The Saddest Grand Prix

In a sport blessed with hundreds of fabulous stories and traditions going back to 1906, surely the legend of the Silver Arrows stands out as one of the most compelling in all the lore of Grand Prix Racing.

Has there ever been a time in our sport as thrilling? Have there ever been cars and drivers as exciting to watch as Auto Union and Mercedes-Benz battling it out from 1934 to 1939, their superchargers wailing on road racing circuits across Europe and on four Continents? Have there ever been factory teams so single-mindedly devoted to the task of winning races than these two Teutonic giants, each marque engaged at full throttle back at their respective factories, at Zwickau and Stuttgart, for the honor and glory of the Third Reich?

Yes, the Third Reich. Because ironically, shockingly and disturbingly, whether we like it or not as race fans 75 years on, Adolf Hitler and his murderous regime had much to do with giving these two teams the financial succor and psychological impetus for what we now think of as the Golden Age of Grand Prix Racing.

When Hitler finished his hour upon the stage and killed himself in his underground bunker in Berlin in 1945, he strutted no more; luckily for us, the storied Grand Prix cars he subsidised lived on, spirited away during the war years by those who treasured them, hidden in mines and other unlikely hideaways in Eastern Europe and later on in the Ukraine, until the world returned to its senses.

Hitler's Car

Hitler's involvement in the long-ago Silver Arrows era has been presented squarely to us most recently by the announcement that on February 17, 2007, Christie's Auction House intended to offer one of the few surviving Auto Unions for auction - a so-called Typ D that raced in 1938 and 1939. "The centerpiece of the sale will be a 1939 Auto Union D-Type, thought to be one of only three in existence and one of the most important cars in motor-racing history," said Christie's. "This car won the 1939 Rheims Grand Prix...and may be considered to be among the most important cars ever to appear at auction."

Predictably, the media covering this high-profile auction has already labeled the Typ D as "Hitler's Car".

Days before the auction was to take place, Christie's abruptly withdrew the Typ D from auction, saying that some consultation was needed with Audi Research as to the provenance of the car. To that point, it was thought that 'Hitler's Car' had been one of the only two Typ D's reconstructed from mostly original parts by ace British restorers Crostwaithe and Gardiner. The last-minute postponement of the auction has only added to the mystery and mystique of this particular Silver Arrow.

The Auto Union Typ D Christie's had scheduled for auction, if its provenance holds up, is an historic car in all senses of the word, in terms of who built it, who paid for it, who drove it and what races it won. It is the last of a line of Auto Unions that began with what is now classified as the Auto Union Typ A, the revolutionary rear-engined (or mid-engined) ugly duckling of a car that was designed by Doctor Ferdinand Porsche. Today, all Formula One cars are rear-engined, but in 1933, the placement of the driver towards the center, followed by the fuel tank and then the engine was an innovative and prescient design.

Hitler himself was shown the engineering drawings for this fire-breathing, 300bhp, supercharged 4.4-litre 16 cylinder beast at the old Chancellery building in Berlin on March 1, 1933. Dr. Porsche laid out for him what the Auto Union would look like and how it would perform. How important was this project? Hitler had just been recently appointed Chancellor of Germany and it was literally one of his first official acts to talk Grand Prix cars with Dr. Porsche, strange but true. (See Auto Union V16: The Magnificent Beast)

After the Porsche/Hitler meeting, Hitler decided to split an annual subsidy of about 500,000 Reichmarks he had in mind to support German auto racing between Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union, may the best team win. If Dr. Porsche had not met with Hitler, Mercedes-Benz would have had 100 percent of the State subsidy and the racing world would have been a poorer place.

In less than a year from that meeting in Berlin, the Auto Union Typ A was up and running and doing shakedown runs at Germany's most famous tracks - the Nurburgring in the Eifel Mountains and the AVUS in Berlin - driven by Hans Stuck.

To some, the radical looks of the Auto Union Typ A will never be rivaled. But, due to rule changes from 1934-1939, all the Grand Prix cars evolved and the Auto Union Typ D that was on the auction block in Paris is the final playing out of Porsche's design.

It still retained its distinctive Auto Union features - the horse collar grille and rear-engined configuration of the Type A - but was slightly refined. The fuel tanks were now mounted side-saddle in pannier tanks for better weight distribution and a spectacular and functional set of louvers cascaded down the engine cover to let hot air escape from the beast, looking like the scales on the backside of a dragon.

