1939 3.0L twin-supercharged v12: 485hp and owned by...hitler?!?

[scheides]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/AUTOS/12/04/...ion/index.html

This thing looks sick, I can't believe it was made in the 1930's!

[niterydr]

Sweet!

[Bode]

That is pretty cool.

[tim]

Cool. Are those the huge ass drum brakes sticking out inside the wheels? It was the technology of the time but i still find it funny.

[rst95eclipse]

I remember reading about this car. It was originally built to seize the land speed record on the newly constructed Autobaun. It did achieve the fastest speed recorded, but a crosswind pushed the car off the road and the driver didn't make it. It's really amazing how advanced the Germans during the 30's and 40's.

[sleepydsm]

I thought this car was made to beat mercedes benz. It was the two "silver bullets" that battled each other as the fastest cars in germany. Yeah they were extremely advanced for their time, I assume a lot of it had to do with similar aircraft engineering. Planes had huge supercharged engines for high altitude power and such. If i remember correctly both the benz and auto union car had no paint due to being that close to the period racing weight restrictions, hence the "silver bullet" names.

[A//// Guy]

German Engineering FTW!

[Shotgun!]

The autobahn record cars were much faster and more purpose built. You can add atleast 100mph to the speed of these "Silver Arrows" and you would be starting to get into the Autobaun car's 'hood. There is film of one of them getting air ~285mph-295mph...they didn't find the engine block. Cross wind for the lose. The Germans (Nazi period) also held all the drag records well into 60s. Crazy stuff back then. Hot Rod has done some small articles about the drag side of those programs. I think they held quickest/fastest AWD until the mid 80s.

[rst95eclipse]

You guys are right......The car I'm thinking about looked more like a silver twinkie. They were 12 cylinders and looked a bit like that. My bad.

[Shotgun!]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_T80

This is one of the "Autobahn" cars I was talking about. It actually qualifies as a production car so it's sister car still holds the "Fastest Production Car" title, for an aborted run made in 1939 where it reached atleast 270mph. This has been mentioned before in magazines where the Corvette Sledgehammer's "record" was brought up.