Dick Seaman and Auto Union
#1
Posted 01 December 2002 - 16:04
In my sources "The findbook Auto Union" which is related to the "Sächsisches Staatsarchiv", where you can find all Auto Union documents, there is a short chapter about driver contracts, from 1937 to1940. And here I found also the name of Seaman, next to the other AU-drivers.
Does anybody know, if Seaman may wanted to change the team, or was AU interested in Seaman?
In Chris Nixon's "Auto Union Album", p. 127, you can see Seamann sitting arround with the drivers team of AU and Prof Porsche on the terrace of the "Nürburgring's Sporthotel", and with him Christian Kautz who later joined the AU team.
May I post that picture here?
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#2
Posted 03 December 2002 - 15:11
#3
Posted 11 February 2003 - 10:08
#4
Posted 11 February 2003 - 15:36
I am certain that there were later approaches shared between Seaman and Auto Union but from 1937 forward he was essentially a Daimler-Benz man through and through and saw no reason to change horses. Had he been dropped by DB that would have been another matter. As it was, he did not regard it as fair play to bite the hand that fed him which is one of the reasons why he did not publicly criticise anything about DB, or The New Germany. Remember he had been trained in life as a proper chap, straight bat, fair play and all that.
He would NOT defect from one team to the other without good reason - nor, I believe, would he have entered into any serious discussions with A-U without DB approval or after they had advised him his services would no longer be required.
DCN
#5
Posted 11 February 2003 - 20:31
And Porsche must have been a hardseller in those times, later on he engaged Stuck to drive the T 80. So for his interest, everything was okay.
BTW: Have a look on the beetle history.
#6
Posted 27 February 2003 - 00:43
... Mercedes could afford to retain a driver of Seaman's class and race him but four times in the year ... Auto Union were perhaps paying heavily for vacillating with Seaman two years before [ie 1936, two years before 1938]
Court, Power & Glory page 248
#7
Posted 27 February 2003 - 05:11
Doug's book *IS* available in our Amazon.co.uk bookshop Holger.Originally posted by Holger Merten
Thanks DCN, I tried to buy your book about Dick. But it's not available on Amazon. And it's also very expencive on "motorbooks". Must check, if I get it one in Hong Kong in my favorite book store on my next business trip.
In stock too!
Click here and you'll see
AM
#8
Posted 27 February 2003 - 05:12
#9
Posted 27 February 2003 - 06:51
Originally posted by Anorak Man
Doug's book *IS* available in our Amazon.co.uk bookshop Holger.
In stock too!
Click here and you'll see
AM
AM, I have seen, thank you.
#10
Posted 28 February 2003 - 11:00
However, the emphasis is somewhat different to what Nixon says in "Shooting Star":
"And it wasn't only Mercedes-Benz that were interested in Seaman. News of his restrained but impressive performance at the Ring [in testing for Mercedes] was soon all over the German motoring world and he was quickly approached by Auto Union, enquiring after his services for 1937."
So, who approached who? It's well documented that Seaman had previously written to Mercedes in an attempt to hire a car for the 1936 Donington GP and Brooklands Mountain Handicaps: although he was rebuffed at that point, within a few weeks he was being invited to test at the Ring. This seems to confirm what Doug wrote above about him corresponding with Auto Union and/or Porsche. Was he perhaps playing off one against the other? Nixon again:
"Dick was a great fan of Professor Porsche and his remarkable, mid-engined racing car and was well aware, of course, that Rosemeyer and the Auto Union had been almost unbeatable in 1936 ..."
Nixon goes on to say that Seaman was advised by Ramponi to join Mercedes rather than Auto Union.
#11
Posted 28 February 2003 - 11:20
#12
Posted 28 February 2003 - 12:05
Seaman returned to Britain on December 2nd, leaving for South Africa two days later.
On December 15th Walkerley was reporting that Seaman had still not signed for MB, as our old friend Huhnlein had not yet given permission. Nixon says it wasn't Huhnlein's decision to take, but Hitler's. Hmmm .... did Hitler have to give permission for Varzi, Nuvolari, Chiron and Kautz too?
#13
Posted 28 February 2003 - 13:24
Originally posted by Vitesse2
On December 15th Walkerley was reporting that Seaman had still not signed for MB, as our old friend Huhnlein had not yet given permission. Nixon says it wasn't Huhnlein's decision to take, but Hitler's. Hmmm .... did Hitler have to give permission for Varzi, Nuvolari, Chiron and Kautz too?
