and if you'd had an accident somewhere you were in a ditch I think that's where you probably stayed it's all terribly carefree but not always to keep a Bentley at 130 miles an hour on the banking called for great skill and judgment a single error could lead to disaster the tunas grand prix of 1933 the Bugatti is harried by the Italian Alfa Romeos and Maseratis the cars are driven by an entirely new generation of professional drivers who sell their skills to the highest bidder like the winner of this race Tazio Nuvolari destined to become one of the greats in 1932 bugatti had not achieved a single major victory sadly the time had come for his beautiful cars to make their exit to become a legend a legend which lives on four surviving Bugattis worth around 120,000 pounds of peace our race still 19:34 and Maserati have produced a new 3.3 liter car it was built to the International formula which began that year there was no restriction on engine size or supercharging but the total weight of the car curiously without the wheels fuel or driver was not to exceed 750 kilograms Bugatti competed with his type 59 which was virtually his last Grand Prix car though beautifully constructed it retains such outdated features as cable-operated bricks and was powered by what was essentially a sports car engine although riding mechanics had long since been banished the type 59 remained a two-seater and eccentrically was cranked from the side the rising cost of construction by 1934 was such that Bugatti was never able to develop the type 59 by far the most successful of the trio was the type B Alfa Romeo the car had been steadily developed over ten years with the capacity of its superb supercharged straight-8 engine increased to three point two liters it was at the very peak of its development like the earlier P 3 alpha which it closely resembled the type B had the classic mono poster or single seater driving position John Watson tested this the final development of the classic racing car that had first appeared ten years earlier as the type 35 Bugatti it's a three-speed gearbox first is straight up then round enough its second straight down for third we're just going to use second and third today I'll stick a sec number that'll be enough fuel valves here on the Left vertically up is on and the mag switch is over there on the right as marked the two rev counter that's a strange thing to have well tradition they read roughly the same okay john wright have some fun buton drove over this alpha is still capable of 150 miles an hour so John Watson takes no chances it's a very impressive car because it's very powerful and to imagine that drivers normal area in particular drill these cars at Nurburgring and circuits like that which have extremely bumpy and the car hasn't got a sophisticated suspension it just puts into perspective how good those drivers wearing their day really you need two years second or third year because it's got so much torque so much load on power a thousand revs and second gear up to five five the limit that in any corner of heaven been you just go into it into the throttle Arnaud it shoots there's no need to go down to bottom gear to get out of a corner if you take this kind of engine engine response put in the current car be fantastic but there was another competitor to be considered Germany in 1923 this German Mercedes had won the Sicilian Targa Florio until 1934 Germany had been excluded from the French and Belgian Grand Prix and the last new racing car that Mercedes had produced was in 1926 so a radical modern design was clearly essential of a 750 kilogram formula work began in 1933 soon in the mercedes-benz racing department at Stuttgart craftsmen began meticulously to assemble a prototype engine to power the new car it was designated w25 and unlike the contemporary french and italian contenders owed little to the past the engine was initially 3.3 liters and supercharged by a large roots blower pressurizing the carburetor creating the characteristic scream of these cars even in its early form the straight-8 engine produced over 400 horsepower the body was carefully streamlined to reduce drag and independently sprung wheels offered the road-holding required at a speed of 175 miles an hour the gearbox was in a unit with the back axle which soon became universal for racing cars the w25 was not the only german design at jim Mnet's ferdinand porsche had designed for auto union a most unusual rear engined car commonplace now but unexplored territory in 1934 auto union also began construction in 1933 the firm was a consortium created by Hawk Thunderer dkw and Audi the car had a V 16 4.4 liter blown engine producing 300 horsepower it was tested on a rolling road when driven on the track however the handling was suspect the international debut of the German cars was a more Larry near Paris for the 1934 French Grand Prix the Mercedes team manager Alfred Nobel leads a superb team which is confident of victory nirisha ho on the Alfa Romeo had made a flying start to lead the race and Auto Union Li soon in trouble fast banked malaria track produces the advantage of the superior cornering possessed by the German cars hijiri messages twice breaks the laughs record but can't capture halls alpha after only 10 laps from brow hitches in the pits German radio stations are relaying the race live but only bad news is coming in from the course no Bauer knows the race is lost all three Mercedes and the auto unions retire from mechanical breakdowns their drivers reduce the spectating from the pits the French crowd are delighted as the popular Louis Chiron wins the press begin to dismiss the German come back into her own prix racing but in Stuttgart at the end of the 1934 season the Mercedes team are greeted as heroes for the races which they did win the German Eiffel renin the coppa acerbo at Pescara in Italy and the Spanish Grand Prix the opening race of the 1936 season was at power no German