Mercedes W196

[steveaki13]

I have been looking at some old photos and reading some information.

Can someone with a bit more knowledge tell me. Was the W196 the only F1 car that had two versions which the team alternated between for twisty circuits (normal 50s looking car) to a high speed circuits with closed wheel slipstream?

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&source ... 7692566936 (http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&docid=S7RZIOvmIf7ZjM&tbnid=cSjHMuwVtaDurM:&ved=0CAUQjBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.f1fanatic.co.uk%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2009%2F07%2Fmercedesbenz_w196_ 1954_stirlingmoss-12.jpg&ei=bPbsUsurH5Ku7AbRloGIAw&psig=AFQjCNFHuBmwgk9MfmA4Gf_kC8bSkLoFBw&ust=1391347692566936)

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&source ... 7718169438 (http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&docid=KBL99ImtIdV8nM&tbnid=Di2vIvd15xuwYM:&ved=0CAUQjBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.f1fanatic.co.uk%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2009%2F06%2Fmoss_mercedes_w196 .jpg&ei=hvbsUuHnBs7B7AbHqIGoBw&psig=AFQjCNEFdNAUPLLo7n6BX3qYWX0HqTH5Bg&ust=1391347718169438)

Quite an unusual situation. I believe a Cooper Bristol in 55 run by Jack Brabham in the British GP had slipstreaming body work, but I don't think the T40 was ever a open wheel car in the same sense.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... _Sp%29.JPG (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/37/Cooper_Bristol_T40%2C_Bj._1955_%282011-08-13_Sp%29.JPG/800px-Cooper_Bristol_T40%2C_Bj._1955_%282011-08-13_Sp%29.JPG)

I am only think of F1 Championship races really.

[FAL]

The 196 came in all sorts of versions - long chassis, sort chassis, medium chasis and probably a lot that never made it to a circuit, quite apart from bodywork.
The Connaught streamliner was raced, the Vanwall equivalent wasn't raced. There was a 250F streamliner that I think practiced once but never raced, although the same chassis did with normal bodywork. Gordini? or am I thinking of a sports car. Most of the rest were cockpit bubbles that didn't really work and made the drivers suffer from heat or strange air flow (or lack of it).
I can't open the links.

[steveaki13]

Thanks for the info FAL.

I can open the links, but I am not sure what the problem is. Can anyone else open them.

I will try and repost them.

[steveaki13]

I have tried again with those imagines I posted, but don't know if its any better, the appear on my laptop.

1954 unstreamlined Mercedes
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/mercedesbenz_w196_1954_stirlingmoss-12.jpg

1954 Streamlined Mercedes

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/juanmanuelfangio_mercedes_r.jpg

[steveaki13]

The 196 came in all sorts of versions - long chassis, sort chassis, medium chasis and probably a lot that never made it to a circuit, quite apart from bodywork.
The Connaught streamliner was raced, the Vanwall equivalent wasn't raced. There was a 250F streamliner that I think practiced once but never raced, although the same chassis did with normal bodywork. Gordini? or am I thinking of a sports car. Most of the rest were cockpit bubbles that didn't really work and made the drivers suffer from heat or strange air flow (or lack of it).
I can't open the links.


I looked up the Connaught Streamliner. 1955

http://www.svvs.org/eocars/eoc16.jpg

Cant find much on the Gordini car, but I haven't looked for long. I also cant find a decent link to the Cooper Bristol T40.

[D-Type]

In A story of Formula 1 Denis Jenkinson devotes a chapter to streamlining
The W196 and the Connaught were the only serious attempts to produce a streamlined car.
The Cooper T40 was a stretched T39 'Bobtail' with a Bristol engine - it ran in the 1955 British GP and a couple of non-championship races then Brabham took it to Australia where he won the [formule libre] Australian GP then sold it. It was a one off and there was no attempt to produce an open wheeled version.
Various people produced streamliners at Reims but these were half-hearted attempts. The 1956 race saw cars from Ferrari and Maserati with partially enclosed bodies. The Maserati had the tops of the wheelsexposed and the Ferrari had a similar stet up at the front. This helped keep tyre temperatures down, eliminated the possibility of lift if the air got into the mudguards and allowed the drivers to keep an eye on the tyres. Maserati also ran their streamliner at monza. Neither car showed a noticeable advantage as they were heavier than the open wheelers and this cancelled out the aerodynamic improvement.
In 1957 a fully enclosed Vanwall appeared in practice but it proved to be unstable so it didn't race
A Walker Cooper with bolt-on enclosed bodywork was tried in practice for the 1957 F2 race but not raced. The works produced a car at Reims for 1959 with a mixture of "Monaco" and "Bobtail" bodywork but it didn't work too well. Significantly they didn't take it to Avus.
The 8 cylinder Gordini wasn't really a streamliner: it simply had a wide nose that partially faired in the fornt wheels (rather like a 1970s Tyrrell)

And that's about it.

