Just a year before WWII, a 28 year old German driver named Bernd Rosemeyer crashed while driving over 260 miles per hour on a public road, killing him instantly. Just a few years earlier, Rosemeyer had been a humble mechanic, working at his dad’s garage. But now, he was part of a Hitler-funded racing program-- a violent effort to make Nazis the fastest drivers in the world. Today on Past Gas, the dark origins of Mercedes’ and Audi’s racing programs. How did these teams get started? What was their link to the Nazis? And why were some of the drivers not even Germans?
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Past Gas #225: Macau GP - “Asia’s Monaco” is a Notoriously Dangerous Street Circuit
Past Gas #224: F1's Greatest Rivalries: Hamilton vs Rosberg (aka “The Silver War”)
Past Gas #223: The Mustang That Took Down Porsche
Past Gas #222: Cosworth Pt 2: WRC Rally & the Ford Escort RS Cosworth
Past Gas #221: Cosworth Pt 1: The Most Successful Engine Maker in F1 History
Past Gas #220: Mark “Captain Nice” Donohue: The Genius Engineer/Driver Famous for Acid-Dipping his Cars
Past Gas #219: Renault: The Rise and Fall… and Rise Again?
Group B's Greatest Rivalry: Audi and Lancia (Replay)
Past Gas #218: Santa's Coal Bag: We Did All Your Crummy Ideas, Vol 2
Past Gas #217: Pablo Escobar Was a Racing Champion?!
Past Gas #216: Mint 400: The Chaotic Race Across the Las Vegas Desert
Past Gas #215: History of Mercedes Ep.4- AMG, the Present, and the Future
Past Gas #214: Mercedes Pt 3: WWII and the Dawn of the Gullwing
Past Gas #213: Mercedes Pt 2: How Mercedes Became Mercedes
Past Gas #212: Mercedes Pt 1 - The Gritty Beginnings of Daimler, Maybach, and Benz
Past Gas #211: John Britten & the V1000: The Motorcycle That Inspired An Industry
Past Gas #210: Nelson Piquet: The F1 Driver Who Feuded With Everybody
Past Gas #209: Dodge Charger Daytona: The Car That Was Too Fast for NASCAR
Past Gas #208: Dan Wheldon: The Perfect Storm that Reformed Indycar
Past Gas #207: RWB’s Akira Nakai: Coke, Cigarettes, and Widebody Porsches
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