The story as related by Mercedes in their press release ahead of this weekend’s race is that the team removed the white paint from its cars at the 1934 Eifelrennen to get them under the maximum weight limit of 750 kilograms.
None of the contemporary accounts of the race examined by Reuss referred to Mercedes scraping off paint overnight.
While Mercedes has chosen to reflect the story on its cars this weekend, it is not making any claim the tale is actually true, and has carefully referred to it as a “legend”.

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