The Typ D had Dr. Porsche's lineage written all over it, although it was built under the auspices of his successor at Auto Union, Professor Eberan von Eberhorst. The Typ D's engine was downsized to a 3.0-litre V12, but the twin superchargers boosted the horsepower to a robust 485bhp. And the Typ D's were no slouches, having clocked up four Grands Prix that counted for the European Championship.

Still above the grille of the Typ D appeared the trademark four interlocked Olympic-style rings (now used by Audi as its logo) and, of course, there was that silver paint. On occasion, when the Auto Union ran in the United States at the Vanderbilt Cup races or in the AVUS Speedoval, emblazoned on the sides of the cars, like Royal Bank of Scotland and Vodafone are today, was the Nazi Swastika, sinister and odious-looking to us now but, back then, just sponsor signage of a kind. The Auto Union scheduled for auction in Paris was not wearing them.

Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union Go Racing

The drivers of this era were almost as interesting a lot as the state of the art machinery. They featured Rudolph Caracciola and Manfred von Brauchitsch for Mercedes-Benz, and Hans Stuck, Bernd Rosemeyer and Tazio Nuvolari for Auto Union, all Titans of the sport.

The wives of these drivers, who globe-trotted with their husbands, were also characters in their own right, with Rudy's second wife (the former Alice 'Baby' Hoffman) having previously been the girlfriend of Carraciola's former teammate at Alfa Romeo, Monegasque Louis Chiron. On occasion, Carraciola and Chiron would find themselves teammates at Mercedes-Benz as well, sharing Alice and their cars by turns.

Another interesting Mercedes-Benz driver was Dick Seaman, an Englishman who had somehow found himself in a Nazi world. Dick Seaman's wife, Erica Popp, was the daughter of the President of BMW. Ilse Pietsch, wife of would-be Auto Union driver Paul Pietsch, had an affair with another Auto Union Driver, Achille Varzi, a relationship built on substance abuse that led to Varzi's ruin. Paula Stuck, wife of Hans Stuck, was an accomplished tennis player.

Bernd Rosemeyer's wife, Elly Beinhorn, was already a celebrity and more famous than her husband-to-be when she met him on the occasion of his first victory, the 1935 Masaryk Grand Prix. Elly had come to see Hans Stuck, the then-star of Auto Union, but ended up congratulating the rookie Rosemeyer on his victory, beginning a whirlwind romance that ended up in marriage a year later.

Elly was already a world-renowned aviator who had crashed in the Sahara desert on one of her record-breaking solo-flights and lived to tell the tale. Indeed, Elly Beinhorn is the one we have to thank for some of the Auto Union movie footage that has come down to us, as Elly and one of the other lesser Auto Union drivers, Ulrich Bigalke, acted as their own Auto Union film unit. Bernd and Elly were to become, reluctantly, the Uber Germanic couple.

The settings for these archival Silver Arrow films were exotic and far-flung, consistent with the worldwide pretensions of the Third Reich. Over the years, the battle for supremacy amongst these cars and drivers see-sawed as they crisscrossed the earth.

They trundled across country roads and autobahns in Europe with their Auto Union Renndienst Transporters and Mercedes-Benz Rennabteilung trucks jam-packed with race cars and racing paraphernalia, and they traveled by boat to North Africa (Tripoli, Tunis), South Africa (East London and Cape Town), South America (Rio de Janeiro) and North America (the Long Island Vanderbilt Cup).

All these were venues where the Third Reich wanted to project its power to friend and foe alike. On the luxury liner Bremen, some of the racing couples played shuffleboard on deck while others relaxed in the pool below deck. In Tunis, they took field trips in the desert to ride camels, using the go-anywhere, do-anything Auto Union Transporters as their caravans.

And when these teams faced off against one another at the Nurburgring, or at the Avus Speedoval, upwards of 300,000 people showed up to watch as the Hindenburg, with a swastika on its tail, or the Graf Zeppelin, with an aerial camera, hovered above the track. Hitler's Messerschmitt's did fly-overs before the race. In the Grandstands at the Avus it was not uncommon for Hitler's Chief of Propaganda, Dr. Joseph Goebbels to be in attendance, along with Korpsfuhrer Adolf Huhnlein, whose job it was to manage German Sports to enhance German power.

In the early years, Mercedes Benz held sway, but Rosemeyer's appearance at Auto Union in 1935 changed all that. In 1936, with his 6.0-litre V16 cylinder supercharged 520bhp Auto Union C Typ, Rosemeyer dominated the 1936 season the way Caracciola had swept all before him in 1935.

