1937 Avus GP - Hermann Lang wins

[burton0078]

"mercedes carried swasticas, alfa romeo discretly withdrawn LOL"

[hristoitchov]

When people didn't care about safety and money, but about pushing the boundaries of human ability and engineering.

[Burnout900012]

"wall of death".......O_O

[GeGoLoGy]

Thumbs up if Cracked.com brought you here

[Karnaevale]

Man, if anyone went too fast into that turn they would've flown off and CRACKED their skull

[MixedBag27]

Wonderful era of racing.

[firglenchainsaws]

Mercedes-Benz used the DAB V12 5.5 litre engine in the AVUS streamliners and they produced 736 bhp...Over 90 mph in first gear and could reach in excess of 240 mph on the straights. Even by modern standards that is awesome performance!

[vitameat]

That's 162mph/260kmh PLUS......with the crappy brakes and crappy narrow tires of the era.....Incredible by any standards!

[darkoneforce2]

@vitameat That's the averages, the top speeds reached 380-390 Km/h.

[kandutery]

600 hp, 900 n/m and 380 Km/h; incredible.

[USracingfanatic]

Awesome cars! Like Alphaville but with dumb German swatstikas. Thank you Quentin Tarantino for finally killing Hitler in a most grotesque way!

[PhoenixFirebreath]

AVUS was awesome that time

[RimRiderQC]

Basically, the AVUS track is a german version of Indianapolis or the giant velodromes (board tracks) that prevailed in an even earlier era.

In such ovals, 200MPH/300KMH were reachable marks.

[JuanKyam]

AVUS only had banking at one end of the track :-)

[JuanKyam]

1937 but somehow looks futuristic. Awesome.

[Fattaman]

Note how they already had graphics!

[1983Onno]

The shot at 0:30... must be quite an experience to see this spaceship come by FOR REAL

[cheesenutz1]

crazy track

[PeterMayer]

240-ish miles an hour in the 30s? Insane!

[MatsNorway]

387km/h and they didn't even have helmets :D

i

[PeterMayer]

Hans Stuck auf der Avus

[NialoF2]

lmao crazy

[novakattila]

what a track!

[Moose2DAMAXXX]

shit that must be scary going around that banking made of bricks and no wall at 240mph

[argh1989]

-.-

[damonemx]

old racetracks rulz..

[georgebagorski]

gbagorski The commentator in this video [Avus] says that there were 3 heats. This is incorrect, there were 2 heats.

[therrydicule]

I think he said that there was 3 heats since they are 3 "test" session and 2 of them was really a "heat".

[manrikPLA]

in 1937 are tv? i siad it because the letters that says"SIEGER:Hermann Lang" mercedes-benz

[hburg32]

Yes they had. But it was only available for some thousand testing homes.

[manrikPLA]

thanks :)

[NolanBowlin]

What a wonderful track, I wish they would run a few races there now days but it's all about the money.

[bavarianbass]

@NolanBowlin in this case its all about the safety. money only runs second

the avus was way to dangerous even when dtm raced there

[CAPUSA]

@NolanBowlin On the plus side, no nazis spectate anymore.

[zev007]

@NolanBowlin actually it's more about safety now.

[lacoste10156]

@NolanBowlin all about the safety...this track was a death trap until 95, when it took its last fatality

[theluke01]

rappy track. check nascar or irl for races on such tracks. this is effectively an oval, nothing more. for some reasons ovals aren't very popular in the sphere european racing culture.

[ozique]

Simply the best!! Old days, race tracks, like Avus, Nurburgring, old Spa, Brno (35 miles version), etc, simply true. Bring back these tracks now. New tracks with numberless chicanes/bends - totally boring.

[wawiebeastman]

Hermann Lang - 1939 Grand Prix Racing Champion with Mercedes-Benz. He was the last pre-war racing champ before WWII. Championship racing resumed in 1950 but German teams were banned for at least 3 years. The Mercedes team returned in 1954 and won the championship again that year as well as in 1955 before the tragedy in Le Mans caused DBAG to pull-out of racing until rejoining F1 in 1994.

[jagdevsg]

no seatbelts, no roll cages, no helmets, 270mph auto union and silver arrow race cars. these guys are warriors. i saw an interview once a while back, the driver was explaining how he had to hold on to the steering wheel on corners to stop himself from flying out of the car. some big hairy balls man

[DarthRykar]

Ich liebe diese Steilkurven;kein Vergleich zu den Möchtegernsteilkurven in den USA...

Die Monza-Steilkurven verfallen auch,eine Schande!

[Patroclo007]

AVUS es la velocidad pura.

[marwin756]

heute is die Strecke teils Straße , teils total verfallen . Schade !

[Rosemeyer78]

thanks for the magnificent video!

These are Cars, these were Racetracks, these are Heroes!

[tomdawson1990]

That can't be real. Avus wall of death? 240mph cars in 1937? If it's true then it's certainly something.

[Keeper1st]

It is absolutely true. That's the first time I've heard the banking called "wall of death" though. In 1937, Avus remained 12 miles long, but had only two real turns with six-mile straights between them. After the war, it was shortened to about five miles.

[fmuschalle]

Thank you very much! Grossartig! I had never seen videos from avus before.

[greencircle]

AVUS, amazing, thank you for the video, i too had never seen it in action

[SirOllerich]

wow, thanks for that! Never seen it on Video. Absolutly impressive, these Guys had balls.....