Tag Archives: Classic cars

How long does the Benz Patent Motorwagen need to lap the Nurburgring?

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The Benz Patent Motorwagen lapping the Nurburgring? Well, that would be a sight to behold. While Mercedes-AMG has the 4-Door Coupe holding the record for the fastest series production 4-door at the Green Hell, how long would the first-ever car take?

The Benz Patent Motorwagen is the first carriage with no horse traction. Karl Benz built it back in 1886 and his wife, Bertha, started out from Manheim to Pforzheim with the couple’s two sons. Not only did she reach her destination, her parents’ house. But she also managed to return back home.

The Patent Motorwagen was not designed as a sports car, but as the first-ever car. Now it hits the Nurburgring in a virtual lap. YouTube sim racer and IRL race car driver Jimmy Broadbent took the vehicle to the racetrack. The project took ten months to complete and user SATBLAB was the one responsible for the success. He was the one to faithfully recreate the car.

The car sports one horsepower in the game. If it had any less, it wouldn’t have been able to move at all. The real deal had only two-thirds of a horsepower (0.4 kW). These parameters helped roll with a top speed of 13 km/h (8 mph). That is snail speed for the 21-kilometer (13-mile) long racetrack, where ferocious cars and highly-skilled drivers put their abilities to the test.

When going downhill, the three-wheel Benz Patent Motorwagen speeds up thanks to gravity, even hitting 70 km/h (43 mph). Karl Benz would have never dreamed of reaching such speeds. Going uphill though is torture. The vehicle simply stops in steep inclines.

But it eventually manages to put an end to all this… persecution after spending over 80 minutes on a lap on the Nurburgring. 135 years later, the Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series covered the same route in about 6 minutes and 43 seconds. Times have changed…

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Stirling Moss’ racing Mercedes-Benz W196, incredibly detailed model

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An incredibly detailed Mercedes-Benz W196, a 1:8 replica of Stirling Moss’ racing car is now available. It is the monoposto that the British driver drove to victory in 1955 at the British Grand Prix.

The iconic racing car secured the team the F1 World Championship the same season with 75% of the 12 races of that year. The most remarkable triumph was that at the home circuit. It was the moment that no less than four W196 racing cars finished first, second, third and fourth places. Sir Stirling Moss, who never won a championship title in his entire career, was then in the lead.

Mercedes-Benz W196 Stirling Moss (5)

More than 60 years later, inching closer to perfection, Amalgam Collection presents the 1:8 model. It is the car in race-worn spec. The worn wheels, specifically designed so, show that it is not as one just rolling off the assembly line.

The expert craftspeople used period imagery of the winning car to draw, design and build the model. It comes packed with intentional imperfections, with scratches and deformations, dirt and debris, as any racing car would. The steering wheel also bears signs of wear after Sir Stirling Moss would have steered the car on the race track.

Mercedes-Benz W196 Stirling Moss (12)

Amalgam worked in close cooperation with Mercedes-Benz. It was the only way for the team to make sure their engineering details and material choices were correct. Their model recreates the exact weave and fabric pattern o the original single seat of the car.

“Our models are so finely detailed that they’re hard to tell from actual cars in photographs. That’s why we try to have a hand or something in our photographs, so people can see the scale”, says Amalgam Director of Brand Sandy Copeman said in a release.

Amalgam will only build five such replicas of the W196 monoposto, each with a price of $17,165.