“I’m sure that of all the great drivers I knew—Rosemeyer, Lang, Nuvolari, Moss and Fangio—the greatest was Rudolf Caracciola,” said Alfred Neubauer, Mercedes racing manager from the 1920s to the 1950s.
The record tells part of the story. Caracciola won the German Grand Prix on no fewer than six occasions, once (1926) on Berlin’s AVUS, the others at the Nürburgring, and once (1932) for Alfa Romeo, the others for Mercedes-Benz. His three European Championships of 1935, 1937 and 1938 stand comparison with the modern World Championships. In particular his mastery of the 580-horsepower W125 of 1937—so powerful that it raced at Monaco without shifting—stands out as testimony to his artistry behind the wheel.
In an era when racing drivers had more opportunities in more kinds of car Rudi Caracciola took full advantage. On hill climbs—daunting venues in the Alps—he translated successive wins into European Hill Climb Championships in 1930, 1931 and 1932. To their amazement in 1931 he and co-driver Wilhelm Sebastian were the first foreigners to win the Mille Miglia, facing down the Italian opposition from Brescia to Rome and back.
Even record-breaking was on the agenda. Rudi was always the chosen driver when it was time to squeeze into the claustrophobically small cockpit of a streamlined Mercedes-Benz record car. His greatest took place on the cloudy morning of January 28, 1938 which the weather section at the Frankfurt airport said would be suitable to run this very fast car on the Autobahn to Darmstadt. Caracciola made one reconnaissance run just after eight, then a serious attack. The brutal boom of its side-spewing exhaust stacks rattled onlookers as the silver car hurtled by. His average speeds were 268.712 mph for the kilometer, 268.496 mph for the mile—on a two-lane highway.
An aristocratic background
Well-presented, a smile at the ready and of impeccable lineage, Caracciola was a superb representative of his craft, of his supporters and his nation at a time from 1933 when this was of great value to a Germany that needed heroes. He participated in the nationalist pageantry as obligatory but went no further, living in Switzerland before, during and after the war.
A sprinkling of Italian genes on branches of Rudi’s family tree suggested the underlying presence of a thoroughly fiery temperament. The Caracciolas were descended from aristocratic Neapolitan stock, the Caracciolos, although their illustrious descendant kept this quiet during his lifetime. An antecedent, Bartolomeo Caracciola, commanded the fortress at Ehrenbreitstein at Koblenz on the Rhine during the Thirty Years War, eventually settling in the region.
Rudolf Otto Wilhelm Caracciola was born at half past three in the morning on January 30, 1901, the fourth child of Maximilian and Mathilde Caracciola, hotel owners in Remagen, south of Bonn on the Rhine. “My father was a hotelier on the Rhine,” he said, “and his son a rascal with a wild interest in everything to do with technology. I began by using my father’s beautifully lithographed letterhead to request catalogues from various European auto makers. They sent not only printed paper by the pound but also their representatives. That resulted in long faces when they were introduced to the ‘interested’ twelve-year-old. Then came the first world war.
“One day the maintenance man of the family company was drafted, which began an interesting time for me,” Rudi continued. “From now on I was responsible for the hotel’s electricity network, playing it like a piano. Starting young, around the same time I began the strictly forbidden driving of a ‘borrowed’ 16/45 Mercedes, which withstood this without significant damage. Although I had read and well understood all the books about automobiles, I found the actuality all the more exciting.”
Then began a phase of passion for motorcycles. On his Garelli two-wheeler he completed two reliability trials without loss of points. Although small, only a few lines, he saw his name in the newspaper. Rudi took pride in never having attended a driving school. He criticized these as doing too little to acquaint the future motorist with the technology of his machine. In any case, he felt, those who were driving cars in those days were already skilled sportsmen. His motto was, “A car is only as good as it is driven.”
Introduction to racing
After the war came the first chance for the self-taught young Rudolf to drive cars seriously. To the west at Aachen a steel-ware factory began producing cars in 1908, naming them after a dragon in Norse mythology, Fafnir. There Caracciola was accepted as an apprentice at the age of 20. He made himself especially useful in the halls where prototypes and racing models were assembled and tested. Fafnir distinguished its competition entries by rounded radiator masks pierced, Halloween style, by a grimacing face.
After an initial launch in 1921 the organizers of a race meeting in Berlin on the city’s proto-Autobahn, the Avus, staged another in 1922. It was a flat-out blast down one roadway and back on the other. Giving them great exposure to a fascinated audience, car producers including Fafnir were attracted to the Avus races. Although a Fafnir director grumbled, “That Caracciola, he can’t drive at all,” the young man was taken along to Berlin.