[steveaki13]

Interesting stuff thanks for sharing your knowledge.

Which event was the slipstreamed Vanwall taken too? and did they still enter the main event with a open wheel car or did they withdraw.

If it was the latter then did the rules state a limit on changes to a car mid event?

Interesting experimentation in those early days before it became clear the direction F1 would head. Its a shame that it is all so restricted these days. I mean F1 rarely see's any radical diversions off the mainstream designs (like slipstreamed cars/fan cars/6 wheelers) I know a couple of these things I mention were not successes but people were trying different things

[D-Type]

It was the 1957 non-championship Reims GP. At that time the French GP alternated between Reims and Rouen. In the years that it was at Rouen they held a non-championship race at Reims. The team took two open-wheeled cars plus the newly completed streamliner. The streamlined body was fitted on a standard chassis.

The regular drivers Moss and Brooks were both not available: Moss was still recovering from the sinus infection that had kept him out of the French GP while Brooks was still not fully fit after his Le Mans accident. The two cars were driven by Roy Salvadori, who was a competent 'journeyman' driver, and Stuart Lewis Evans who was a talented novice whose Formula 1 experience consisted of the French GP in a Vanwall and the Monaco GP and a couple of non-championship races all in a Connaught.

Neither driver was familiar with the cars and had their hands full getting used to them. Additionally because of Salvadori's height the mechanics had to alter the seats and pedals on his car. Lewis Evans tried the streamliner in practice and found it was overgeared. The gearbox of one of the regular cars was giving trouble so the team took the gearbox from the streamliner. The streamlined car never raced again for reasons that have never been published. I am fairly sure that the chassis did race again with a normal body.

The streamlined body survived and a streamlined car was built up and displayed in the Donington Museum. With what has happened to the Donington Collection, I don't know if it's still there or where it is.

At the time, the rules allowed a team to swap cars between drivers, but grid positions were determined by the combination of car and driver that was racing. Say Drivers A & B both drove cars X, Y and Z in practice. If Driver A raced car X, his grid position would be determined by the time he had set in that car even if he had put up a faster time in car Y or Z. Now, suppose Driver B raced car Y and Driver A had set a faster time in it then the faster time should have been ignored. Needless to say, mistakes were made on occasions if the organisers hadn't caught on to who was driving. This is one reason that some 1950s grids don't necessarily match the list of practice times.

[steveaki13]

Great info.

Thanks D Type

[D-Type]

Don't thank me - thank the people who wrote my books. After all they did the hard work.

[steveaki13]

I was thanking you for passing it on.

[inimitablestoo]

All I know about the W196 slipstreamer is that, having dominated its first Grand Prix in France, Mercedes took the car to Silverstone and found it wasn't brilliant at dealing with the oil drums that were used to mark track limits (hmm... now there's an idea...)! Given that such hazards weren't uncommon at the time - notably the exposed "traffic furniture" on street circuits - it might explain why there were few takers for the slipstreamer shape.

[D-Type]

An all-enveloping body is heavier than an open-wheeler. So the advantage in straight line speed has to be balanced against poorer acceleration. Contrary to what some writers suggest, the open-wheeled version was always part of Uhlenhaut's plans for the car and was not an afterthought. Development of the cars took longer than envisaged as is shown by the fact that they didn't make their debut until Reims. In the end priority was given to the streamliners and the open-wheeler simply wasn't ready in time for Silverstone.

The common story regarding the problems at Silverstone is that the drivers couldn't see the wheels to place the car precisely. I'm not convinced - at the time drivers had no problems in sports cars - visibility to corner a Lister or a Tipo 60/61 Maserati, for example, was as poor as the W196. Weather during the British GP weekend was cold and wet with track conditions varying between wet, damp and dry. The Mercedes team used Continental tyres and Continental were less experienced than Pirelli, Dunlop or Englebert in making racing tyres. In particular their wet weather performance was poor. Apparently under damp conditions the 'break away' of the tyre at the limits of adhesion was sudden rather than gradual and this caught Fangio and Kling out. As aerodynamics was not that well understood 60 years ago, there may have been some aerodynamic instability when the cars were cornering as opposed to running in a straight line.

[D28]

D-Type:
"The works produced a car at Reims for 1959 with a mixture of "Monaco" and "Bobtail" bodywork but it didn't work too well. Significantly they didn't take it to Avus".

This demonstrates that while the W196 streamliner was unsuccessful, the idea of streamlining continued to interest engineers.
The Cooper in question was tested at Silverstone and in Reims for the French GP. It was reported to lift at 180 mph and feeling squirrelly in the curves. A description is given in Cooper Cars by Doug Nye.