In late 1930s, German race car driver Hans Stuck had a dream of breaking the new land record. He went to Wilhelm Kissel, Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler-Benz AG to form a significant project team with two additional member, engineer Ferdinand Porsche and air force general Ernst Udet. The project began in 1936 and by 1939 it was ready to beat the existing record, but the war prevented it from happening.
The final Mercedes-Benz T80 world record project vehicle was powered by a borrowed test engine taken from a Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter plane. The DB 601 inverted V12 was converted by Mercedes to 44.5-litre displacement and renamed DB 603. The six-wheeled, 8,240 mm long car had an output of 3,500 hp at 3,460 rpm, and could achieve a top speed of 650 km/h, full of potential in beating John Cobb’s new land world record of 595.04 km/h made in August 1939. Unfortunately the war broke out and the engine was returned to Ministry of Aviation in 1940, and the rest of the T 80 was put in storage.
After the war the T80 car was shown to the public. Decades later in 2006 the T 80 became part of the permanent exhibition with its original body, spaceframe and wheels in Mercedes-Benz Museum. Only recently the original chassis was presented for the first time and with a DB 603 cutaway engine, reconstructed spaceframe and replicated wheels.
