Study the results of the 1952 Le Mans 24 Hours and the Mercedes 1-2, achieved with the new W194, suggests a shift in power to Germany. As Andrew Frankel reveals the reality was different, and the gullwings were not fast. This was a war of attrition packed with tactical nous, derring-do and a great deal of luck

THE LM24 ISSUE

The race is underway... The crew of the Mercedes W194s were Karl Kling/Hans Klenk (No20); Hermann Lang/Fritz Riess (21); and Theo Helfrich/ Helmut Niedermayr (22)

DAIMLER AG

THE KEY PLAYERS CAME FROM ALL points of the compass. From the south the Ferraris; seven of them, including four monster 340 Americas with their 4.1-litre V12 motors. Soon-to-be F1 world champion Alberto Ascari was there too, in the same 250 S in which Giovanni Bracco had heroically taken on the might of the works Mercedes-Benz team in the Mille Miglia just weeks earlier and, subsisting on a diet of brandy and cigarettes, prevailed. Of the Mercs, more in a moment...

From the west came the Americans or, to be precise, an American. Briggs Cunningham and his fleet of three C4-R racers, two open, one closed, with over 300bhp from their raceprepped hemi-headed Chrysler V8 motors. Cunningham was not there to make up the numbers, but to provide the biggest crosspond challenge to the European racing aristocracy since Brisson and Bloch’s Stutz Blackhawk came achingly close to upsetting the Bentley applecart in 1928.

The north? Well, that would be the Brits. Three works Aston Martin DB3s arrived, a year late perhaps but keen to show what they could do. But really all eyes were on the Jaguars. They’d won the year before with the brand new C-type and now there were three of them, sporting new low-drag bodywork that made up in purpose and presence whatever they had lost in pulchritude.

And then there were the Germans from the east. Three gleaming W194 ‘300 SL’ coupés, their gullwing doors being the most elegant way imaginable of meeting door aperture regulations with the high, wide sills required to bequeath sufficient structural strength to its spidery tubular frame. It was these cars that were the reason for the Jaguars so dramatically changing their appearance, and we’ll be getting to that shortly too.

But not before looking at those from France itself. It seemed there wasn’t much: there was the Gordini of course, with Jean Behra driving, but its 2.3-litre engine was surely too small and stressed to last 24 hours of the kind of punishment only Behra could dish out. And there was a smattering of Talbot-Lago T26GSs, good cars in their day, good enough indeed to win this race outright back in 1950, but elderly now and driven by privateer entrants seemingly unequipped to deal with the works teams with more modern metal that were expected to dominate.

But who would it be? If firepower were the sole determinant, it would probably be one of the Ferraris, but having won the race in 1949 they’d since proven fragile: a total of 14 had entered in the intervening two years, of which just four made it to the end. So perhaps the thundering Cunninghams might be there to pick up the pieces? Not so fast over a lap, they had staying power, at least in theory.