Celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Silver Arrows, Mercedes-Benz went to enormous lengths to recreate the greatest moments of their glorious history. To make a series of photos they hired a large number of actors, provided them with period clothing, built unique locations, and used a mix of old cinematic trickery and modern computer wizardry.

As one YouTube commenter pointed out, it was probably easier to make replicas of the Silver Arrows cars. But the end result is pretty impressive, and anyway, this anniversary is remarkable enough to justify the cost and effort.

The story of Silver Arrows:  “A cloudy day in June 1934. A white racing car, a Mercedes-Benz W 25, stands on the grounds of the Nürburgring. Two men approach, one gesticulating wildly with his hands and the other putting on gloves and pulling a spatula from his trouser pocket. He kneels down gently in front of the car and begins scraping the paint away cautiously. The sun peeps out from behind the clouds, making the car’s silvery aluminium surface glisten from under the layer of paint. A few hours before the German Grand Prix race, on the instructions of Alfred Neubauer, who was in charge of the race team, a technician carefully scraped the top coat of paint off in order to reduce the weight of the W 25 and keep it within the weight limit of 750 kilogrammes. Thus an eternal symbol was created.”