Mercedes-Benz
T 80 record car

Why it matters

The T 80 was a six-wheeled land speed record car designed in the Porsche design office around a Daimler-Benz DB 603 aircraft engine, with a planned top speed of 650 km/h. It was meant to bring the absolute record to Germany, but the start of the war in September 1939 removed any place to run it, and the project was stopped in February 1940. It is the most extreme record vehicle associated with the Mercedes-Benz name and was never run on a record attempt.

How rare is it?

Six separate kinds of rarity – never combined into one number.

Each kind of rarity is rated separately and never combined.

Production

Every figure says what it counts.

Independent counts (e.g. engine and colour) are never combined into a calculated figure. Surviving examples are never presented as original production.

History

The idea came from Auto Union driver Hans Stuck, who approached Daimler-Benz and Ferdinand Porsche's design office in 1937 with a plan to build an aero-engined record car. Porsche's office was commissioned on 13 January 1937. The target speed rose from 550 to 600 and finally 650 km/h, which Porsche calculated would need about 3500 hp. A DB 603 aircraft engine of more than 44.5 litres was used for provisional installation; on the test stand it gave 2800 hp on racing fuel, and the power-raising measures used on the smaller DB 601 were not approved by the Air Ministry.

The car stood almost ready at the start of 1940. With the outbreak of war in September 1939 there was no road section suitable for such speeds, and the Bonneville Salt Flats were out of reach. Work stopped in February 1940, the engine was removed and the car laid up. It became public in 1945 through a British journalist, and a 1948 British intelligence report quoted top speeds of 724 and 746 km/h, which the archive regards as far too optimistic.

The T 80 was shown in the Daimler-Benz museum from the early 1950s. For the 1986 museum redesign the body was separated from the chassis and hung on the wall. In 2017 the chassis was fitted with new tyres, a cutaway DB 603 model and a rebuilt tubular frame, and shown at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2018. The archive rules out the car ever being driven.

Technical specifications

Engine

Transmission & drivetrain

Chassis, body & dimensions

Performance

“Not yet verified” means no source has been checked for that value yet. Nothing is estimated to fill a gap.

Identification guide

How to tell an original from a replica or later conversion.

The T 80 is a three-axle record car with six wheels, a ladder frame of oval longitudinal tubes with a narrow track, a front axle on double trailing arms and two rear swing axles, all on torsion bars. Its body is 8240 mm long with stub wings on the flanks and an enclosed aircraft-style cockpit, and the engine sits directly behind the driver and drives through a triple-plate clutch with no gearbox. The tyres were special treadless Continental 32-inch units, 7.00 inches wide. The exhibit shown today pairs the original body and chassis, displayed separately for decades, with a cutaway engine model and a reconstructed tubular frame, so it is not a complete running original.

Sources

Each number links to the exact facts it supports.

1. 1
   Motor Sport – The fatal flaw in mythical Mercedes T 80 land speed record car Level C

   • 1 the single T 80 record car (attempt never made)

   Accessed 2026-11-12
2. 2
   Mercedes-Benz T 80 record car, 1939 (Classic M@RS) Level A Mercedes-Benz Group AG (Classic M@RS, Mercedes-Benz Public Archive)

   • original chassis ... has been in the vehicle collection ever since
   • DB 603 ... power unit for larger and heavier military aircraft
   • DB 603 had a displacement of more than 44.5 litres
   • maximum output of 2800 hp/2059 kW was recorded for the DB 603
   • managed without a gearbox ... triple-plate clutch with centrifugal governor
   • narrow ladder-type frame ... oval longitudinal tubes and multiple transverse bracing
   • double trailing arms in the shape of a parallelogram
   • two rear swing axles, together with the use of torsion bars throughout
   • drum diameter of 500 mm intended for all six wheels
   • with a length of 8240 mm
   • width of the body without the stub wings was only 1740 mm
   • track widths were 1300 mm at the front and 1320 mm and 1180 mm
   • 1320 mm and 1180 mm at the rear

   Accessed 2026-11-12