#0694 Mercedes W196 "Streamline Body"

The 1954 Italian Grand Prix was won in September 1954 by Juan Manuel Fangio in the streamlined Mercedes W196, sealing his world title in a year of eight Formula One Grands Prix. Two months earlier, the streamlined version of the W196 was tested for the 1954 French Grand Prix on the high-speed Reims-Gueux Triangle circuit. But his consumption on the training days was 40 l per 100 km too high to see the checkered flag after 500 kilometers with the original tank volume. On the night before the race, the W 196 was expanded to include an additional tank in the left side box. Fangio won this third Grand Prix of the 1954 season in beautiful Champagne. It was a special day for German athletes: It was not until 1954, nine years after the end of the Second World War, that German athletes were finally allowed to take part in official international sporting events, and the German soccer team won the final in Bern's Wankdorf Stadium and thus the soccer world championship title on that very same day. Hans Hermann said: "At first we felt very uncomfortable as German athletes, back on French soil for the first time after that terrible war, but that day of victory, for the Mercedes team and the national team in the summer of 1954, helped us all a lot, to see our destroyed self-image a little better in the reflection of ourselves as Germans". Hermann set the fastest lap time at the French Grand Prix, but his engine gave out too soon. Fangio and Kling took first and second place.