Even during a period when motor racing was rich in "characters", Alfred Neubauer stood out - larger than life in every sense of the word. After serving in World War 1, he started his long motoring carreer, first with Austro Daimler, becoming a member of the three-car Sascha team in the 1922
Targa Florio.
Both he and Ferdinand Porsche, Austro Daimlers designer, joined Merrcedes in 1923 - Porsche as designer and Neubauer as one of the drivers. In 1924 he again drove in the Targa, with a 2-litre, 4-cylinder car, taking part also in the Semmering Hillclimb and the Italian Grand Prix.
In 1926, the year in which Mercedes and Benz combined, he turned to team managing, and it was in this side of the sport that he became world famous. During the 30-odd years that followed, his increasingly large figure became an integral - and easily recognised - part of the
Grand Prix scene.
Neubauer’s organization at the
Mille Miglia in 1931 was a master stroke. To reach each staging post before Caracciola arrived, he repeatedly criss-crossed Italy with his team. He was associated with succcess after success by the German cars, first during their memorrable years from 1934 to 1939, then, after World War 2, with the 300SLR racing-sports cars and, later, the
Grand Prix W196. He showed sheer brilliance at team tactics and, as a psychologist and judge of drivers, at picking and looking after his team.
It was the post war era that saw the dominance of Mercedes-Benz in racing. Dubbed the "Silver Arrow Era", it almost began with a flop. The rules prescribed a weight limit of 750 kg. One day before the new cars’ first race, they weighed in at 751 kg. Neubauer and Manfred von Brauchitsch eventually came up with the idea of removing the white paint. The silver-coloured aluminium
bodywork was exposed, and the Silver Arrows were born.
The Silver Arrows
The Silver Arrow years were dominated by German racing cars and the rivalry between
Mercedes-Benz and
Auto Union. In its most successful phase, the Mercedes team’s regular drivers were Rudolf Caracciola, Hermann Lang, Manfred von Brauchitsch and Richard Seaman. It was Neubauer who spotted the ability of Hermann Lang and Richard Seaman - and, in later years, signed-on such "greats" as Juan-Manuel Fangio and Stirrling Moss. Fiercely and proudly unappproachable by those whom he regarded as insignificant (like the Press) to his all-important, race-winning activities, he was at heart a very kindly man. And
Stirling Moss's references to him, as one of his "chicks", were always affectionate.
Having once taken a driver under his wing, Neubauer was deeply respected, and laughed with, rather than at - from his "dancing pumps" as Moss referred to his enormous shoes, to his baggy suits, battered, wide-brimmed felt hat, clip-board and
battery of stopwatches (see photo above). To his drivers Neubauer was a superbly efficient, yet gentle father-figure. This side of his character best shown, perhaps, by the well-known photograph taken after the
1955 Mille Miglia win. Standing between Moss and Jenkinson, laughing and towering above them, he has his arms round their shoulders, and affection written on his face.
Probably Neubauer’s blackest day as racing manager was at
Le Mans in 1955, when a
Mercedes 300SLR was catapulted into the crowd, killing more than 80 people. After consultation with Stuttgart, Neubauer withdrew the remaining cars from the event. At the end of 1955, this greatest of all team managers retired to the Daimler-Benz museum at Unterturkheim, taking care of the silver racing cars with which he had made history.
Also see: Legends of Track and Rally - Alfred Neubauer
