Birth of the ‘Silver Arrow’

For decades until the introduction of sponsorship liveries, each country had its traditional colour. Italian race cars are still famous for their Rosso Corsa, British ones are British racing green, French cars had the France blue and white for the German cars. In 1958 Alfred Neubauer, the first racing team manager, described the origin of the “Silver Arrows” as being accidental when scraping off the paint from the Mercedes-Benz during night to reduce the weight and reach the new weight limit of 750kg in the Grand Prix class at the Nürburgring. But some years earlier, also other GP cars as the Auo Union had already polished and unpainted aluminium panels for streamlining and to save weight, called a silver arrow in 1932 in live radio coverage…
… but still a good story