Der Meister Aller Klassen
Der Meister aller Klassen
UP FRONT
David Edwards
OUR KIND OF GUY, ERNST JAKOB HENNE, a motorsports legend you may never have heard of, now 100 years old and happily retired to the Canary Islands.
That Henne, once the fastest man on two wheels, would reach the century mark was often in jeopardy due to his numerous racing crack-ups.
"I was a bit of a wild thing," he said recently. "Every time I woke up to see people in white coats and pictures of saints on the walls, I knew that something must have happened again."
Orphaned early in life, young Ernst became an apprentice car mechanic at age 15, and in 1923 set up AutoHenne, a backyard repair shop near Munich. That year he also entered his first competition, riding a Megola lent to him by a friend. With a pressed-steel frame and its cylinders mounted radially around the front axle, the oddball Megola was not the ideal racebike, but Henne persuaded it to a third-place finish in the 750cc class. Soon he switched to a more conventional Astra, built in Munich and powered by a 350cc British J.A.P. Single. Victories quickly followed.
A sixth place in the 1925 Monza Grand Prix would lead to a spot on the BMW factory team, but at the time Henne was every bit the penny-pinching privateer. Recounts BMW’s Mobile Tradition magazine: “A faulty sparkplug left him with painful memories of Monza. After burning his fingers while frantically replacing it, he put the faulty plug in his pocket-in those days a sparkplug cost the equivalent of a week’s wages. Shortly after setting off again, the still-hot plug burnt his upper thigh and turned the rest of the ride into a painful ordeal.”
As a 21-year-old rookie on the works BMW race squad, Henne would have to prove his worth to his more established teammates. He did so at the Solitude circuit outside Stuttgart. Dealing with rain, mud, thick fog and even a hailstorm, Henne topped the 23 other competitors in the 500cc class by a full 8 minutes and clocked the quickest lap of the day, besting all the 750 and lOOOcc riders in the process!
In 1926 and ’27, Henne was named German Champion, and in ’28 earned his greatest international win at the Targa Florio, a 200-mile endurance run around the island of Sicily, considered the most challenging motorcycle event -—of the time. A grainy photo from
the day shows Henne flashing past a stone mile-marker, an entire rear-wheel assembly bolted to the bike’s side in case of a flat.
As the 1930s hove into view, Henne cut back on roadraces, devoting more time to his new bride and fledgling BMW car/bike dealership. Besides, he had other motorcycle disciplines to conquer. With the 1929 International Six Days Trial held
in the Alps, Henne
prised everyone by signing up for the 750cc class and bringing his Boxer dirtbike home with a silver medal. Four years later, as captain of an all-BMW Trophy Team, Henne anchored Germany’s first overall ISDT victory.
Two more would follow in succession. By the time he closed his Six Days participation, Henne had four individual gold medals, two silvers and a bronze, and was consid-
ered one of Europe’s top off-roaders.
During this time, the so-called “Master of all Classes” also set speed records with studded tires on ice and, at the wheel of a BMW 328, gave the company its first sports car victories.
It was in land-speed runs, though, that Henne would achieve his greatest fame. Known as the “White Phantom” for his trademark white racing overalls and the era’s focal-plane cameras’ inabilities to capture more than a blurred image as his supercharged BMWs streaked by, Henne set no fewer than 76 international twoand three-wheel top-speed marks from 1929-37. His last, aboard the “Egg,” a blown, overhead-cam 500cc streamliner, was a 173.88-mph blast, a speed that wasn’t bettered for 14 years.
Eight years earlier, though, Henne barely lived through his first day of record busting on a section of closeddown public highway. At top whack, the front axle nut came adrift, sending the bike into a horrifying tank-slapper.
“It is a miracle that no serious damage was done,” Henne recalled. “All the telegraph poles and trees were in grave danger of being rammed by my machine. I had already pretty well swept one of the timekeeping tables clean with my elbow. I continued to weave uncontrollably from one grass verge to the other. Suddenly, I was going headlong in the direction of a rather substantial tree. But at the last minute, I was just able to squeeze past.”
Ironically, it was racing, which so many times almost cost Henne his life, that ended up saving him. When World War II broke out, the Luftwaffe conscripted Henne, a licensed pilot since 1932. However, a medical examiner declared him unfit for duty
on account of the skull fractures and concussions suffered in the course of his racing career.
After the war, Henne took on the Munich Mercedes-Benz franchise. It would become one of the largest, most successful dealerships in Germany, eventually employing a staff of600. As payback for what he considered a very fortunate life, in 1991 Henne established the Ernst Jakob Henne Stiftung, a
charitable foundation to benefit deserving people who have fallen on hard times.
Mechanic, roadracer, ISDT medallist, land-speed record holder, aviator, sports car racer, successful businessman, philanthropist, centenarian, lucky s.o.b., legend...well done, Herr Henne, well done. □
