Mercedes-Benz showed an interest in getting involved in sportscar racing once again in the 1980s (having not had an active role in motor-racing since 1955) but initially decided against developing both a car and engine package. They turned to Peter Sauber, the Swiss owner of Team Sauber who were already active in Group C sportscar racing using BMW engines. The result of their collaboration was the Sauber C8 which first appeared in 1985. The C8 was the 8th sportscar developed by Sauber and apparently the "C" in the name referred to Peter Sauber's wife Christiane. The car used a twin turbocharged Mercedes-Benz 5.0 litre V8 which was itself developed from Mercedes-Benz's production V8 engine in use at the time. The C8's first race was the 1985 24hrs of Le Mans but the car failed to start after an accident in practice. The C8 failed to appear at any further races in the 1985 World Sportscar Championship (WSC), but was entered for the full season in 1986. The highlight of the year was a win in the 7th (out of 9) round of the WSC, the 1000 km Nürburgring in Germany. The Kouros sponsored C8 finished in 5th place overall in the 1986 WSC.
For the 1986 season the C8's main sponsor was the aftershave brand Kouros, who continued as the main sponsor for the 1987 season. Sauber developed a new car for 1987, the C9 which again was powered by a 5.0 litre turbocharged Mercedes-Benz V8. The C9 had a poor first WSC season failing to win any races and only scoring points once. Kouros left as the main sponsor at the end of the season and in 1988 AEG (a Daimler-Benz subsidiary company) became the main sponsor. The 1988 WSC season saw the first win for the C9 (although the C9 won it's first non-WSC race at the end of 1987) in the first round (out of 11) at Jerez in Spain. In total the Sauber-Mercedes team won 5 out of 11 races and finished 2nd behind Jaguar in the championship. The only low point of the season was Le Mans as both C9s were withdrawn following a number of tire failures in practice.
For the 1989 season the C9s were painted silver and Mercedes-Benz replaced AEG as the main sponsor. The C9 was the dominant car for the '89 WSC season winning 7 out of 8 races including the 24hrs of Le Mans. The '89 Le Mans win was the icing on the cake for Mercedes-Benz as it was only their second win in the prestigious French race (the 1st win being in 1952). In 1990 the C9 made way for the Mercedes-Benz C11.
The 1989 Le Mans 24hrs was not part of that years WSC but given the prestige of the race, most of the teams competing in the WSC contested it anyway. It was held over the 10-11th of June, in-between the 2nd and 3rd rounds of that years WSC. Strong competition from the '88 winners Jaguar and from Joest Porsche was expected but in the event it was Sauber-Mercedes who came home in 1st place, with another C9 in 2nd place and a 3rd C9 back in 5th place. The winning car completed 389 laps of the famous French circuit driven by the driver team of Jochen Mass, Manuel Reuter and Stanley Dickens. The victory was Peter Saubers 1st at Le Mans after 10 years of competing there and only the 2nd win at Le Mans for Mercedes-Benz. To date (2007) Mercedes-Benz have only won the famous endurance race in 1952 and 1989, despite many times being the favourite to win. Most recently, their then dominant GT1 category CLK sportscars were clear favourites to win in the late 1990s but poor long distance reliability and aerodynamic instability on the long Mulsanne/Les Hunaudieres straight meant further Le Mans wins were not to be for the famous German manufacturer.
Like all the Exoto C9s, this model has superb engine and interior detail with a working gear lever linkage between the cockpit and the gearbox at the rear of the engine. The front and rear bodywork comes off to expose lots of fine detail underneath and the wheels shod with Michelin tires are also removable. This C9 is set up in "Le Mans" configuration which meant a smaller rear wing with less downforce, but a higher top speed. For most circuits a higher downforce "sprint" configuration was the preferred set up, but for Le Mans the cars ran with a smaller rear wing to enable them to hit a higher top speed along the long straight at the Le Sarthe circuit.
One of the worst aspects of Exoto is their rip-off mentality when it comes to their customers. Arguably the Le Mans winner is the most significant Sauber-Mercedes C9 of all and Exoto exploited this by only selling it as part of a 2 model set along with a "rolling chassis" of the same car. This meant that if you wanted the Le Mans winner you had the pay a hefty premium over the other Le Mans C9s that Exoto had already released. Annoyingly the rolling chassis (which is the same model as this one minus the upper bodywork and sponsorship markings) is a great model in it's own right which would probably have sold well if released on it's own, but that was not good enough for Exoto (or as a fellow collector friend of mine calls them: "Extorto"). So as I very definitely wanted the LM winner, I had to pay considerably more for this C9 than the others in my collection. Despite all that it is a superb model and I'm glad I did stump up the extra dough to get it (even if it did leave a sour taste in my mouth to give in to Exotos sneaky marketing practices!).
Overall it is one of the finest models in my collection which is all the more remarkable when you consider Exoto released the first of their C9 1:18th models back in 2002. Highly recommended if you can find one at a reasonable price, which unfortunately is not very likely. Exoto are apparently re-releasing the 1989 Le Mans winner with a driver figure (current news as of April 2007) but the price is likely to be even more than what I paid for this model along with the rolling chassis.
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