Figure this forum would have the most relevance. I just finished the book "Stirling Moss The Champion without a crown" 2003, by Pierre Menard & Jacques Vassini. I saw him race a number of times beginning in 1959 and he was obviously a very talented driver but had a very unique driving style, which influenced me to this day, upright and fully out stretched arms.

A few tidbits I'll share:

1. His driving style he admittedly copied from 1950 World driving champion Giuseppe Farina and is quoted "I tried to copy his style just for appearance sake"
2. Between 1948 and his racing career ending wreck in 1962 he entered 494 races and won 212.
3. He is considered the best driver to never have won a world drivers Championship.
4. Of the hundreds of pictures in the book, nearly everyone that shows Moss on the track at speed in a corner, shows him a mere inch? from what might be the perfect apex, and often in a gorgeous 4 wheel drift.
5. In 1958 while leading the Portuguese Grand Prix near the end, he coming up on second place Mike Hawthorne ( not a teammate) and was going to lap him, but as a gentleman he slowed behind Mike. A short while later Mike's car stalled on the track and Mike attempted to push start it, but uphill. Moss approached and yelled for Mike to turn car around downhill and jump start it, which he did. Only because Mike was running at the finish line, did he receive second place points. The officials tried to disqualify Mike because he was alleged to have gone the wrong direction on race surface. Moss objected and argued Mike was off the racing surface when going downhill. Moss finished 1958 second in points in the drivers championship, Mike Hawthorne won first place by 1 pt.

Those were different times.

Thanks for posting. Different times, and some seriously manly men. If you aren't yet aware of it, check out Sports Car Digest online and subscribe (free); lots of great old race photos and reports.

Sterling Moss in a W196.
This is car #12 with a short wheelbase and outboard brakes. That means the pic has to be from the British Grand Prix in Aintree on July 16,1955.

Awesome driver and a cool car.

Always popular with the birds.

He was famous for driving with his arms straight out, I think
And feets "external drums" does not mean outboard, but outside the drum, any pics and further comments on that unusual configuration?

As you can tell, I have a great interest in these cars and have studied them extensively. I've gathered a substantial amount of info on them and even have copies of some of the technical drawings.


Here's a shot of the rear brakes.

Here's a neat video of a photoshoot with a W196: http://www.youtube.com/v/ZYKe5dXcw-s

Lots of details in that one.


This is a cool video of "The Maestro" Fangio driving the W196 with Jack Brabham in his Repco Brabham.

http://www.youtube.com/v/Fbc5U6wTfUw

That big ol Merc can't hold on to the little BT-24. I think the Cooper and Masi were still behind them somewhere.

Thank you gor the pic, the book that is the focus of this thread mentions "external" brakes on another car years earlier, but mentions as negative greater exposire to dirt, debris, etc the book mentions they were however very powerful, whatever that means, and i suspect good relative to a normal drum dispersing heat. So this book mentions external rather outboard on the "monaco" and the book is translated from french, hench the request for clarification and the.pic says it all.

Sorry i can't resist, but drums are old school

Feets,

You always post something interesting.

That is a great video of Fangio driving the heck out of the W196 Mercedes. I am amazed of how fast Fangio is piloting that machine around the track - especially when one considers the tall/narrow treaded tires and the lack of roll cage protection. Great audio as well - those cars make some beautiful sounds!

Once again, thank you for the terrific videos.

Lawrence

Thanks.
I don't always post good stuff but every now and then I get lucky.

The W196 was a really cool car. They attached two 4 cylinders to create a straight 8. The engine is laid over at 53 degrees and power comes off the center of the crankshaft between cylinders 4 and 5.
The valvetrain is desmodromic. It does not use valve springs. Instead, the rockers push the valves open and pull them closed again. Ducati and a couple other European bike companies used something similar to gain high rpm stability.
A high speed driveshaft runs under the driver's left leg and back to a rear mounted transmission designed by Ferdinand Porsche.
The driver sits with his legs wide apart with only the clutch pedal on the left side.

Can you tell that I really like the old mechanical fiddly bits?
There was so much of that car that was pure art.

A tip of the hat here to Der Feetsmeister for posting those 2 videos: Fangio acquits himself quite well, and ya gotta love the quote "I will not demonstrate the car, I will race it".
In that rear brake shot, looks like the gearbox at the very rear, with a shaft presumably for a starter. Looks like 2 shafts run to a center diff, but I don't see the shaft that drives the gearbox. Maybe it's hidden by what appear to be 2 cooler lines?
Love the old cars, with their intriguing engineering solutions; artful, indeed.

Yeah, Feets, that makes sense. The starter snout is obvious with the collar around it, and I figured the input to the gearbox would almost have to run straight forward from it, but couldn't see it. I suppose the benefit of the driveshaft location was to get the driver lower in the car.

The engine was a real oddity by today's standards. They determined that vibration at high rpm was best controlled by an inline eight cylinder. Taking power off the crank from the center of the engine reduced the vibration substantially.
In essence, it was a pair of inline 4 cylinders sharing a flywheel gear between them. That gear was in the middle of the crank between cylinders 4 and 5. A gearbox took power from that gear and sent it to the back of the car. It also powered the cams, twin magnetos, oil pump, and fuel injection pump.
There were no flywheels on either end of the engine.
the engine was rotated about the center of it's height. That put the head way off to the right and the crank gear box way off to the left.
The drive shaft went down from that left side gear box, under the driver's left leg, and to the back of the car. Other than the angle to drop below the driver it went straight down the chassis.

Take a look at the pic of the engine on a hoist. It's positioned how it sits in the car as seen from the front. You can see the forward crank flange is not in line with what we'd consider the bell housing area at the back of the block. The output shaft is almost lined up with the oil pump.

Here's a shot of the engine installed in a car with the streamlined body. You can see how far the engine is laid over. The intake cam cover is visible but the exhaust cam cover is below the intake runners. The round aluminum thing on the firewall is the throttle linkage. Just below and slightly outboard of that is a shadow of the gear box housing. It's behind the giant drum shaped magneto.
See the gap between the 4th and 5th intake runner? That's where the power take off gear is located on the crankshaft.

Also visible is the angled steering shaft running to the steering box as well as the giant inboard brake drums.

Can you imagine how much the handling changed as they emptied the 265 liter (70 gallon) fuel and 40 liter (10 gallon) oil tanks? These old beasts leaked and burned a bunch of both fluids during a race.

Yeah, depending on where the fuel was located, the car's handling certainly would EVOLVE from Lap 1 to the end...

Speaking of old F1 engineering, did you catch the program on Speed where they looked at the Gurney Eagle F1 car? Chassis 1004, IIRC, the Spa winner. One of my favorite F1 cars ever.

The fuel and oil tanks were located behind the driver.

I missed the show on the Speed channel.