cars were entered this was the kind of racing for which 750 kilogram formula was devised relatively low-powered alphas Bugattis and Maseratis you there was also a new four and a half litre and super French Delahaye driven by the veteran ed Tesla which one mónica Easter 1936 the weather would not be as bad again until 1984 when the rest would be abandoned but that's out of the question in 1936 Bente res Meijer Auto Union crashes as do several other cars somewhere in the rain Nuvolari in a new 3.8 alpha is trying hard but only one driver is capable of mastering these appalling conditions Mercedes Rudolf Caracciola it rained also in the Eiffel Mountains with the Eiffel dremen held on the 14 mile Nurburgring circuit Mercedes drivers try hard but the mist closes in and auto unions rising star bent res Maya appears through the groom to win 19:36 was really auto unions year and a concerned mercedes-benz engage a brilliant young German engineer Rudolf Renault I joined the Racing team at the end of the season 1936 and this is the car we began to develop for the season 1937 we built 10 cars for each season they are the legendary W 125 s with the engine enlarged to five point six liters to produce 640 horsepower but to keep within the 750 kilogram limit its lightly built and rough running as long as the edge of was rough we knew it was alright but if it became smooth we knew that the crankshaft had begun to crack it was time to put in a new one and a new driver the young Englishman dick seaman whose first drive for Mercedes was of Long Island in New York for the Vanderbilt cup Nuvolari had entered with the new be 12 Alfa Romeo which proved no match for Siemens Mercedes but an auto union didn't Barros my winners Rosemeyer an ex motorcyclist is the only driver to really master the early auto unions fellini 1937 is regarded as the greatest year ever for motor racing the German cars are so powerful they can spin their wheels on a dry Road up to a hundred and fifty miles an hour and can touch 200 the power of these cars won't be exceeded until the advent of the turbocharged Formula one cars of the 1980s tires alone limit the maximum performance pit stops are frequent for 300,000 German spectators in that high summer of German technology the only question was would the winner be an auto union or a Mercedes in the German Grand Prix the answer was Mercedes children by Caracciola seen in this unique color footage it was shot in 1937 by an English photographer George Monkhouse who recounts his impression of the German teams tremendous just share efficiency of the whole shooting match winds arrived on the starting line I mean everything worked about them and he put the starter in the frantic start ease was no nonsense Manfred von Brauchitsch the Mercedes driver and Tatiana Volare in his famous red helmet was now driving for Auto Union the brilliant bent res Meyer and his Auto Union Mercedes Alfred no bar Caracciola adjusts his mirror watched by his wife Alice who's keeping the lap charts the rest of George Monck has photographed was the 1937 Pescara copper HL bow and we see the race from the pits team manager no bar with his red and black plan brings in Caracciola for a routine pit stop german pit work has become legendary the cars are averaging only it's three miles to the gallon and have a capacity of 88 gallons four wheels are changed and the mechanic tests the temperature of the exhaust manifold looking for a pool one which would indicate a misfiring cylinder all is well the screen is cleaned annoyed Bauer sends Caracciola on his way after 26 seconds in the heat of the Italian summer rose Meijer Auto Union has tire trouble but wins the race from breakage comes in second and dick semen fifth in those days the drivers dressed casually and few wore crash eyelets a week later George Monck house is at bream Garten to fill these British er eh s these one and a half litre cars had first appeared in 1934 and competed in watt yacht races roughly equivalent to today's former - number 58 is driven by Prince birra of Siam a well known pre-war driver this is one of his cars er a stood for English racing automobiles and 17 of these one and a half litre supercharged cars were built they were very successful they were fitted with a semi-automatic pre-selector gearbox most of the ER a s had beam axles with leaf springs bound with cord for rigidity the success of the one and a half liter cars did go some way to make up for the lack of a true British Grand Prix car but at last we had a Grand Prix circuit Donington Park where the 1937 season was too close Mercedes and Auto Union fielded full teams with only nominal opposition expected from British cars as the newsreels acknowledged from the start it's clear that the German cars are going to run away with the honours four times as partners to British interests they competitors behind face goes faster and faster pushing on to an exciting climax with the winners average speed at eighty two point eight six miles an hour the Donington crowds had never seen anything remotely like it res male 1 on an auto union Donington was the last time the 6-metre cars would have you seen a new 3 liter formula came into force in 1938 Mercedes produced the W 150 for a v12 it incorporated all the experience gained over four years it had cost millions subsidized by the German government at Stuttgart money was never a problem I could have as much as I wanted nobody said I was spending too much and then I don't even know what we spent the v12 engines alone reputedly costs seven thousand four hundred pounds each in 1938 they were built to the highest standards as was the entire car the road-holding was certainly the best that could then be obtained and would be difficult to improve on today few Grand Prix cars have surpassed the purposeful lines of the 1938 Mercedes the first race to the new formula was apparent with the field including to type 51 Bugattis Dreyfus on a delahaye leads