After days of teasing, Mercedes has finally unveiled its special livery for this weekend's German Grand Prix.

The company is celebrating 125 years of motorsport at Hockenheim and to mark the occasion, has looked to that past with a design that incorporates old and new.

White, the traditional racing colour of Germany and of early Mercedes cars, features at the front of the car, including the wing, nose and cockpit area, while this year's silver and black paint scheme remains on the engine cover, sidepods and rear wing.

It was on July 22, 1894, that the first-ever car race took place between Paris and Rouen with the engine powering the winning machine designed by Gottlieb Daimler.

Five years later, businessman Emil Jellinek, who was also the first person to buy a car from Daimler, would enter an event in Nice with a Daimler Pheonix racing machine under the pseudonym Mercedes, the name of his eldest daughter.

It was then in 1900, the two parties worked together on another new car, the name of which would be Daimler-Mercedes, and that would be the first car to use the now world-renowned name as well as be considered as the world first modern automobile.

As for the legend of the Silver Arrow, that came about by accident in 1934 as Mercedes had to scrape the paint off their new W25 car for a race at the Nurburgring to meet the weight requirement.

Going on the victory, the term Silver Arrow became synonymous and has stuck to this day.