The Benz Blitzen
Born: 1909 Died: 1913
The official name of the 'Blitzen' was the 200hp Benz, and came about when carmaker Benz & Cie decided to build a car specially to break two "200" barriers -- the 200hp in power, and 200km/h in speed. It started with an engine, a massive 21.5-litre four which was based on a smaller unit used by Karl Benz's Grand Prix race car, but with just 150hp available, it wasn't considered possible to develop it in its existing size to break through the magic "double ton" barriers.
The Benz engineers didn't achieve their horsepower goal immediately. In its first derivative, 184hp was reached. But they persevered with fine tuning the massive motor, and eventually reached their 200hp mark. By today's standards, it was a slow-turning engine, because the maximum output was at just 1,600rpm.
At this point they only had an engine, though. Taking the Grand Prix car's chassis as a starting point, they then built a racing body around it. It had a classic format for the time, virtually all engine between the two axles and the driver's open cockpit located between the rear wheels. Behind that, the body tapered rapidly to a point.
In line with its aspirational ethos, the 200hp Benz had a very dominating look, with a vast radiator front, and if looks could break records it would have been able to do so standing still. But that wasn't the idea, and when the car was given its first competitive outing in a one-kilometre sprint race in Frankfurt, its flying start average speed over the course was just over 159km/h. Not yet the wished-for 200km/h mark, but a decent start.
On a subsequent tour of European circuits it consistently broke local track records, but the maker wasn't convinced that it was getting a chance to show its potential because of the relatively short and narrow tracks of the Continent.
A new body was built in 1910 and the car was sold to an American promoter, Ernie Moross. It was he who came up with the name "Lightning Benz", which translated nicely back into the "Blitzen Benz" in the car's native Germany.
An American racer with a reputation for having no fear to the point of recklessness, Barney Oldfield, then did what Benz & Cie had dreamed of: on March 17th, 1910, he set a new world record of almost 212 km/h at Daytona Beach. A year later, Bob Burman in the same car exceeded that at the same location, creating a record 228.1km/h mark that would stand until 1919. In context, that was twice as fast as the aircraft of the time could go.
The success of the Blitzen Benz was a PR coup for the German brand and was used in show events across the country, setting a foundation for sales in the US that lasted until the second World War caused a cessation of its operations there.
As for the model itself, just six were built in all, two of which survive today. The last of the original series built was sold to a Belgian, and had a four-seat touring body on an extended chassis. It was acquired by an American collector in 2002. In 1935, Daimler-Benz celebrated its 35th anniversary by building another Blitzen from parts it still had. This car is in the Mercedes-benz Museum.
And a "seventh" Blitzen was commissioned in 2004 by an American collector, using other parts still in the Mercedes-Benz stocks, including an original engine. And Mercedes even loaned him their own car for a year so that his version could be replicated as closely as possible to the original.