War Clouds End Racing

But this Golden Age of Grand Prix racing had to end sometime and the curtain came down abruptly on the Silberfeile era on September 3, 1939, the date of the Belgrade City Grand Prix in Yugoslavia, a non-Championship race but one that had its own distinction. If the date rings a bell, it should. On that same day, England declared war on Germany in response to the German tanks and air force invading Poland on September 1, 1939, which happened to be the second day of practice for the Belgrade Grand Prix.

What should, for race fans, been a welcomed distraction from the war clouds gathering in Europe turned out to be a very complicated race weekend - and the Auto Union Typ D that was to be auctioned off in Paris played a central role, ultimately being driven by Italian ace, Tazio Nuvolari.

In a preview of what happened before the 1939 Belgrade Grand Prix, the 1938 Donington Grand Prix in England, originally scheduled for October 1, 1938, had been postponed because of the threat of war between England and Germany.

But after the Munich Agreement was entered into that served to defer the war, the 1938 Donington Grand Prix was ultimately run on October 22, 1938, won by Rosemeyer's Auto Union. In a year's time, threats of war would turn into facts of war and it was felt that if the Belgrade race was postponed from September 3, 1939, it would in all likelihood never take place.

As a result of the war fever, even these all-out racing teams were being affected and the driver roster at Belgrade reflected the overall attrition. For the Belgrade race, the original slate of top drivers had been replaced by their understudies, but these teams were so deep in talent that the substitute drivers were equally top notch.

Caracciola, originally from Remagen, Germany on the Rhine, was rumored to be already making plans to re-locate to Switzerland for the war years, leaving his teammate and rival Manfred von Brauchitsch to take up the cudgels for Mercedes-Benz at Belgrade.

Even von Brauchitsch, the nephew of a Prussian General, was a bit concerned about the turn the war was about to take on the weekend of the Belgrade Grand Prix. It is said that the colorful manager of the Mercedes-Benz team, Alfred Neubauer, had to coax his driver, von Brauchitsch, off an airplane departing from Belgrade to convince him to take part in the Belgrade race.

The other Mercedes-Benz driver was a remarkable Horatio Alger story, a former motorcycle racer and Mercedes-Benz racing mechanic named Hermann Lang, who by 1939 had demonstrated that he was as fast as team leader Caracciola and would, in fact, be the putative European Champion of the truncated and confusing 1939 season. Even the designer of this juggernaut, Rudolph Uhlenhaut, could drive the Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix car as fast as some of the regular drivers, so rich were the resources of Mercedes-Benz on the cusp of the Belgrade Grand Prix.

On the Auto Union side, the driver line-up had been re-shuffled because Rosemeyer had been killed in January 1938 during a land speed record attempt. The much-loved driver was on the two-lane Darmstadt-Frankfurt autobahn trying to better the record for the flying kilometer and mile when the ultra-streamlined Auto Union lifted in crosswinds at about 270 mph.

Bernd was thrown from the car (in those days there were no seat belts) and found in a clump of trees off the side of the road; his mighty heart was still beating when the doctors arrived but he soon died. He left his wife Elly and his three-month old son, Bernd, Jr., both of whom are still alive.

Tazio Nuvolari came over from the Italian Alfa Romeo team to replace the much-missed Rosemeyer and, after an inauspicious start when he went off the road on lap one of his first race for Auto Union at Nurburgring, he took up where Rosemeyer left off. He won the 1938 Italian Grand Prix for Auto Union at one of his specialty tracks, Monza, and won again at the prestigious Donington Grand Prix in 1938.

Nuvolari's Auto Union teammate at Belgrade in September 1939 was H.P. Muller, an ex-motorcycle driver (like Rosemeyer, Nuvolari and Lang) who, although not in Nuvolari's league, had driven well enough for the team to challenge Hermann Lang for the 1939 European Championship - a title which by some theories and calculations was actually won not by Lang but by H.P. Mueller.

Indeed, H.P. Mueller had won the 1939 ACF Grand Prix at Rheims in the same Auto Union Typ D Nuvolari would race in the 1939 Belgrade Grand Prix. Muller warmed up Nuvolari's Auto Union for him during the practice sessions since Nuvolari was still en route to Belgrade.

On Saturday, the day before the race, Nuvolari arrived by train and von Brauchitsch was persuaded by Neubauer to stay and race for Mercedes-Benz, so there were all world class drivers in the field for the Silver Arrows teams. The Auto Union had now evolved from the supercharged V16 Auto Union designed by Professor Ferdinand Porsche to the somewhat tamer V12 Auto Union Typ D, to conform to the new specifications for Grand Prix racing as of 1938, engine restricted to 3-litres, supercharged or 4.5-litres unsupercharged.

