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1939 GRAND PRIX AUTO UNION V-12
Details
1939 GRAND PRIX AUTO UNION V-12
Prologue
In the six years between 1934 and 1939 Grand Prix motor racing was dominated by two makes: Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union. Apart from being four-wheeled single-seaters, the cars from these two firms were fundamentally different in concept, design, and execution, and yet when they raced against each other the make that was the best on one occasion would frequently be beaten by the other at their next meeting. Whilst the two teams competed against one another in a professional and sporting manner, they did so against a background of aggressive nationalism that was to lead to the mayhem and misery of war. Regardless of whichever country the cars raced in, the spectacle they created excited and enthralled the spectators who showed a partisan support for either Mercedes-Benz or Auto Union that had no basis in logic but lacked nothing in conviction.
The second half of the nineteen-thirties was undoubtedly one of the truly great eras of motor racing, a period of closely contested races and dramatic technological development that culminated in its final year with two-stage supercharged three-litre engined cars that could attain speeds just short of 200 miles per hour of over 300 kilometres per hour.
For many years it was thought that every example of the charismatic 1939 Grand Prix Auto Unions had been lost forever, but this unique survivor, rescued from oblivion, demonstrates in the metal why the model is considered to be one of the all-time masterpieces of racing car design.
Auto Union - the origins of a business
The consortium named Auto Union came into being in 1932 and consisted of four makes: Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer; all located in Saxony in the eastern part of Germany. In the depressed economic climate of the time although Horch had 25 per cent of the German luxury car market, which inevitably was quite small, its factory was working at less than half its capacity and there was a distinct possibility that it would close down. DKW had also seen a steep decline in the sales of its cars and motorcycles, and Audi, by then 100 per cent owned by DKW, was scarcely functioning at all. Following discussions with the Saxon State Bank a merger of the three firms was unanimously agreed in June 1932 and almost immediately after this the new group purchased the Wanderer company. Auto Union adopted as a trade-mark four interlocking circles in a horizontal line, this being a plagiarised version of the Olympic rings. At the time of the formation of the new business it had a short-term debt of 12.4-million Reichsmarks (then the equivalent of about £800,000), and in its first year suffered an operating loss of around half a million Reichsmarks (£35,000). However, within two years Auto Union had made a dramatic recovery by rationalising its model range between the four makes and had become a powerful industrial concern, employing some 25,000 workers.
Within six months of its formation Auto Union decided that it would become involved in motor racing to promote its products. In October 1932 the a new Grand Prix formula had been announced by the governing body of motor sport, the Association Internationale des Automobiles Clubs Reconnus, and this was to apply for the years 1934 to 1936, although it was eventually extended to include 1937 as well. Its principal requirement was that the maximum weight limit of the cars would be 750 kg (1653 lbs) without fuel, water, or tyres. It was assumed that with this comparatively low maximum weight limit that the engines of the competing cars would probably not exceed about 3-litres capacity, therefore race speeds would be kept to reasonable levels, and that the cars would not be too expensive to construct and so more firms would build cars to take part in Grand Prix races. As events turned out, the AIACR was wrong on all counts.
Auto Union may have decided that it wanted to compete in the Grand Prix class, but time was short if it wanted to be in at the beginning of the new formula and it lacked the internal resources to create a top-level racing car from scratch. However, senior staff at Auto Union did know Ferdinand Porsche who and in December 1931 had established an independent design and engineering studio in Stuttgart. Today the name of Porsche is well enough known, but in the nineteen thirties he was but one of a number of leading motorcar designers in Europe and it is worth considering his record to this point to see why Auto Union chose to consult him regarding its particular problem.
Ferdinand Porsche
Born in Austria in 1875, Porsche showed mechanical aptitude from an early age, developing a particular interest in electricity. At the age of 18 he moved to Vienna to work for the firm of Bela Egger (later Brown Boveri) manufacturers of electrical equipment and machinery. He was also able to become a part-time student at Vienna Technical University to add theoretical knowledge to his innate creative ability. Within four years he had become manager of the test department and soon after this he entered the employment of Jacob Lohner, a Viennese coachbuilder who was keen to build electric cars. