A lesson in what's gone wrong with broadcasting. A real documentary, with experts in their fields talking TO the viewer as an equal and not talking DOWN to him. The knowledge expressed here is breathtaking. An absolute gem of an upload.
@MichaelKingsfordGray which is why the viewers of old have retreated from the TV scene and watch videos on youtube. I couldn't imagine a reason to turn on the TV set for other reasons than streaming a video onto it
Couldn't agree more. I still have my VHS recording of this when it was first broadcast in 84, when the BBC made quality documentaries instead of pandering to every woke lefty agenda
@@ViN-kr3ri Well said. I have this on a commercially distributed VHS as well. Wish I had it on a DVD, but am glad that it's up here on gulagtube for now.
I watched this the first time round and recorded it on a VHS tape that, I'm afraid, was lost in a house move. Wonderful to see it again - an outstanding achievement by Horizon from the days when the BBC made beautiful documentaries, without silly re-enactments and snide comments about the moralities of past eras.
at 09:58 the address of Delage is shown on the engine plate. That address of 140 Ave des Champs Elysees, Paris. It is now a McDonalds Restaurant. Oh the humanity. BTW I had a burger there last year.
after winning LeMans in 1967, Dan Gurney sprayed champagne on some of the journalists and critics that said he and AJ Foyt had no chance to win, and a new tradition was born
You've got to admire those guys back then driving at over a hundred mph with no helmet, not roll cage in an open cockpit race car, that took real guts.
mrblowhard2u Indeed. Add to that brakes that, by present day standards, didn't work, narrow "bisyckle" tyres that didn't grip, non-fireproof clothing and non-existent track safety... Oh, and some of those Mercs and Auto Unions could max out at allmost 200 mph... Properly crazy stuff!
Innerspace100 in the mid 30's enzo ferrari wanted to be able to compete with the cars, but didn't have the cash to start from scratch and alfa romeo refused to give him the cash, so he takes two of kano's straight 8's and puts them into one car. this was an attempt to lure nuvolari back to scoured ferrari in the 30's, nuvolari was clocked going well over 200 mphs in the mid 30's
+mrblowhard2u Best of all, *it made you feel alive.* The bravery the drivers had to be Grand Prix racers in those days were uncanny. And when they drove with so little protection like that, they felt so alive.
One thing I do find extremely impressive with the 750kg formula of 1934-1937 is that the development was so rapid that the 1937 Mercedes W125 developed 646hp (reportedly) on the dyno. Just a few years before in 1931-1932 the most powerful racecars had little over 200hp. Tripling the horsepower output in just a few years of Grand Prix racing must have been insane! Porsche was planning something special for the 1974 Can-Am season but turbos were banned and Porsche pulled out. (1973 oil crisis..)
Amazing to see that power and speed was not far off that of today's F1. At least on the straights. The tracks however, were a total desaster, in every aspect.
I actually drove a 1928 Bugatti Type 35 race car in a road rally about a decade ago and it's tiny, harsh, nimble, loud, and like riding in a frog blender at speed that will kill you and take off your knee caps if you f- up. About as fast as an 70's Porsche road car on tires the width of a pizza pie -135+ mph.
Just for research purposes, can you quantify the speed of an average frog blender for the average viewer. I never learned to control my frog blender, so I wasn't able to clock the speed properly. Kept taking my kneecaps off.
@@LarryisControversial3000 Literally a frog blender RPM? 37,000 -Hamilton Beech Bar Blender and others -yummy frog legs blended not kneecapped. That's mafia and you guys aren't. Richard Ridell would run the front tires with less PSI I remember at Laguna Seca Monterrey Historic races. The one I was in was owned by a David D. From Galveston or Houston. I gotta think about it -over a decade ago. You talking about the adjustable advance, the priming pumping, the extra oil can manual pump and stuff and priming with the left hand near the fire wall? I know there is some parkay flooring in them too. There's a clock too on the pretty engine turned fire wall and from what I remember it was quite a production just to make it go much less drive it. You constantly adjust the advance. Worse than a High Maintenance woman who is French and Italian and very pretty so it's worth it. I think I was in the finger lakes. Been a while. Oh and the emergency brake right hand with a chain sprocket is an interesting way to do it. Also hiding the drums inside the wheels is rather impractical but would really work well thinking about that now -much easier to use a larger sprocket to get leverage for the brakes just like big rotors. No wonder why these were so fast in the 1920's. They are today! I'm sure i would get lost in a rental car chasing as I did, even with my 911 3.2 it would be about the same performance. Lots of trivia I haven't thought about in 10+ years. Cool experience.
Those Blockley Tires are the bomb! Makes steering of those cars much lighter and faster if everything in the front axle is up to snuff. Positive camber built into the axle. So I would assume that Dick runs the front tires lower in PSI to give better corning so you get a combination of good steering feel without the front end pushing really bad and you understeer the corner. Is that what you are asking? Compensating for understeer in these cars with tire pressure variations on modern race tracks. As far as I remember there are only a few left right hand turns on Laguna Seca and they are off camber (up and down hill corkscrew) so you may be able to only run the right front tire with lower pressure for that track and get away with it.
I have a motoring book from around 1910 which offers advice on how to diagnose an engine that is misfiring: by putting your hand on each exhaust manifold in turn - the one that doesn't burn your hand is the faulty one!
Such an incredible documentary !!! Well done and well narrated. The collection of photos , videos and audio from all those people involved such a long time ago is absolutely wonderful!!