As in today's Formula One, the specifications were downsized in an attempt to bring down the speed of these terrifyingly fast cars that, by September 1939, had taken the lives of Seaman (Mercedes-Benz), von Delius and Rosemeyer (both in Auto Unions).The Mercedes-Benz team had also adapted to the 3-litre formula with their latest evolution, the V12 supercharged W154.

A Race Around Kalemegdan Park

The setting for the final race of the Silver Arrows was worthy of the historic occasion. The racecourse was laid out around Belgrade's famous Kalemegdan Park, still today very much an integral feature of Belgrade; the Park is adjacent to the River Danube, just at the confluence of the Danube and Sava Rivers.

Kalemegdan Park was the site of an ancient fortress and its ramparts, crenellated fortifications, monuments and the Belgrade Zoo on the grounds of the Park are major tourist sites for visitors to Belgrade.

The course was run through the city streets and around the current day park, along the shores of the Danube River and then turning back to the city streets, 1.74 miles in all, even shorter than the 2.1 mile Grand Prix of Monaco circuit.

In some ways the 1939 Belgrade Grand Prix was Monaco on the Danube and if Bernie Ecclestone ever runs out of countries to host a Grand Prix the ancient streets of Belgrade would still prove to be an interesting venue.

In those days, Belgrade's slippery cobblestones, tram lines, lamp poles, gutters and manhole covers made up the streetscape that the drivers had to grapple with in their powerful Grand Prix cars. And the rocky and hilly terrain that increased in severity from the lower town to Kalemegdan Fortress meant bumpy streets and significant elevation changes along the course, including a mini-Flugplatz similar to that found at the Nurburgring, where the race cars would become airborne at the brow of the cobblestone streets, thrilling the fans who lined the course or had reserved seats in the grandstands built for the event.

It is important to understand that welcoming the Silver Arrows to Belgrade was a very prestigious undertaking by Belgrade City; indeed, since young King Peter II of Yugoslavia was turning 16 years old on September 23, 1939, his elder cousin, Regent Prince Paul, who was in charge until the King came of age, had orchestrated the 1939 Belgrade Grand Prix as a kind of birthday present for the King as well as an honor for Belgrade.

It was because of the Prince Regent's personal involvement that the Belgrade Grand Prix went forward notwithstanding the war clouds, the organizers pleading with the German teams to put on a show for the expectant fans and their King. Archival footage shows that the grandstands built for 100,000 fans were empty in parts of the course but those who put aside the coming war for a sunny afternoon of racing got their money's worth.

Ironically, less than two years later, Hitler's Luftwaffe would pound Belgrade with three days of day and night bombing followed by Nazi mechanized units and troops rolling into these same streets, an occupying force, killing many of the Yugoslavs who cheered the Silver Arrows from those grandstands in September 1939.

But in 1939 there was still a fragile alliance in effect with Yugoslavia and Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union complied with the Regent Prince's wishes, in a fashion, by sending two cars from each team to battle against one another on the streets of Belgrade.

Remembering that in the high summers of 1936, 1937, 1938 and even 1939, it was not uncommon for Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union to each field four, five or even six cars at major venues like the Nurburgring, it must be admitted that it was a token showing by both teams for the Belgrade race, almost as if the race was being run to pick up the appearance money.

The Grand Prix constructors with their origins in Italy or France were also no-shows, which accounted for the unusually small grid of just five cars. By contrast, at Nurburgring in July 1939 for the German Grand Prix, Paul Pietsch and his 3.0-litre Maserati 8CTF was present, as were other Maseratis, an Alfa Romeo and the French Delahayes.

Indeed, Pietsch's Maserati led one lap at Nurburgring and finished third and the odd-looking but always stylish unsupercharged 4.5-litre Delahayes finished fourth, fifth and sixth at the 'Ring in 1939. Yet none of these cars made their way to Belgrade in September 1939, although some had been entered originally.

Ironically, only Bugatti, the stalwart marque that had dominated the 1920's and early 1930's in Grand Prix racing, had a car in the Belgrade Grand Prix, to supplement the Silver Arrows. The No. 12 Bugatti was entered by a favorite son of Yugoslavia, Bosco Milenkovic, a gentleman racer who had been running this particular Bugatti for at least four years. It was a 2.3-litre Bugatti T51 and it was painted red, not French Blue, to reflect the white, red and blue colors of the Yugoslav flag.

