Silver Arrows hitting over 200 mph on the straights at AVUS. That seems impossibly fast for 1937 but maybe I’m just underestimating the arrows. Hard to imagine that today’s Formula 1 is no faster than it was 75 years ago.
(Some marvelous footage of the same year’s action in the States at the end of this clip.)
0 replies on “1937's GP Season”
I can only wonder how fast a modern race car would go if we had the same rules.
The Silver Arrows of the mid-’30s were the spiritual predecessors of that glorious time known as Can-Am.
Back in the ’80s someone sponsored an all-out speed run at the Transportation Research track in Ohio. Tim Richmond in a heavily-modified NASCAR Monte Carlo and Al Holbert in a Porsche 962. Both lapped at somewhere close to 240 MPH (details are tough to come by). Beyond that, the only other place to look for pure speed is the pre-chicane (heh) Mulsanne Straight (or the Ligne Droit de Hunnadieres) at Le Mans.
Racing speeds may not have changed much – but the safety standards sure have! Can you imagine spectating a modern sports race right on the edge of the track, separated only by a rope? Nice footage in the last minute or so of an Indy car (?) very fortuitously crashing next to an ambulance…
Great footage! Thanks for posting it!