The winner of the 1908 French Grand Prix at Dieppe was won by the 1908 4-cylinder 12.8 litre Mercedes driven by Lautenschlager at an average speed of 69 m.p.h. over a course of 477 miles.
This sports model had no front wheel brake drums and was the forerunner of many famous cars to be later known as "Mercedes-Benz" after the amalgamation of Benz and Daimler in 1926.

The (Y10-1) 1908 Grand Prix Mercedes was introduced in 1958.

Variations/Rarities: It is usually found painted cream but the final issue was white.
The seats were painted a light green or on the later versions dark green and it had gold or silver trim to the radiator.
There were three casting modifications:
The first was to the sides of the seat which were originally reinforced with a 2mm wide brace which was later widened considerably.
The second was to the exhaust pipes which had four braces in between the pipes. Later issues had just two braces but they were wider than the earlier type.
Finally the bar across the rear end that holds the spare wheels in place was thickened from 1mm to 2mm.

It should be noted that the model is known to have silver, gold, or no trim to the radiator, petrol caps, dashboard tops and oil pump.

The ones to look for - the white painted body could be classed as hard to find.

Scale: 1:54

1908 Mercedes Grand Prix

A shows early thin and later much wider seat side panels

B shows 2 or 4 webs between exhaust pipes

C shows the 1mm or later 2mm thick spare wheel retainer