But no matter that the grid was small and not too varied. This was a real street race, a curious but captivating environment for these ultimate Grand Prix cars capable of top speeds of 185 mph and, at low speeds, capable of tremendous wheelspin with too much blipping of the throttle. It was a memorable scene, this last grid before World War II.

The start/finish line was located on the city streets portion of the track in front of a block of fashionable shops, hotels and embassies, with the awnings of the buildings unfurled to provide some shade from the early September sun. Straw bales brought in from the countryside were pressed into service to create a dividing line between the sidewalks of Belgrade and the racecourse.

As the race was about to begin in earnest, Nuvolari in the No. 4 Auto Union, positioned on the back row with the Bugatti, very obviously jumped the start. He was already up to his teammate Muller in the No. 8 Auto Union in the next row before the starting flag fell, trying to get up among the Mercedes-Benz cars, both of which were on the front row.

Von Brauchitsch in the No. 6 Mercedes-Benz W154 took the lead from pole position at the start, with teammate Hermann Lang in the No. 2 Mercedes-Benz following closely in his wake; too closely, it would turn out. Nuvolari, and later Muller, chased the team from Stuttgart relentlessly; the Bugatti just got out of the way as the Silver Arrows regularly lapped the out-classed car. Von Brauchitsch flung his W154 this way and that around the cobblestone streets, the rear wheels of the W154 throwing off the loose stones churned up by the horsepower of these behemoths digging in on city streets.

On lap 5 of this 50 lap race, one of those stones, presumably from von Brauchitsch, acted like a missile and hit and smashed the miniscule windscreen of Hermann Lang's W154 and worse, penetrated Lang's goggles. Lang had no choice but to make a pit stop where the team picked shards of glass out of his eyes; unavoidably, Lang was forced to turn his No. 2 W154 over to Walter Baumer, the reserve driver for Mercedes-Benz.

Although the mercurial and headstrong von Brauchitsch had shaken off his teammate Lang, he continued to drive like a man possessed. He increased his lead over the Auto Unions of Nuvolari and Muller and merrily got the No. 6 W154 airborne in front of the grandstands, acting, if one did not know better, like a man trying to catch an airplane!

In time, von Brauchitsh's devil-may-care ways backfired and the man in a hurry spun in front of the French Embassy on Pariska Street. Making an arguably illegal move by returning to the track against the traffic, he nearly hit Nuvolari, who was by now catching up and was able to pass von Brauchitsch due to the spin. Given the paucity of cars in the race, the local race officials were in an 'anything goes' mood and no penalty was imposed on von Brauchitsch for his infraction in getting back underway against the traffic.

But von Brauchitsch still could not stay out of other people's way, and those people included his new teammate, Walter Baumer (still in Hermann Lang's car). Von Brauchitsch was almost side-swiped as Baumer slid off the road, forcing the wild-eyed Prussian to hit the brakes to avoid a collision, which had the effect of curtailing von Brauchitsch's pursuit of the Auto Unions.

Before half-distance, Baumer had retired Lang's car from the race, leaving only the volatile von Brauchitsch in a position to prevent an Auto Union victory. Neubauer from the pits must have been shaking his fists at his Peck's bad boys because everyone present at Belgrade by now knew that this Belgrade City Race had to be the last Grand Prix for the Duration.

Meanwhile, H.P. Muller in his Auto Union D Typ was flying like a member of the Luftwaffe should (Muller was a Lieutenant in the German air force and often wore his "wings" on his Auto Union drivers suit).

He was leading the Flying Mantuan, Nuvolari, by five seconds, and his heart was set on bringing home his second Grand Prix victory. But then the Achilles Heel of all of the German cars showed itself - the Continental tires that were often not up to the horsepower being put through them, and certainly not on these punishing city streets of Belgrade.

Muller suffered a puncture in his left rear, forcing him to pit on lap 30 and allowing his Auto Union teammate Nuvolari to overtake him as Nuvolari had earlier capitalized on von Brauchitsch's mistake.

Nuvolari increased his lead in the Auto Union D Typ when the second place W154 of von Brauchitsch made a pit stop on lap 36 due to overheating. The local Bugatti driver, Bosco Milenkovic, also made a pit stop due to overheating and, unlike the Silver Arrow team, not having the benefit of a Third Reich mechanic, Milenkovic had to remove the red-hot radiator cap on the Bugatti himself to replenish the fluids when his mechanic let him down.

