According to Alfred Neubauer, Rudolf (Rudi) Caracciola was the “greatest driver of the 1920’s and 1930’s, perhaps of all time.” In Europe, nobody else at the time won so much for so long. His list of achievements include three European driving championships, three European hillclimb championships, the first non-Italian winner of the Mille Miglia and a fearless land speed record competitor (once recording 269mph on a stretch of public Autobahn in 1938). Rudi had the experience to win the big races and more importantly he always left a bit on the table for self preservation.
What Rudi also had was a burning desire to compete in one of the biggest races in the world, the Indianapolis 500. Rudi’s interest in the race started in the late 1930’s when Mercedes committed to sending four cars across to the event. They were to be driven by Rudi, Manfred Von Brauchitsch and Herman Lang, plus a spare. However the plans were scuppered as an oil consumption issue with the Mercedes V12 reared its head during testing. Running at consistently high speeds for 500 miles was obviously too much for the engine and Rudi missed out on his chance to race, plus a bumper pay day. The mighty Mercedes team couldn’t be seen to compete against the Americans and fail.
Mercedes and Rudi continued the 1938 season and put Indianapolis out of their minds. The 1939 season started with obvious tension following the increasing problems in Europe. Despite this, Mercedes were still developing their technology and decided to build a car to compete in the ‘voiturette’ formula for 1.5 litre engines. This gave the German team the opportunity to once again stamp their authority on Alfa Romeo and Maserati. They developed the supercharged, 1.5 litre V8 W165 in record time. Despite its small capacity, it still produced 254bhp and only being 700kg meant it was a potent car, with a top speed of 169mph. It won on its debut in Tripoli in the hands of Hermann Lang, with Rudi in second position in the sister W165.
Later that year war broke out, which stopped most racing activity across most of the world. Rudi had moved to Switzerland in the early 1930’s and it’s there, in Lugano, that he stayed for the duration of the war. His position with Nazi Germany grew increasingly distant and the state even blocked his Mercedes pension when he refused to take part in troop entertainments. In his autobiography ‘a racing car driver’s world’, he reasoned that “I could not find it in myself to cheer up young men so that they would believe in a victory I myself could not believe in”.
Around this time he was becoming mindful that the war wasn’t ending any time soon and recognised his precious Mercedes racing cars were at ever increasing risk of being destroyed. Rudi approached the Director of Mercedes-Benz, Dr Kissel and asked if he could take possession of the two Tripoli W165 cars. If they resided in Switzerland they at least had a chance to survive the war and race again once it ended. Dr Kissel, said Rudi could have them but it was impossible to take them out of Germany at that moment in time due to the hostilities.
Dr Kissel unfortunately died soon after the agreement was made, but his successor Dr Wilhelm Haspel knew of the arrangement and in 1945, a few months before the end of the war, a team of Mercedes employees literally dug the cars out of their concrete bunkers where they had resided since 1939.
Dr Haspel then arranged for the cars to be sent to the Swiss border, but as Rudi had no official documentation, he couldn’t actually claim the cars, so there they sat in storage, although he did inspect them and although intact, they had seen better days.
In March 1946 Rudi received an unexpected telegram from Pop Meyers, the Vice President of Indianapolis Motor Speedway inviting him to compete in the race. Rudi’s initial thoughts were it would be impossible to go across and race, but then remembered the little W165 cars sitting at the Swiss border. Given Mercedes and most of Europe was in ruins Rudi had no idea how he could even contemplate competing in the race, let alone in one of the W165 cars. Spurred on by his wife Alice, he started to look into whether the impossible could actually be possible.
Rudi had issues not only in getting an American visa, but also getting hold of the cars which were still in the hands of the Swiss authorities. He had to get permission from the Swiss Property Control Office who agreed to release one car for two months, but he then had to get permission from the political department in Bern and of the Inter-Alliance Commission.
In addition, Rudi had to arrange a visa to get to America, plus somehow arrange a visa for his mechanic in Germany. But it wasn’t just a case of taking a car and a mechanic to Indianapolis, he also needed spares. The only place he would find them is at the Mercedes factory in Stuttgart.
Rudi decided to drive there with Alice, but couldn’t do it officially as there were no visas available for entering Germany. He knew a French Lieutenant who arranged to effectively smuggle Rudi and Alice into Germany. Even though it was seven years since Rudi had been out of the spotlight, he was still very famous. The maid who served them lunch at the French Lieutenant’s house for example shouted “Jesus it’s Caracciola” when she first saw him.