In an 87-mile race at the Avus on June 10, 1922—a date he would never forget—Rudi came home fifth in the 1.5-liter class behind Dixis and Agas at an average just under 60 mph. It was the beginning of his driving career. Later in 1922 racing began at an oval test track, the 0.93-mile Opelbahn, built by the Opel company on its grounds near Frankfurt. Caracciola raced there too, driving a more powerful Fafnir to third place behind two Opel brothers. The gangly lad from Remagen was making his mark.
For a brief period Rudi was even a Fafnir salesman. “The factory used to inquire whether I had sold any cars,” he recalled. “At first I used to replay and make excuses. Later I kept silent. Only once did I manage to sell a Fafnir. The client was a butcher, whom I went to see with a catalogue. He had a good look, pulled out his wallet and paid the purchase price there and then in cash.
“When the car was delivered,” Rudi added, “the money he paid for it could just about buy a pair of headlamps and a horn. They rang me from Aachen. A very unkind gentleman asked me if I had noticed that inflation was upon us and had I taken leave of my senses? In the future I was only to sell on a dollar basis. Yes, but on that basis no one was prepared to buy a Fafnir.”
No break for university
Late in 1922 Caracciola commenced studies at the Dresden Technical University, aiming to steep himself in thermodynamics, stresses and strains that included specifics of the automobile. In Dresden he became friends with an aviator who had a racing-tuned EGO sports car, a twin-carburetor one-liter racer that looked the part. Rudi borrowed it to compete on a steeply banked one-fifth-mile oval in Berlin.
“First I had to prepare it,” Caracciola related. “I couldn’t do much on those high bankings with the normal springs. So I strengthened the springs on the right side with three extra leaves. Then I headed to Berlin, turned a few fast practice laps and was satisfied. The Sunday came. Finally, after an eternity, my race was called. The EGO wasn’t fast but with the stronger springs it glued itself to the steep curves. What my opponents gained with speed on the short straights, I recouped in the curves. In the early laps I made my way to the front and didn’t relinquish the lead—the first racing win of my life!” So decisive was his victory that he had the honor of being protested and subjected to an engine measurement. All was in order.
Moving to Mercedes
In 1923 Mercedes launched its first supercharged cars, the first ever to be volume-produced. Rudolf Caracciola was entranced by the neat, handsome sports version of the smaller model, the 6/25/40; “When you stepped right down on the gas pedal the compressor started to sing and the car leaped away as if chased by the devil.” But how to get to race one? He had to pass muster with the company’s racing higher-ups. His aviator friend knew Wilhelm Herzing, director of the Daimler-Benz branch in Dresden. When Rudi petitioned him, Herzing set up an appointment at the Untertürkheim mother factory.
“Once inside the works,” Caracciola recalled, “a secretary instructed me: ‘You are to go down to Mr. Werner in the road-test department.’ She rang a bell and a messenger appeared. ‘Take this gentleman to the foreman, Mr. Werner.’ Werner was going to test me! The great Christian Werner! I followed the messenger, my heart beating like a hammer. We crossed the courtyard. It was raining. A bare chassis with two rough seats stood outside a big shed, where we stopped. A tall, thin man in mechanic’s overalls came out of the dusk within; it was Werner.
“He bade me good afternoon,” Rudi added, “and we shook hands. In silence he pointed to the driving seat and climbed into the other seat on the chassis. He had a long, sad face with a big nose and deep-set eyes. We got going and Werner directed me: ‘Turn right at the corner, straight on, then the left-hand bend.’ I tried to show all I knew. I chased along the straight as if on a race track and cornered so that the water splashed high from the rear wheels. After half an hour we drove back to the works. He got out, shook hands with me again, said good-bye and turned to walk away.
“‘How was it?’ I called after him.
“‘I’ll tell them upstairs!’ he shouted back and disappeared into the darkness of the shed. A long wait ensued. People were leaving. Finally I was called to an office. Its upholstered door was open. Big, massive and heavy, there stood the director who had been talking with Herzing. ‘There he is, the boy,’ he boomed when he saw me. ‘Werner was quite satisfied with you. You can start at the Dresden branch as a salesman at a hundred marks per month.’
“I was about to say something,” Rudi related, “when a warning glance from Herzing stopped me. As we walked down the stairs I whispered to him behind the giant’s back: ‘But I wanted to be a racing driver.’
