Quiz Archive

About Quiz # 176... No Mercedes Rennwagen. Oder ? (UPDATE Van der Bilt Cup)

This was a quiz with no final results. Just because so far there is no certainty at all to what the car exactly is. However we had two competitors and three jurymembers who said with light shadows of doubt, that this must be a Mercedes. Not on the year which is hovering between 1903-1907. The same for the type; 50 HP, 60 HP or 90 HP (click for Motorsport.com) !? Did the car stay in the US after the Van Der Bilt Cup (1904?) Is this Merc lookalike meant to be a lookalike or is it soemthing completly different? In the end we decided that Wilfried Brunner is preliminary winner writing: "this Car looks like (NB "looks like") a Mercedes about 1904/05. Maybe a modified 40/60 PS, looks like a Gordon Bennet Racer, maybe an 90 PS based on a Simplex design. On Front, inside chassis are Shocks, maybe Hartford's, typical early race applications, also the silencerstyle (with or without silencer). The second wing position bracket near the passenger's shoe's looks like the original rearbracket from the front wing. It must be a Racer, the Brake-Cables are missing, therefore 'no Brakes'." (also he added that the photo must be of later date, because of the electric Klaxon horn).
But there is more to say about this car. Tony Paalman of CarDiscoveries comments. "...there is a small possibility this is a version by Austro-Daimler." A very last most intriguing assumption is by somebody who says that the man with the bowler hat is nobody less than a Mr. Duesenberg ! (click photo for a similar Merc in France, collection Bob Swanson)
While in Stuttgart today we received an opinion of Daimler-Chrysler themselves. Mr. Uwe Weishedel, of the Mercedes Benz Classic Center informed us: " After our research in the DCAG-archive we are sure that this is not a Daimler car. It seems to be something similar, but the frame is quite different to our frame´s from that time." Editor ...the Mystery thickens! Possibly the answer is to be found in the codriver with bowlerhat... \n This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it '> This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
UPDATE/editor's mistake. Chris Draper corrected us. The presumption about the Gordon Bennett Cup of course was wrong, we mixed up that event with the Vander Bilt Cup of 1904 (compare this Merc at Motorsport.com; is Stuttgart really right? Even the chassis rivets are placed identical... )

Friday, 17 March 2006