with Kara Sheila uneasy in the new car and herman lag spins off this shot though cut into the contemporary newsreel of the race was in fact taken in practice the car being too damaged to start a new three litre Maserati fast but frail Dreyfuss on adela hey wins a Mercedes finishing second it would be a very different story at the French Grand Prix at Reims don't come here I spy ants loose Caracciola makes a poor start the rim circuit is very fast the new Mercedes 'soon lapping at well over 100 miles an hour but Caracciola is still not at home in the 3 liter car and the 3-liter Auto Union seems to have inherited some of the handling problems of the earlier cars sadly Auto Union are without Rose Meyer who lost his life in a record attempt earlier that year the race became a demonstration run for mercedes-benz foie gras hitch drives faultlessly to win the French Grand Prix at an average of over 101 miles an hour the decadent French start their races with a at the Nurburgring a light system is used which fails to work but they're off anyway for the 1938 German Grand Prix from brackish and just to win his second grant free is in the lead as he comes in for a routine pit stop fuel is pumped into the cars at five gallons a second mistakes and never this happens to von Brauchitsch spark and his car is on fire with 88 gallons of fuel on board live our hydration efficient firefighting puts out the blaze as seaman leaves the pits after his pit stop to take the lead on dracolich insists on rejoining the race but he was to run off the road shortly afterwards with the Englishman dick seaman now leading the German Grand Prix seema not lunk the hair snootily in the Sena me in Busan - deutschland Monson and act on Isis bubble Zeek be a mercedes-benz sports leader online is not pleased and even dick seaman seems embarrassed it's also very unlike Darrell Donington we're a huge crowd had turned up drawn by the stories of the German invasion the year before it's October and just three weeks after the Munich crisis the German teams are uneasy and almost pull out Gulen halt and Novara received direct instructions from Stuttgart to risk not a naturally dick semen is hoping for another win the Duke of Kent is formally greeted by bull I'm adding English tweets to the occasion a new very fast Maserati who ran out told George Monck house that if the Germans had prepared them they could have won a French delahaye it looks old-fashioned but so do the English perpendicular er a s the popular bandleader and very good amateur driver Billy cotton is to drive one Nuvolari is to drive an auto union the pre-war three-mile Donington circuit was very narrow and very bumpy well known that the German cars had every advantage over the other entries didn't cotton number eighteen finds the tempo pretty hot as he swings around the bed C Mon Lang and bidder take a chance and get away with it but after all that's bound to happen in the race like this an English car engine blows up and oil is spilled onto the track the first victim is the auto union of hasser dick semen follows in his Mercedes but he will be able to restart of course is surprised to find new Allari number four in the lead driving with all the skill that is made in world famous he goes on to win at an average speed of eighty eight point four nine miles an hour even on this sinuous circuit the three litre cars proved almost as fast as the previous six liter cars in search of yet more speed for 1939 Auto Union have revised their cars the driving position is moved back to improve the handling the v12 engine is modified to give increased power a two-stage supercharger is fitted that's one supercharger pressurizing another boosting the power output from 420 to 485 horsepower giving auto union a speed of 195 miles an hour only two auto unions survive in the West one in Munich and this one in England during 1939 the German teams were as invincible with the 3-liter cars as before they won every major Grand Prix in that last year of peace the power and the road-holding abilities of the 3 litre Mercedes is such that a new cornering technique is evolved the four-wheel drift John Watson basically the car is being steered by the use of engine power balancing the slide and powering the car through the corner the weather at Spa was very bad dick seaman was leading but misjudged a corner and crashed thank you Herman Laing one but there was no joy in his victory possibly the greatest technical achievement of 1939 concerned Lee's the one and a half litre Alfa Romeos Yulin heart had admired them at Pescara the Italians determined to win at least one Grand Prix at at only six months notice restricted the Triple E meeting to one and a half litre cars in those six months Mercedes designed and built to one and a half liter v8 engine cars it would have taken most teams longer than that simply to prepare existing cars it'll come as no surprise to learn that the German cars were first and second in five years the Germans had achieved total domination of international Grand Prix racing all opposition was eclipsed while it's true that the National Socialist government had funded the team's primary different reasons of propaganda it is also true that money alone can never guarantee success in motor racing the German achievements like those of Bugatti 15 years earlier were due to superior technology the silver cars last race was in Belgrade on the 3rd of September 1939 two days after the outbreak of the Second World War Oh

Channel: Tinkerin' Thinkers

Views: 1,243,550

Keywords: Supercharged, Grand, Prix, cars, 1924-1939, full, documentary, bbc, horizon, racing, Formula One (Sport), Supercharger, Race, Auto Show (Event), Drag, Burnout, Exhaust, Drag Racing (TV Genre), Turbo

Id: NCP_GJ8JBOE

Length: 49min 10sec (2950 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 24 2010

Reddit Comments

[u/loloh44]

Brilliant documentary. I love that era! Some of my favourite cars ever.