Alfred Neubauer

Alfred Neubauer, born in Neutitschein in 1891, was the only son of a furniture-maker and as he grew up he developed a deep fondness for motors and racing cars, becoming with the years the manager of the Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix racing team from 1926 to 1955 with its famed Silver Arrow cars. While serving in the Austrian Army he started repairing military vehicles, and after WWI joined the Austro-Daimler, where Ferdinand Porsche named him chief tester. He drove in races until in 1926 he changed to racing team manager. This new job consisted in giving information to his pilots during the race using hand signs, flags and boards. Soon the Mercedes-Benz team got advantage over their rivals, specially after Mercedes launched the Silberpfeil (Silver Arrow) design. During the 30s the Silver Arrows were often driven by Rudolf Caracciola, Hermann Lang, Manfred von Brauchitsch and Richard Seaman (as a curiosity, the first three briefly appear together in Es leuchten die Sterne (1938) ). Each season Neubauer used to contract some foreign pilot, thus Fagioli, Chiron and Seaman enlarged the successful Mercedes-Benz mainly German team. In 1954 the design of the 300 model was adapted into a new racing car, the Mercedes-Benz 300SL, a model which would bring many victories in Grand Prix races, improving by far the pre-war model. Juan Manuel Fangio was under Neubauer's guidance World Champion in 1954 and 1955. Then in 1955 one of the team pilots, Pierre Levegh, had a terrible accident going over the fences onto the crowd and killing more than 80 people, Mercedes withdrew from racing and Neubauer retired from them too. He would remain in charge of Mercedes private drivers' section, training young drivers. He died in Stuttgart in August 1980.