How to decipher an old photograph

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Like us, you like a bit of sleuthing work or so it seems. So here’s another photograph from the files with very little information which gave us a bit of fun to find out more about it. All we knew is that it was – supposedly – taken at the Auvergne circuit. That made us think it was possibly shot at the Gordon Bennett Cup which was held there in July 1905. ‘A mountainous, serpentine 85.35-mile course’ wrote the contemporary press about the then-new circuit, which cannot have made it an easy drive with this massive racing car.

What is it? This is where the investigating starts. The 1905 Gordon Bennett Cup entrants list shows an eclectic mix of nationalities and cars, including Charles Rolls driving a Wolseley and Vincenzo Lancia driving a FIAT. Imagine the excitement all those years ago, with all these big machines coming together from as far as the US to race each other!

There are a few possibilities for ‘our’ car here. A Richard-Brasier? De Dietrich? Benz? No, this really has to be one of the Mercedeses. But there were quite a few that year with both the Austrian as the German teams driving them. So, let’s see what we can find about the individual cars, starting with the Christian Lautenschlager car. Several images can be found of that, but none are convincing. Over to the second one then: Pierre De Caters. Bingo! That was quick. There is no doubt this is the same car with the same man behind the wheel, casually smoking his cigarette. There’s more material to be found here on the Mercedes-Benz PR website. Happy sleuthing.

Word by Jeroen Booij. Picture from the archive.

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