The Rivals exhibit at The Revs Institute. All photos courtesy The Revs Institute.
As fans of 1950s Formula One racing know, Mercedes-Benz dominated the sport upon its return to competition at the 1954 French Grand Prix. Upstart and under-funded rival Lancia later posed a legitimate challenge to the Mercedes squad, at least briefly, and a newly opened exhibit at The Revs Institute takes a closer look at The Rivals: A Golden Moment in Grand Prix History.
The Lancia D-50 owned by The Revs Institute.
In 1954, Mercedes-Benz returned to Grand Prix (now Formula One) racing with a vengeance, introducing the mighty W196 at the season’s fourth championship race, the French Grand Prix. Developed with no regard to cost or complexity, the W196 sported a space frame built of thin wall steel tubing, a 2.5-liter inline eight-cylinder engine featuring desmodromic valves for higher engine speeds, and a body made of Elektron, a lightweight magnesium aluminum alloy.
A top view of the D-50, showing the pontoon fuel tanks and engine mounting position.
In the car’s debut appearance in France, the legendary Juan Manual Fangio put the W196 on the pole, with his teammate Karl Kling beside him in the second starting spot. The pair would finish in that order as well, a full lap ahead of the third-place Ferrari and fourth-place Maserati. At the British Grand Prix, Fangio would again take the pole in the W196, but handling problems resulted in just a fourth-place finish, while Kling finished the day in seventh.
The Mercedes-Benz W196, on loan from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum, wearing aerodynamic enclosed bodywork.
Mercedes and Fangio would take victory in the next three championship races, in Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Fangio even took pole position at two of the three races, losing the prime starting spot to Ferrari’s José Froilán González in Switzerland. At the last race of the season, however, Lancia debuted its innovative D50; driven by reigning World Champion Alberto Ascari (who’d spent much of the 1954 season on the sidelines, awaiting the D50′s development), the Lancia took the pole in the season-ending Spanish Grand Prix.
The W196′s inline-eight engine and inboard brake drums.
Though remarkably different from the Mercedes-Benz W196, the D50 was no less innovative. Featuring a narrow cockpit flanked by dual pontoon-style fuel tanks, the engine was angled to produce a more compact design. To save weight, the block itself served to stiffen the front of the chassis, and to optimize weight distribution the D50 used a transaxle positioned behind the driver. Its engine was a 2.5-liter V-8, fed by a quartet of downdraft carburetors instead of the W196′s mechanical fuel injection.
Sir Stirling Moss, in the W196, leads Eugenio Castellotti, in the D-50 at Monaco in 1966.
Losing the pole to Ascari and Lancia must have come as a shock to the Mercedes team, but losing the fastest lap to the Italians was surely an eye opener. Clutch failure would end Lancia’s hopes on lap 11, and Mike Hawthorne would ultimately take victory for the Ferrari team in Spain, but both Mercedes-Benz and Lancia ended the 1954 season optimistic about their chances in 1955.
Juan Manuel Fangio in the W196 at Monaco in 1955.
For Lancia, the 1955 season started on a high note, with Ascari qualifying second in Argentina, alongside the Ferrari of José Froilán González. A crash on lap 21 ended Ascari’s day early (and perhaps, eerily foreshadowed his fate later in the season), and the victory ultimately went to Fangio in the W196. At Monaco, the second championship race on the 1955 schedule, Ascari again started from P2, this time alongside the W196 of Fangio. Leading the race, Ascari somehow missed a chicane, and the resulting accident saw the driver and his Lancia tumble over the retaining wall and into the harbor below. Minutes later, he bobbed to the surface, miraculously unhurt in the crash; Fangio’s day would end early as well, with transmission failure just before the event’s halfway point.
Eugenio Castelotti, in D-50 number 30, leads teammate Louis Chiron at Monaco in 1955. Castelotti would finish in second place.
Four days later, Ascari was killed testing a Ferrari sports car at Monza. The Lancia team pressed on without its leader, and at the Belgian Grand Prix in June, Eugenio Castellotti put the D-50 on the pole for the final time. His day would end with a gearbox failure on lap 17, and Lancia’s season would end in Belgium as the company declared bankruptcy. Mercedes would go on to take the win at Spa, and would follow up with wins in the season’s remaining three races, too.
Sir Stirling Moss at Monaco, 1955.
Pierre Levegh’s tragic crash at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1955 forced Mercedes-Benz to once again withdraw from racing, a commitment it would honor for over three decades. Following Lancia’s bankruptcy, the assets of its F1 team were acquired by Ferrari, which used the D-50 as the basis for its primary 1956 Grand Prix car. Ironically, the rebadged Lancia would help Fangio, now driving for Ferrari, earn his fourth World Championship in 1956.
Described as The Revs Institute’s first multi-media exhibit, The Rivals: A Golden Moment in Grand Prix History features displays of both a Lancia D-50 and a Mercedes-Benz W196, accompanied by period artifacts, images, video and audio recordings. The exhibit opened in mid-April and runs through November, and advance reservations are necessary to visit The Revs Institute. For additional information, visit RevsInstitute.org.
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