I first became aware of these cars over 60 years ago reading graphic comic books. Who would have thought there was a market for that? I remember reading about the Auto Unions and Mercedes like it was yesterday. Then I read a book called "4 Wheel Drift" . Thank you for this presentation which is the best I have seen, and brought those old memories to life once again. Thank you.
Horizon... ahh... one of my favorite programs growing up a kid... loved the graphics and theme music... this is a brilliant pre-war car racing documentary.
Peter Lee, stop showing you know nothing ! The time Harry Miller started struggling to get his 4cyl cars running, Etore Bugatti was well know for making VERY good cars ! The one v16 that engineer, remember, ENGINEER !!!!!....Miller did, could not complete one race ! So sorry for you !.....bragging with nothing between the ears !
37:33 Those Mercedes-Benz W125 and Auto Union Typ C lift-offs at Donnington old circuit's Starkey's Straight to Melbourne Hairpin just made my day. Greets from Denmark.
Lap record at Brooklands 143.44 MPH (17:00) - 99% of drivers today (2018) have ever exceeded that speed even on Autobahn on a flat straight road ! Remember this was Lap Speed not Maximum - Total Respect for those hughley brave Heroes of Yesteryear. Just Incredible, I have in my Mercedes 420SE done just over 152 MPH but that was on a downhill stretch of Autobahn and with a slight tail wind.
Imagine doing that kind of speed on a track as bumpy as that with a car the driver describes as driving it like “leaning too far out an upstairs window”. Totally bonkers
What a lovely Film! I very much appreciate the effort of uploading this. There´s way too little of these films from the early days! Word has it that the Soviets captured Auto Union cars and had one driver killed by a high speed crash. Very likely cause: the car still had German race gas in the tanks. The other car never ran well because the Soviet gas was bad... This reminds me of the Group B Rallye cars...
Blimey, i remember buying this magnificent series on video,when it was first released decades ago. One of the best presented and researched videos ive ever seen on the subject. Wish it was on DVD.
Great documentary. I love especially to see the footage of these great race tracks of the past, as you can see on my name, like Pescara, Montlhéry, Bremgarten and the Original layout of Reims-Gueux :)
+Circuits of the past I agree. It's nice to see those circuits. Oh, and thank you for providing the footage of those circuits for my Grand Prix 80th Anniversary Episodes, I can tell you've watched them because I was notified that you added me to my circles a little while ago.
What a great video!! The sound of the Mercs and Auto Unions made all others sound like Dinky toys😀 Glad to see the proper perspective put forward too in that no matter how much money you throw at grand prix cars, if you don't have the engineering nouse, you won't make a winner, a point Mercedes-Benz made back then, again in the 50s (when they were cash strapped) and are still making to this day in the current cars. They have proved time and again when they get serious, nobody beats them. "That will do won't do, only the best will do!" Thank you for posting this gem.
I remember watching this when it was broadcast. I remember being incredibly sad that the Brooklands track had not been restored, at that time, as there were industrial museums by the dozen in Manchester for all the marvelous work in the industries there, mostly at the key sites, and Brooklands would have been the obvious choice for a Grand Prix industrial museum for the south.
Dont forget that the Miller engines where in the first way based on the Franse Peugeot engines (the first engine in te world with dubbel overhead camshaft) from 1914 ... the Peugeot L45 is the best example
This is the result of a well funded public broadcaster. The BBC during the 1970s through to the 90s was really the heyday of quality TV production, both drama and documentary.
One little bobble in these things is serious bad news. Those guys had iron balls for sure. The roadsters are unlike ant vehicle ever made. Sleek,cool looking, fast and dangerous. A superb video.
The Auto Union V16 C was awesome just can't imagine trusting those tires at 150-199 mph and no cockpit protection from a crash plus no fuel cell for the methanol fuel. You just hoped you saw the finish line alive in one piece, I think it took a lot of guts to race back then even more than now.
+Robert Smith Imagine Bernd Rosemeyer at AVUS in 1935. It's the first automobile race he's ever participated in, and he's racing for Auto Union, one of the biggest teams in the world, and he's starting on front row, right in the middle of Autobahn 115, AKA, AVUS, The Temple of Speed.
They still race cars like those at Goodwood Festival Of Speed. And they really do race them. The oldest car still racing last year was built in about 1904. Plenty of videos on their YT channel.
@@steveone True but they had the entire might of Hitler and the wealth of Germany behind them. It is kind of like the USA winning the race to the moon with every US taxpayer behind them. Not a fair race. One man named Harry Miller and his small company in Los Angeles perfected the supercharger more than ten years before MB. His Miller 91 1500 cc engine had twin superchargers with inter-cooler that produced 400 HP in 1927. His car was 150 mph on the boards in Beverly Hills in the mid 1920's where he tested and perfected it. His 'Beach Car' with two miller 91 engines, a 3 liter car driven by Frank Lockhart crashed at 220 mph on a dry lake in 1927 on its first full power run. It had far surpassed the land speed record at the time when it blew a tire killing Lockhart. Never got the record because it could not make a back up run. Who knows what it was capable of. Bugatti copied the Miller 91 for his Type 51. MB even tried putting one of the 1938 Silver Aero cars in an enclosed wheel sculpted body similar to the one Leo Gossen designed for the 'Beach Car' . There was plenty of technology to go around especially in France but it was really about the money.
