A Winter's Tale

Mercedes-Benz sweeps the podium in the frozen and treacherous 1960 Monte Carlo Rally

Article Graham Robson

Images Daimler Archives

The month was December, the year 1959; in Britain, Europe’s most seasoned factory rally teams – BMC, Ford, Sunbeam and Triumph – were enjoying Christmas break. Their next event was the world-famous Monte Carlo Rally, scheduled for mid-January. The  British teams were quietly confident they could dominate the results.

Enter the Stuttgart team

Over in Stuttgart, however, Mercedes-Benz had other ideas. The company had recently launched the fuel-injected W111 220SE and was determined to make its mark with that car. The company had withdrawn from motorsports after the Le Mans tragedy in 1955, but team boss Karl Kling had received permission to prepare three brand-new 220SEs as rally cars, and three of his newly contracted drivers – Walter Schock (1956 European Rally Champion), Eugen Böhringer and Roland Ott – had already begun to practice over the climactic but grueling 175-mile Mountain Circuit.

The 220SEs themselves (carrying registration plates that became well-known in European events in the future), were mechanically near-standard, though carefully prepared, and equipped with the latest in winter-driving equipment, such as Dunlop tires with Wyresole inserts – spring steel wire embedded in tire tread for added grip in winter driving – although traditional tire chains would also be needed. It’s interesting to note that first-generation studded tires were not adopted. No additional body strengthening was used at this stage; that would come later when the same cars were entered for rough events such as the Acropolis and infamous Liège-Sofia-Liège rallies.

The Mercedes-Benz difference

The difference between Mercedes-Benz and its rivals was that, as usual, the German team had thought deeply about what was needed and practiced winter-driving diligently; the veteran hands in other squads tended to shrug their shoulders, spend a few days in the mountains, frequent bars and bistros, then head home. Many years later, Kling would claim that the entire works entry had been a low-key effort, with only a week devoted to practice, but rivals (and locals) have always scoffed at this propaganda, insisting there was evidence of the three-pointed star being seen on famously hazardous winter roads – such as the frightening Col du Turini in the Alps – for at least six weeks in December 1959 and January 1960.

Looking back at what I wrote immediately after the event (I was just breaking into factory-team international rallying and motorsports journalism at the time), I commented: “Other teams could have done the same thing. But if this was to be matched, it would have needed the same ruthless application of resources – fast cars, diligent practice, a complete service ‘umbrella,’ a plan for all eventualities, and lots of money.”

The 1960 route

For 1960, it was all going to be very difficult for Mercedes-Benz. With nine different starting points for the Monte Carlo event, which all converged at Chambéry in Southern France followed by a demanding 354-mile Common Route to Monte Carlo: An official time of 10 hours and 20 minutes, including several time checks, was allocated before penalties kicked in. Then, after a night’s rest, the crews would have to tackle not one, but two complete laps of the 175-mile Mountain Circuit, all of it on public highways kept open to local traffic.

The Common Route itself was to be testing enough (it included mountainous sections that would later become special stages in future events), but the Mountain Circuit, which started and finished in Monaco – stretching  out to Puget-Théniers, Guillaumes and La Bollinette – with several fearsome snow-covered hill climbs along the way, was even more taxing.  
Because Europe’s winter weather was almost bound to be awful in every country (and what would a Monte Carlo Rally be without snow, ice and blocked roads?), the choice of selecting a starting point was always going to be a lottery. However, Kling ignored the obvious attractions of Frankfurt or Paris, opting instead for the rather more remote city of Warsaw, with all three team cars starting close together. It was a big gamble, which might have gone terribly wrong.

Early stages

The gamble eventually paid off, but there were doubts, even in the early hours. Although the Mercedes-Benz team had practiced assiduously over the Mountain Circuit, members had not found time (or thought it necessary) to survey the approach routes to Chambéry. However, although car after competing car fell by the wayside from the various start points, all three works 220SEs came through unscathed; 24 cars started from Warsaw, of which 11 were still unpenalized when they arrived at Chambéry.

It was from there – to the first arrival in Monte Carlo – that the professionals in their well-prepared cars began to draw away from the others; of the 63 unpenalized crews who left Chambéry, only nine of them were still “clean” (without incurred penalties) when they arrived. That was significant enough, but the astonishing fact was that none of the works Mercedes-Benz crews were in that nine-member clean list. Struggling to maintain the fast set-average speeds in foul winter conditions, Schock lost eight minutes; Böhringer, 19; and Ott, 13 minutes. Had all gone wrong already?

