Mercedes-Benz W196
- Constructor
- mercedes
- Years
- 1954–1955
- Designers
- Rudolf Uhlenhaut
- Engine
- Mercedes-Benz M196 straight-8
- Configuration
- straight-8, 2497 cc, naturally aspirated
- Power
- 290 bhp (257 bhp on debut, developed towards 290-300 bhp; a 340 bhp target at 10,000 rpm was never reached in a race)
- Chassis
- welded aluminium tube spaceframe
- Gearbox
- —
- Suspension
- Front: double wishbone with torsion bars. Rear: low-pivot swing axle with torsion bars
- Brakes
- inboard drum
- Weight
- —
- Wheelbase
- —
- Tyres
- Continental
- Races
- 12
- Wins
- 9
- Poles
- 8
- Drivers' titles
- 2
- Constructors' titles
- 0
- Specification confidence
- high
Aircraft engineering applied to a racing car: direct fuel injection, desmodromic valves, and a full-width streamliner body
Direct fuel injection taken from Daimler-Benz aero engines; desmodromic valve gear, which closes the valves mechanically instead of with springs and so removes the rev ceiling that valve float imposes; inboard brakes; the Type Monza streamliner
The only closed-wheel car ever to win a World Championship race, and it won three. Mercedes ran the streamliner at fast circuits and an open-wheel body elsewhere after Fangio complained he could not place the front wheels at Silverstone. The programme ended abruptly after Le Mans 1955, where a Mercedes sports car went into the crowd and killed more than eighty people; Mercedes did not return to Formula One as a constructor until 2010.
9 wins from 12 races entered. Fangio's titles in 1954 and 1955.