What was the name of the Mercedes-Benz car that broke the land speed record in 1938?

The Mercedes-Benz car that broke the land speed record in 1938 was the Mercedes-Benz W125 Rekordwagen.

This streamlined experimental car was derived from Mercedes-Benz’s successful 1937 W125 Grand Prix racer, but it was not simply a standard racing car with a different body. Engineers fitted it with a larger 5.6-liter supercharged V12 and redesigned the body for much lower aerodynamic drag and improved high-speed stability.

On 28 January 1938, Rudolf Caracciola drove the car on Germany’s Reichs-Autobahn A5 between Frankfurt and Darmstadt. It averaged 432.7 km/h over the flying kilometre and 432.4 km/h over the flying mile. Those figures made it one of the fastest vehicles ever officially timed on a public road.

A common mix-up is the Mercedes-Benz W154, which was the company’s principal 1938 Grand Prix car, or the Mercedes-Benz T80, a later record project that never made a record attempt. “Silver Arrow” is a broader nickname for Mercedes racing cars, not this model’s canonical name.