That I don't know, but it's a subject I briefly mentioned on the 1939 Championship thread. The AU archives quote them asking permission from Hühnlein to let Nuvolari race for AU in 1940. If I recall correctly, Hühnlein denied this, with the exception of races on Italian soil. Given the immens propagandistic value that the racing successes offered, the Nazis were more and more reluctant to let foreigners win races in their cars. So it wouldn't surprise me if Hühnlein was reluctant to take responsability himself and left such decisions to the Führer...
#14
Posted 28 February 2003 - 13:42
One of the German teams made the long trip to South Africa in January 1937. Auto Union.
Seaman was in South Africa in January 1937.....
edit:
Seaman returned early from South Africa, citing unfair handicapping (in private) and damage to his car (in public) as his reasons. He was supposed to take part in three races, but only did one. He was home on January 25th, having still not yet signed for MB, despite a full-page report in "Speed" saying he had. His draft MB contract and confirmation of Hitler's permission arrived in February.
Is it too fanciful to suppose he might have tested an Auto Union in South Africa?
Doug?
#15
Posted 28 February 2003 - 17:42
#16
Posted 28 February 2003 - 21:27
Originally posted by Vitesse2
.....did Hitler have to give permission for Varzi, Nuvolari, Chiron and Kautz too?
I don't know the answer to this, but I have met a member of the Chiron family...
He says he is Louis' nephew, though he's relatively young, and that Louis was not spoken of in the family in his lifetime. He knew very little about Louis before I loaned him my Monkhouse-King Farlow and Neubauer books.
When Louis Chiron crashed at the Nurburgring, I would imagine that he felt that he was at the end of his life. He would have seen his attachment to the M-B team as shaky, known that many people in France would ostracise him and that his family had virtually disowned him.
Had he had to apply to Hitler for permission to put himself in this parlous position would have been the ultimate indignity...
#17
Posted 28 February 2003 - 23:02
Originally posted by Vitesse2
...Is it too fanciful to suppose he might have tested an Auto Union in South Africa? Doug?
Sorry - only just spotted this. Yes, I think it is probably too fanciful. It would never have been kept secret, I am sure, and 'Lofty' England who ran the Delage for Seaman would certainly have known about it, and would I am pretty sure have mentioned it when we later nattered at length on various occasions about Seaman and about that trip. Kay Petre was photographed in one of the Auto Unions there, and subsequently I think did not altogether deny the notion that she had driven the car there, but I am 99% certain that she did not. AU were at Monza during the period Seaman was testing there. But the two rival camps kept themselves to themselves as far as I know.
DCN
#18
Posted 28 February 2003 - 23:11
Thanks anyway Doug!
#19
Posted 01 March 2003 - 01:41
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#20
Posted 01 March 2003 - 11:03
While the tone has been lowered may I report that when I worked on 'Motoring News' we had a chap there who was fired or fell out with the management in some way and walked out. His last (stroke of genius) act before departure was to spike the following week's issue at the printers. There was a report published on the VSCC Seaman Trophies meeting at Oulton Park, which had been run in extremely hot and humid weather conditions. Matey headlined the report:
"Hot sticky Seaman at Oulton Park"
DCN
#21
Posted 01 March 2003 - 12:53
From Austin Powers, part III
Dr. Evil about his new sub: "It's long, hard and full of seamen...."
#22
Posted 01 March 2003 - 14:26
#23
Posted 01 March 2003 - 20:56
Photos: The GP Library
#24
Posted 01 March 2003 - 21:43
#25
Posted 01 March 2003 - 22:13
#26
Posted 01 March 2003 - 22:25
Originally posted by Doug Nye
.....when I worked on 'Motoring News' we had a chap there who was fired or fell out with the management in some way and walked out. His last (stroke of genius) act before departure was to spike the following week's issue at the printers.....
Similarly, a Sydney Morning Herald soon to be ex-employee inserted a poem into the paper on the day of his departure...
The first letters (Acrostic?) of the lines spelled out a message to 'get' something or other.
#27
Posted 02 March 2003 - 10:08
At the end, up came the obligatory summary slide, illustrating the areas covered as bullet points. After a few seconds several of us started looking across at each other and trying to suppress rising mirth.
There were eight bullet points on the slide, the initial letters of which spelt out;
B-O-L-L-O-C-K-S
And yes, he still works for BA (and is a reasonably senior manager in the IT department).
APL
#28
Posted 02 March 2003 - 13:02
Can't
Recommend
A
Purchase
Inevitably, Maxwell sued him - I believe this was one of a large number of libel suits unresolved at the time of his death.
#29
Posted 03 March 2003 - 05:54
#30
Posted 03 March 2003 - 12:07
When asked by the BBC TV News reporter how had Mr Maxwell seemed when the fellow last saw him he replied: "Oh, quite all right - he seemed his normal buoyant self...".
DCN