Märklin Mercedes Benz Silver Racer no.1

Märklin Mercedes Benz Silver Racer no.1

Brand: Märklin

Country of origin: West Germany

Year : 1980s

Material: die cast

Size : 11 cm

Condition : new

Original box : No

Gebr. Märklin & Cie. GmbH or Märklin (MÄRKLIN or MAERKLIN in capital letters) is a German toy company. The company was founded in 1859 and is based at Göppingen in Baden-Württemberg. Although it originally specialised in doll house accessories, today it is best known for model railways and technical toys. In some parts of Germany and in Sweden, the company's name is almost synonymous with model railways.

Märklin is responsible for the creation of several popular model railway gauges or scale, noteworthy exceptions being N scale and Wide gauge. In 1891, Märklin defined gauges 1-5 as standards for toy trains and presented them at the Leipzig Toy Fair. They soon became international standards. Märklin followed with 0 gauge (by some accounts as early as 1895 or as late as 1901), H0 scale in 1935, and the diminutive Z scale, 1:220, in 1972  — smallest in the world for decades  — under the name Mini-Club (the scale of Z was assigned after the product line was introduced). Mini-Club was developed as Märklin's answer to Arnold Rapido's introduction of N gauge.