“‘Don’t be so stupid,’ Herzing replied. ‘Motor racing is no job. First start working for the firm and then perhaps one day you’ll drive to your heart’s content.’”
Dropping out and breaking in
A lengthy correspondence ensued, ending in the promise of use of a new Type 4/25/40 if the petitioner committed to take part in a number of designated events. “It was a long list,” said Rudi, “and when I compared it with the University paperwork I realized that racing and studies didn’t go together. The choice was hard but the passion for sport prevailed. I never rued my choice.
“A summer of success followed. I placed first in the Krähberg Hill Climb, turned the fastest time of the day ahead of the experienced ‘cannons.’ I was overall winner of the Reichsfahrt—a series of other nice victories followed. Really, the little Mercedes was a wonder car.” Also racing for Mercedes was Alfred Neubauer, who had arrived at the works in early 1923 with Ferdinand Porsche, the new board member for engineering.
“My first encounter with Caracciola,” said Neubauer, “took place in June 1923 when we were testing the new two-liter, four-cylinder, supercharged Mercedes with no less than 120 horsepower, which Porsche had designed and which was to be the first of a long line of record-breaking cars. We were all much too excited over the success of the test and the prospect of winning the 1924 Targa Florio to pay a great deal of attention to the boyish-looking figure who had come with a recommendation from our Dresden branch as a new recruit to our driver pool. But I remember wondering rather irritably what we were expected to do with a complete greenhorn when there were drivers like Lautenschlager, Salzer, Werner—and, of course, Neubauer.
“In the months that followed,” Neubauer continued, “young Caracciola worked as a salesman in our Dresden branch and was allowed to enter for the occasional Sunday race-meeting and speed hill-climb. He did well. But as the Targa Florio approached the successes of our twenty-two-year-old recruit passed almost unnoticed, especially after Werner won that important race for Mercedes.
“When we were practicing for the 1924 Italian Grand Prix on the new Autodromo at Monza,” Neubauer added, “I was sharing a room in a small, rather primitive hotel with young Caracciola, who had been allowed to attend his first Grand Prix as a reserve driver—merely to get the feel of it. I gave him plenty of atmosphere.” But the older man’s promise of huge crowds fell flat. During training young Rudy spent most of his time cooling his heels on the sidelines: “There were so many things wrong with the cars that even the first-string drivers hardly had time for practice.”
Embarrassingly, Neubauer spun out during trials and had to be retrieved from a hummock. “A rescue crew arrived and helped us out of our ludicrous predicament,” Alfred continued. “In the background I caught sight of young Caracciola. There was a broad grin on his face. That setback didn’t make life any easier for the twenty-three-year-old. I don’t mind admitting that much of my hurt pride and frustration was taken out on him. The other older drivers also gave their young colleague a pretty rough time of it. But Rudi Caracciola showed the qualities of patience and single-mindedness that were to carry him to the top of his dangerous profession.”
Although he drove few laps at Monza, Rudi Caracciola did experience a major Grand Prix on an important track with some of the world’s best drivers in action. And one of the Mercedes drivers was killed in a crash during the race with the team’s other cars withdrawn in respect. Yet the event awakened in him a yearning, he said: “With a really fast car to step into an arena like Monza or Montlhéry—anywhere on a fast track—and to head home the winner.
“Now I knew that a heavy responsibility lurked here,” he reflected. “I was anxious and happy at the same time. I had discovered my great mission: to defend not only the laurels of Mercedes, Germany’s national marque, but also the heritage of Germany’s best racing drivers: Lautenschlager, Sailer, Salzer, Werner. The tuition was over—I had found my life’s goal!”
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Tragedy and Triumph at Avus
After 1925 passed with more sports-car races and hill climbs, Caracciola chalking up five 1½-liter class victories, 1926 presented a challenge with the first German Grand Prix to be held at the Avus. Adding connecting loops at both ends of the Avus converted a divided highway into a 12.15-mile track. Requiring cornering and acceleration only twice a lap, interspersed with long flat-out runs on a smooth surface, it was tailor-made to the idiosyncrasies of the Mercedes two-liter eight. Its weakest point, the lack of spark plugs able to cope with the high blower boost, had been improved in the meantime.