The Mountain Circuit

Although this had not been part of Stuttgart’s master plan – Schock would restart on the Mountain Circuit in 20th place and Böhringer, 47th – the team realized that the organizers’ byzantine penalty-marking system would set Mountain Circuit lateness penalties at six times the level of previous stages. As it turned out, even among the nine heroes who had reached Monte Carlo without penalty, none would figure well among the final results.

So there was still hope – hope, but not certainty – that honor could be regained in the 12 tightly marked sections that would follow. As one competitor noted before the start, the real challenge was not merely to keep accurately up to the 37 mph/60 kph set-average speed between time controls (some of which were secret – i.e., not publicized in advance), but to be able to drive fast enough to keep up to such speeds at all.

Ninety cars started this harum-scarum challenge at two-minute intervals (the first leaving Monte Carlo at midnight) with, at this stage, the Mercedes-Benz team cars looking quite lost among the mass of other runners. Even so, hours later, it would become clear that all that pre-event reconnaissance had been worthwhile – that the 220SEs, though large and heavy, could cope with the fast-changing weather conditions – and that the drivers were quite determined to keep to the very demanding schedules.

For spectators who were watching at the time controls or along certain famous mountainous sections, the arrival of the 220SEs was a daunting and deeply impressive business. They would sweep into sight, almost without noise – their crews looking warm, relaxed and absolutely on top of their job – for none of the cars seemed to have suffered any damage in this five-day marathon and were clearly well-suited to their task.

The difference between the Mercedes-Benz cars and many of their rivals was clear. Where others seemed to be scratching to keep up to time, scrabbling into controls and asking desperately what time was on the official clock, the big German machines were seen cruising serenely into sight and then simply waiting – yes, waiting – for their exact scheduled arrival time to click over.

Mercedes-Benz 1-2-3

At the end, once all competitors had crossed the finish line and Monte Carlo Rally organizers had gone through their time-consuming calculations – without computers in those days – it was clear that Schock had lost a total of only 30 seconds on the entire 12-hour run, while Böhringer lost just 1 minute and 48 seconds. In comparison, the leading British entry (a works Sunbeam Rapier II driven by Peter Harper) managed to take fourth place, but was no less than 10 minutes and 49 seconds adrift.

This had been a truly astonishing recovery that brought the rest of professional rallying’s close-knit circus of teams to despair, for here was a new squad whose lack of experience seemed to have been irrelevant; and which seemed to have the time, the resources and the determination to achieve similar astonishing results wherever and whenever they decided to compete around the world. Mercedes-Benz had never won the Monte Carlo competition; no other team in the world had ever come close to recording a 1-2-3 finish at this world-famous event.

After the Monte

Kling’s factory operation was expanded in the months that followed. Schock went on to win other events during the year, becoming European Rally Champion at the end of the season,  then promptly retired from the sport, and was not seen again in top-level rallying.

Böhringer, for his part, soon became recognized as one of Europe’s leading rally drivers (see The Star, March-April 2016), driving 220SEs, 300SEs and 230SLs to prove that claim, and also performed well in motor racing.
And to that 1-2-3 finish at Monte Carlo? That result was matched exactly a year later when a team of front-wheel-drive Panhard Tigres did the same job. On that occasion, however, rally regulations had been manipulated to make certain that a small, heavy, underpowered sedan would win.

Sidebar

Monte Carlo Rally • January 18-23 • 1960

The 1960 running of the Monte Carlo Rally was the only time that Mercedes-Benz won this glamorous and world-famous  endurance contest. The first-ever Monte Carlo Rally was held in 1911; the 1960 competition was the 29th. The rally was invariably held in January, when the weather in the French Alps was sure to be at its worst. As one of the world’s top-level rally championship rounds, the Monte persists to this day, still garnering more publicity than any other event. To paraphrase one respected team manager of the day: “Why go to Monte Carlo in January? Well, would you rather go to the North Pole instead?”

The Mercedes-Benz team also won the Manufacturers’ Team Prize, and finished first, second and third in the Over-2,000cc-capacity class. There were nine starting points, 31 starters, and 78 finishers of the final Mountain Circuit.

1ST     Mercedes-Benz 220SE • Walter Schock/Rolf Moll    110 Penalty Points

2ND   Mercedes-Benz 220SE • Eugen Böhringer/Hermann Socher    289 Penalty points

3RD    Mercedes-Benz 220SE • Roland Ott/Eberhard Mahle    650 Penalty Points