The French Lieutenant’s commander then became involved, giving him a pass for the French zone of Germany, but not the American zone. He basically said ‘your mechanic is in the American zone, if you can get to him and get him to the French zone, we’ll get you back into Switzerland’.
Rudi and Alice bode him farewell and drove to Stuttgart armed only with hope that they would be able to cross into the American zone. They managed to get in when the group of soldiers at the checkpoint were distracted and barely checked their papers before waving them through.
Rudi and Alice thought they were in trouble when an American army Jeep chased them down before pulling them over. It turned out the soldier didn’t appreciate the speed Rudi was travelling at, gave him a telling off and sent him on his way. When they arrived in Stuttgart, they immediately drove to the Mercedes factory at Unteruerkheim and saw a sea of rubble.
Rudi met the new directors of Mercedes, Dr Otto Hoppe and Dr Kaufmann. They gave him permission to rummage around what was left of the factory to search for spares. They also helped in getting Rudi’s mechanic named Walz and a second mechanic named Friedly transferred to the French zone.
Once they had gathered what spares they could find, the quartet drove back to Switzerland and started to prepare the car, which needed recommissioning in order for it to become race worthy again. They also remembered the issues in testing for the aborted 1938 attempt and decided to add a reserve oil tank to the car. Rudi wanted to see if he still had the ability to drive, and with the help of the local police he arranged to have a public road closed at 5am one morning to take a test run. He donned his leather racing cap and his goggles before gunning the little V8 and setting off down the road. He found his spark again, was quickly back into the groove and was happy with how the car performed. Walz and Friedly had worked wonders on the machine.
Visa issues continued however and it soon became apparent that he couldn’t take German resident Walz to America. There were also shipping issues for the car due to ongoing strikes, then issues getting the car through England at which Rudi tried to get help from the Foreign Office, but to no avail. He pulled all the tricks he could and called in all of the favours, but sadly they had to turn around and go home. The little Mercedes wasn’t going anywhere. It was desperately disappointing for Rudi after all of the effort in getting the car prepared.
Rudi realised it wasn’t going to happen in 1946, but he would still travel to Indianapolis on a fact finding mission ready to competing with the Mercedes in 1947. On arrival in New York he met up with pre-war racing ace Rene Dreyfus, who by this time was a restaurateur in the city.
After being wined and dined by Rene, he travelled to Indianapolis and took up residence at the Marriott Hotel. He came down to breakfast the following morning and to his astonishment bumped into Achille Varzi, Luigi Villoresi and other characters from the Italian racing world. They were there to drive a pair of Maserati specials. After the years of turmoil and separation in war-riddled Europe, the racing buddies got together and reminisced about the old times on broken German and Italian. They each showed their excitement to be finally competing again, particularly in the biggest race in the world where an overall race purse of $100,000 was available and $20,000 to the winner.
Later that day he travelled to the Speedway, where he met Pop Meyers, Wilbur Shaw, Dolly Dallenbach and Tony Hulman. Rudi explained why he was there, that he wanted to meet the right people, get a feeling of the event with a view to bring the Mercedes over the following year. That is until he got an intriguing letter from someone called Joel Thorne to the effect of ‘I have a car which you can drive’.
Thorne was a millionaire businessman who had competed in four Indianapolis 500’s himself, but due to a recent injury his second car was sitting in his garage without a driver. Seeing the marketing potential in having one of the world’s greatest drivers in his car, Thorne had the ‘Thorne Engineering Special’ prepared for Rudi. The car had a 4.5 litre, six cylinder, non-supercharged engine and Rudi was amazed to see the car had an outboard hand operated brake.
Rudi immediately wanted to test the car, but ran into some difficulties. Firstly, he had to be examined by a doctor, who concluded that he was ‘in great shape’ and had ‘eyes like an eagle’. Secondly, Rudi didn’t have a helmet, only his flimsy leather racing cap that he used to wear pre-war. This was a big no-no from the more safety conscious American officials, but he managed to acquire an old British tank crash helmet. He likened it to wearing a bucket on his head. It was probably the best purchase he ever made.
Rudi took his driver orientation test the following day, where he had to drive at constant lap speeds, increasing them at set intervals. This is a quirk of Indianapolis where even the most successful drivers in other disciplines have to go through the same procedure. It still happens to this day.
Rudi was finding the circuit itself quirky too, “the oval square was surprising – each corner had to be approached differently. The corners were only slightly elevated, the back stretch was wide and beautiful. The front stretch, before the stands, on the other hand, was uneven and bumpy because it was paved with bricks. After a few laps I had the car in hand. The pickup power was tremendous and the car hugged the road splendidly.”