Nuvolari had to make a pit stop on lap 39 for fresh tires and to add fuel to the Typ D's pannier tanks to last for the remaining 11 laps of the race, which was even shorter than modern Formula One races, one hour and four minutes. Now it was time for the Auto Union mechanics to make their mistakes as they push-started their demanding Italian driver's Typ D, whose lead was evaporating as the mechanics struggled with the electric starter. Mercedes-Benz could have protested this breach of the rules, but then Auto Union could have counter-claimed and challenged the earlier infraction of von Brauchitsch in re-entering the course after his spin, so no protest was filed.

Once back on track, Nuvolari in the No. 4 Auto Union still had a 9 second lead over the persistent von Brauchitsch in the No. 6 Mercedes-Benz and in the last 10 laps the gap was reduced to 7.6 seconds, but this last-ditch effort was not enough. Nuvolari won the race in the Auto Union and brought to a close the most all-out era of Grand Prix racing ever. Von Brauchitsh had to be content with sharing fastest lap with Muller, a respectable 84.357 mph for this winding and demanding street course.

And so the lights went out on the most dazzling era in Grand Prix, out with a whimper, not with a bang, the might of the Silver Arrows having served as a prelude to a World War. 'Is Paris Burning,' Hitler once asked, hoping that one of the world's most fabulous cities had been destroyed by his Panzer Divisions and the Luftwaffe. Happily, we know the answer, but it is poignant that one of the vestiges of Hitler's era - the Auto Union Typ D - was scheduled to be auctioned off in the same city that Hitler wanted razed. A Triumph of the Will of a different kind.

In short, whatever its fate once Audi Research evaluates the Christie's auction car and weighs in on it as to its authenticity, this Auto Union Typ D as it stands is a real artifact of history as the Belgrade car used in practice by Muller and used to win the Belgrade Grand Prix by Nuvolari.

In addition, some experts believe that the underlying chassis of Nuvolari's V12 Belgrade car may well have been recycled by those clever, inventive and frugal Auto Union fabricators and also used in an earlier form by Hans Stuck when he participated in the 1936 Eifelrennan on June 14, 1936 in what was then a V16 Type C. That, if it could be proved, would only increase the auction car's interest to collectors.

What we believe is well-settled is that the Crosthwaite & Gardiner-restored car up for auction was the winner of two of only four races won by the Auto Union D Typ, the winner of the last race of the Golden Era in the hands of the great Nuvolari (and it happened to be the 46-year old Nuvolari's last victory to boot) and one of the only reasonably original survivors of this fabulous and bygone era. It is thought that perhaps 50 Auto Unions were built between 1934-1939, including the recycling of certain chassis and engine combinations; whatever the origins of the Christie's Typ D, it is a very special creature.

Think of it this way: the Typ D on auction represents the final results of 75 years of recycling, from Zwickau in East Germany to Suffolk, England, all in the best Auto Union factory tradition of organically mixing and matching parts to improve the breed.

On January 27, 2007, at the Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale, Arizona, a 1966 Shelby "427" Cobra Supersnake, Carroll Shelby's personal car for a time, brought an astounding $5.5 million dollars after a spirited bidding war. The auctioneers at Christie's in Paris must have smiled when they saw that; Carroll Shelby acting as a stalking horse for Nuvolari's Typ D Auto Union which, according to pre-auction estimates, was thought to be worth over $15 million.

And what of the local Yugoslav Bugatti and its driver Bosco Milenkovic? There were days in Grand Prix history when the French Bugattis won everything in sight - in the 1930 Monaco Grand Prix the blue cars from Molsheim finished 1st through 6th places - but September 3, 1939 was not to be such a day. Naturally, the Bugatti started at the tail end of the pack, steering near the straw bales and the sidewalk at the outset of the race to stay clear of the German cars, and then got off to a slow start.

Technically, the red Bugatti finished fourth in the five-car race, 19 laps down, at least having outlasted the ill-fated Lang/Baumer Mercedes-Benz W154 that had enlivened the proceedings until Baumer retired the car on lap 17 after his encounter with von Brauchitsch. No word yet on the 'barn find' of this singular Bugatti and its auction someday on the grounds of Kalemegdan Park.

Author's Note: Auto Union has attracted a small army of passionate researchers and the author gratefully acknowledges his reliance on Leif Snellman's Golden Era of GP Racing website, Hans Etzrodt for his special interest and writings on the Belgrade City Race, and Holger Merten of 8W, an ex-Audi employee, for his tireless work in continuing to unearth the Auto Union story from all imaginable sources.

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