Hans Stuck

Born in Warsaw, Stuck felt a special passion and talent for hillclimb racing right from the start of his career. Based in Wolfratshausen in Upper Bavaria, after modest beginnings two years earlier he was already competing for Austro-Daimler from 1927 to 1930 and proved almost unbeatable as a works driver in the model ADM and later in the model ADR on mountains. In 1930, he won the European mountain championship.

In the two years that followed, Stuck was a member of the Mercedes-Benz works racing team and seamlessly continued his string of successes. In 1932, he distinguished himself with the Mercedes-Benz SSKL as Mountain Champion of Brazil and International Alpine Champion. In addition, in the same year he achieved countless class or overall victories with the SSKL at the most renowned mountain tests, such as the Kesselberg Race, the Lückendorf Mountain Race, the Würgau Mountain Test Drive, the Gaisberg, Klausen and Schauinsland Races, the Stelvio Mountain Race and on Mont Ventoux.

From 1934 onwards, he worked for the Auto Union works team with considerable success and was even able to win a European Championship Grand Prix in Monza in 1935 with the mid-engine model B. After the war, he started racing for BMW in 1957 and, at the advanced age of 60, became German mountain champion in the small BMW 700 Coupé. By the time he finished his active career in 1962, he had won close to 400 races.

Even before the outbreak of the Second World War, Stuck wanted to become the fastest man in the world and set the absolute speed record for land vehicles. With the specially designed Mercedes-Benz T 80, the target was 650 km/h – and thus a significant improvement on the existing record set by John Cobb (595.04 km/h) in 1939. But because of the outbreak of the Second World War, the 2574 kW (3500 hp) T 80 was not used and became a mere museum piece.