After passing the orientation tests Rudi felt ready to go for a qualifying attempt. He was excited about finally being able to push the car hard, “the road was free. I drove out of the pits, turned a few laps to warm up the motor and toughen up the tyres. Two, three more laps, I thought, and then raise my hand (to signal the start of his quick laps). The car flew across the course – and that’s the last thing I knew.”
It soon became obvious to those in the pits that Rudi had suffered a big crash. As the incident happened away from most spectators, there are sketchy reports on what actually happened, but the general consensus is that Rudi was struck on the head by a bird which knocked him out. A spectator did see Rudi’s head and arms suddenly drop, as if he’d simply gone to sleep at the wheel. Rudi had been thrown out of the car during the crash and he’d hit his head hard on the road. Without the ‘bucket’ crash helmet he would certainly have been killed.
Alice rushed to Rudi’s bedside and for five days sat with him willing him to wake up. Then one day an FBI agent arrived at the hospital and asked to see the papers of Alice and Rudi. Someone had anonymously tipped off the authorities that they had come into the country illegally and they should be arrested. Obviously the papers were in order and they left it at that. When he was told of the incident Tony Hulman said “if Rudi had been at the start and if the FBI man had come to arrest him, I wouldn’t have let the race start until Rudi’s papers were looked at, which would have straightened everything out right away.”
The race went ahead and the second Joel Thorne car, driven by George Robson, ran out as a fairly dominant victor. This showed that Thorne’s cars were well prepared and quick, who knows what Rudi could have done in the race. The plaudits were short lived for Robson though, as he succumbed to injuries sustained in a racing crash just a few months later.
Six days after his crash, Rudi was starting to move, by the tenth day he was starting to talk, but he was confused as to why he was in a hospital and also why he was tied to the bed. Convinced he was being held captive because he was German, he tried to ‘escape’ but to no avail. He could hear screams and cries in the night from other patients, which he believed were other German prisoners being tortured. One day he managed to slip out of his hospital room and make his escape. He jumped into an ambulance and asked the driver to take him to his hotel. He was then overpowered by hospital staff and taken back to his bed.
Not only did Rudi believe he had not been in an accident, he claimed he’d never even been to Indianapolis, despite being there at the time. The hospital agreed to release him after one month, but he struggled to walk and do simple things like use a knife and fork. Seeing the state Rudi was in, Tony Hulman insisted he and Alice take refuge in his lakeside lodge near Terra Haute.
Rudi slowly started to get better and then departed back to Lugano. The hospitality and care that Hulman family and the Speedway had given him left a lasting impression on both Rudi and Alice, which resulted in a remarkable gesture thirteen years later.
In the following years Rudi went through a protracted legal battle to gain custody of the two W165 cars. Despite Dr Haspel’s help, Rudi lost the case on the basis that a gift does not constitute a transfer of ownership under Swiss and German law. In the end a sealed bid auction was advertised in the newspapers and both cars were sold. One went back to Mercedes-Benz and another to a buyer in England. Rudi visited the car at the Mercedes museum in the late 1950’s and he said it was exactly as it had been prepared for its trip to Indianapolis. Despite this disappointment, Rudi and Alice continued to live an idyllic life in Lugano.
It took until 1952 before Rudi competed again. His first race back was the Mille Miglia, where he finished fourth in a W194, but everything came to a shuddering halt again at the Swiss Grand Prix where he hit a tree and broke his leg. He retired from racing and became an ambassador for Mercedes, travelling all over the world promoting the brand.
In 1959 Rudi developed jaundice and advanced cirrhosis. He died of liver failure on 28th September and was buried in his home town of Lugano. After his death, Alice wanted to ensure Rudi’s trophies were properly looked after. She didn’t want them sold to the highest bidder, never to be seen again. She therefore decided to donate all of Rudi’s trophies to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway museum. The main reason for this was due to the warmth that herself and Rudi had experienced by the speedway and the Hulman family after his crash in 1946.
The story of Mercedes at the speedway did not end though with Rudi. They returned in 1994 with the Ilmor developed ‘beast’ engine, but there was another interloper well before then. The year after Rudi’s aborted attempt to get the W165 to America, Don Lee had somehow managed to acquire a W154 Grand Prix car directly from Germany and entered it in the race to be driven by Duke Nalon. But that’s a story for another day!
motorsportmuse 