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[Doug Nye]

The story of Rumanian Joska Roman persuading one of the two GP Mercedes-Benz W154/163 cars to run, after he had 'found' them in a railway siding, is quite familiar. He ran it in a local hill-climb but crashed it heavily and did himself real harm.

 

Just recently, rummaging around in the story of what became Colin Crabbe's earlier W125 has brought up mention of a Polish 'scrap dealer' named Trabatnik having somehow fallen heir to it, "...and running it in a hill-climb" at some point postwar.

 

Now this is presumably a reference to car enthusiast and collector Tadeusz Trabatnik - remnants of whose apparently once vast gathering of an immense range of cars, from Bugatti to Wartburg, features in some rather sad on-line videos.  

 

If he was indeed the 'Trabatnik' mentioned in connection with the eastern bloc period of 'the Crabbe car's history - is there any truth in the story that he once hill-climbed it, or is this a fairy tale - perhaps confusing that Iron Curtain-country's GP car with Roman's 1939 entity in Rumania?  Could anyone provide a reference to 'Trabatnik - Mercedes' having participated in a Polish hill-climb?

 

DCN

[Steve L]

I have always found these "Wilderness Years" tales of the Mercedes and Auto Union cars from late 1939 onwards, fascinating.

 

Years ago, I seem to remember seeing  a series of photos of Roman's before and after hill climb attempt, but despite much searching have sadly never been able to locate these again.

 

I wonder if Mercedes-Benz has ever tried to track the journeys, and in some cases, sad fates, of all of their GP cars?  There was a nose cone from a W25 for sale a few years ago which was said to be the sole surviving piece from one of those cars which ended up in a French (?) scrapyard - this always seemed to me to be a funny destination for such a car.  I would love to know if this was ever validated.