STABLE INFORMATION

STABLE INFORMATION

During his commentary on some slides, shown before his film “Motoring with Mercedes,” at the Harrow C.C. Film Show on February 17th, George Monkhouse gave some hitherto unpublished information about the Grand Prix Mercedes-Benz cars of last season. The tubular side-members of the .chassis, he said, are of oval-section only mm. thick, and before the crossmembers are in place it is possible to pinch the ends of the frame together with one’s fingers. The cross-members are tubular. After each race the body is removed complete and the car thoroughly vetted by its own engine mechanic and chassis mechanic. Another slide showed the off side of the Mercedes-Benz engine with the new induction system. With so long an induction pipe perfect distribution of the mixture is impossible even under pressure and Mercedes-Benz overcome the difficulty by placing jets at the base of each off-take branch of the manifold, leading quite a large-bore pipe from these jets to the suction side of the supercharger. Thus liquid fuel and mixture are sucked back into the blower and by varying the size of individual jets as required offending cylinders Can be relieved of over-rich Mixture. Although this system sounds crude, it is possible to visualise that very accurate results are obtainable by using a considerable variety of jet sizes, while very rapid alterations could obviously be effected after inspection of the plugs (” bottles ” as Monkhouse has it) had indicated the condition within the cylinders. It is interesting to speculate whether Mercedes-Benz adopted this System in a hurry, not having time or not wishing to carry out prolonged tests with a variety of manifolds, as one believes Alfa-Romeo did when first applying supercharge, or whether the arrangement functions so well that racing has contributed yet another development useful to the sportscar designer. Monkhouse also said that

last year Auto-Union shortened the main arms of their front suspension in order to reduce or obviate steering re-action, which had apparently been so severe at times as to cut the driver’s hands.

CORK GRAND PRIX

Entries arc accumulating very well indeed for the Cork race on April 23rd. Nuvolari, Sommer and Farina are expected to handle the new Alfa-Corse cars, and P. Wimille is a likely starter with the new 3-litre blown Bugatti. Hans Ruesch has entered his Alfa-Romeo. Raymond Mays and Arthur Dobson will drive the new Ea.A.s and Schell, Comotti and Carriere are down to drive the 41-litre iniblown V12 Delahayes. K. D. Evans (Alfa-Romeo), Chris Staniland (probably an Alfa), A. F. Ashby (Alf a-Romeo), and Mrs. E. M. Thomas are amongst the early entrants. Cheap excursion services are available, if you contemplate spectating.