It was the late summertime 1939. Young King of Yugoslavia, Peter the Second was preparing to celebrate his birthday, on September the 6th. As a true petrolhead, together with the whole royal family, he decided to organize the first Yugoslavian Grand Prix. The whole racing weekend included 9 classes (5 moto and 4 car races), with the Grand Prix race as the crown event. Railway tickets were sold with the reduced prices and the whole spectacle brought 75.000 people to the streets *(in that time, Belgrade had only 360.000 inhabitants). Just imagine that crowd, 75.000 people alongside 2.790 m long track.

Some of the best drivers of all times were called: Tazion Nuvolari, the one who invented drifting, Manfred von Brauchitsch, Herman Lang who almost run away to join the Luftwafe, Hermann Paul Müller and the local driver, Boshko Milenkovic. The list would be longer, but the Invasion on Poland begun and many participants were not able to arrive.

Cars:

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Von Brauchitsch and Lang came with the Mercedes W154, V-12 (3000 ccm, 60 degrees) powered beast capable to produce somewhere between 425 and 485 hp (*they will never admit the actual power, of course) that were transferred to the track via 5-speed gearbox.

Nuvolari and Müller were behind the steering wheel of Auto Union Type D, with almost the same specs as Mercedes had, but that car was known for its notoriously difficult to control rear end. How not to, 500 hp, narrow tyres and supercharger.

If you are wondering why those cars were so enormously powerful and certainly the best of its time (sorry Alfa, my love) the answer could be surprising: the military. According to the rules of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was restricted to produce aircraft engines, so... They produced car engines... Perfect for aviation...

The local, Boshko, came with the outclassed Bugatti T-51 with only about 150 hp.

Alfa and Maserati never arrived due to war.

Bugatti Lineup, and my little pilgrimage

This summer I visited the Cite d'Automobile one of the best collections in the entire world and the very best collection of Bugatti cars.

The first true racing car made by Bugatti was Type 32 from 1923. It was equipped with the straight-8, 2L engine and some very interesting bodywork. For its time it was very small and applied completely different logic in comparison with Bentley for example. Instead of installing an incredibly large engine suitable for locomotive (I'm not exaggerating...) and high speeds on straights, Bugatti decided to make smaller but more nimble cars perfect for cornering.

Its successor was Type 35 the best racing car of that time (1924-1930) that scored more than 1.000 victories including the victories on the most prestigious races like Targa Florio. The power was modest, somewhere between 60 and 150 hp depending of version, but the key element was the steering.

The last model in this lineup and the Boshko's car was Type 51. During the early 30' it was still competitive but it became obsolete with the fast development of the technologically superior Italian and German cars.

The results:

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Nuvolari, this was his last victory, and the last victory for Auto Union

Von Brauchitsch

Müller

Boshko (wih12 - 19 laps less driven)

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This street track is still alive today, so if you ever visit the Belgrade, you can see it.

About Milenkovic

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Boshko was born in the rich family and became the largest rentier of the apartments. He liked cars, played a violin and was considered as the bohemian. During the bombardment at the beginning of the war, he lost many properties. After the war (nationalisation), he lost all the properties, his Bugatti, and started living in the house of his friend. The car was probably scrapped. Many of the best cars from the royal collection were now obsolete and converted to suitable carriers, trucks and tailored to the needs of the people not some fancy racing. Eventually, almost all of them were lost. Boshko got a job, he became the trolleybus driver. In one occasion he hit a little boy. A few days later he committed suicide. Not the nicest story.

Special message for @svemirac who is watching the Hungarian Grand Prix today: Forza Ferrari!

Sources:

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I made many hyperlinks, but if you want to discover the details, there are 5 great pages written in Serbian *(just put it in translator):

• https://www.blic.rs/vesti/reportaza/preteca-formule-1-na-kalemegdanu/gnkz8jx
• http://www.mojsvetbrzine.rs/2010/12/2323/
• http://forum.b92.net/topic/58780-klasika/page-4
• http://staribeograd.weebly.com/trke-na-kalemegdanu.html
• http://autorepublika.com/2018/07/28/velika-nagrada-beograda-1939/

I'm not sure if this is STEM, but there are plenty of good texts there