But a sports car of that engine size was required to have room for four and the Mercedes was already a tight squeeze for two. There was a remedy for this. Porsche’s placement of the fuel tank underneath the frame made it easier to convert two of the G.P. cars to ‘sports cars’ by grafting a bustle to the back of the body that contained a footwell and two seats which were, in the words of Alfred Neubauer, “without practical value.” Other concessions to the sports-car requirement included a ratchet on the handbrake and a gear drive from the inlet camshaft to a small cooling fan behind the radiator.
Forty-five cars applied to race for 243 miles on July 11, 1926. Racing commitments in Spain later in July forced the Daimler-Benz competition team to divide its forces. The Avus eights were assigned to the experienced and fast Adolf Rosenberger and the young reserve driver who only briefly took the wheel at Monza, Rudolf Caracciola. Among the 44 other entries were several serious contenders. Times comparable to the Mercedes were set in practice by two 1½-liter Talbots, a proven 3.0-liter NAG driven by experienced Christian Riecken and Fernando Minoia in a new Grand Prix OM.
When the flag fell at two in the afternoon it initiated almost three hours of chaotic competition for the final 38 starters that began in the dry and continued in pelting rain. From the center of his class group’s front row Caracciola’s Mercedes leaped forward—then stopped. As the balky eight had done so often before, it stalled. The others weaved around the inert car as Rudi’s mechanic, Eugen Salzer, scrambled out and pushed it into life. Rosenberger passed Riecken’s NAG to take the lead but the other member of the Stuttgart team found himself bringing up the rear before more than 200,000 Berliners.
The tank of ether that helped start the eight’s engine did Rosenberger no favors. It sprang a leak, releasing fumes into the cockpit that caused Adolf to lean out for more air. In the North Turn this threw him off his line on the wet track. “The car skidded sideways onto the bordering strip of wet grass to the right,” said historian Hans Etzrodt. “It spun once completely around before crashing sideways at full speed into the scoring board. The impact was so great that it broke its steel support beams and demolished part of the adjoining timekeeper's hut with two young student timekeepers and the sign painter inside. The timekeeper Wilhelm Klose died immediately and the second timekeeper Bruno Kleinsorge was seriously injured. The board painter Gustav Rosenow, who took care of the timing display, had both legs crushed and died 12 hours later after amputation.”
Both Talbots left the track and Minoia’s O.M. retired after setting the fastest lap. NAG-driving Riecken again took the lead while Rudi made a quick stop at the pits to inquire after Rosenberger—not badly hurt—and a longer stop to cure a missing cylinder. “I tore open the hood,” said Caracciola, “and unscrewed every single plug myself, since outside help of any kind was forbidden, and threw the ‘hot chestnuts’ to our dear Doctor Porsche, who examined each of them with a magnifying glass and then tossed them to me again. I think the seventh or even eighth was the guilty one—a stop of a few minutes—a criminal, unforgivable luxury.
Stopping for fuel, pushing harder when the track began to dry, Rudi Caracciola had no inkling of how well or poorly he was doing. He fought fatigue to comply with a few “hurry up” waves from Max Sailer. “Rain, rain, rain. The most depressing race I have ever driven. There was no longer an opponent to fight against. The foreign competition had long since handed in their weapons. Now it was only a matter of driving home to finish a race in a decent manner and at a sporty pace. Every kilometer seemed pointless to me
“The last lap. Wet, dirty, tired, I get out of the car. Enough. People from the pits came toward me. In the stands the people jumped up and waved. Max Sailer came running. ‘Rudi—victory!’ he yells from a distance.” They won at the impressive average speed of 83.95 mph.
“The national anthem, the flag is raised, someone puts an enormous wreath round my neck. I look at Salzer, he looks at me, suddenly we burst out laughing. Hand shaking—flowers, photographers—then we do a lap of honor. I say goodbye to Porsche and Sailer and drive back to the hotel. I am just about to get out of my wet things when there’s a knock on the door. It’s my Dresden friend Theodor Rathmann:
“Rudi, my boy, it was terrific, I am really proud of you. Now listen, I shall take your success in hand. You’ve won 17,000 marks. I’ll sell my doll factory, that’ll be another 17,000. We’ll put it all together and we’ll open a motor showroom—Rudolf Caracciola, the winner of the Grand Prix of Germany, personally sells cars. If that doesn’t bring ‘em in I don’t know what will. Agreed?” “Agreed!”
“That victory in the first German Grand Prix made 1926 my great lucky year,” Rudi reflected. “I had already won a number of races but only since winning the German Grand Prix was I really ‘first-rate’. Rudolf Caracciola in a Mercedes-Benz became a household name in international sport.”
