Winning Tricks: The Key Features the Red Mercedes at the 1924 Targa Florio

Throughout the history of motorsport, from its very beginnings, every trick to winning has been tried. Among the most intelligent and entertaining was that of Mercedes at the 1924 Targa Florio.
As the latest issue of The Key, a must-have, recounts in great detail! The new 2-liter Mercedes cars made their debut at the extremely challenging Targa Florio: unpaved and often bumpy roads, a long route that passed through several towns packed with spectators, and fierce and fast Italian opponents.

The 2-liter Mercedes-Benz at the Stuttgart Museum is taken to the workshop for restoration by the Mercedes-Benz Heritage department.

To win, a good Sporting Director must consider everything, even the risk of losing time due to a hostile crowd supporting national drivers. At this point, it's worth remembering that in those years, cars bore the color of the nation they represented. Italy's was red, Germany's was white. In Stuttgart, they wondered if, for once, it might be the right move to paint the Mercedes red. No sooner said than done. The cars with the star showed up red at the start, a ploy that proved successful: Christian Werner and Karl Seiler won the race, and the crowd celebrated them as Italians. Fortunately, there were no live TV interviews in those days!

The detailed story, complete with images, of the car's restoration by Mercedes-Benz Heritage, concludes with George Russell, a Mercedes F1 driver, driving it at the 2024 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in Imola.

The distinctive feature of the Mercedes 2-liter at the 1924 Targa Florio was that it was painted not in the traditional German white but red, the color that represented Italy in racing at the time.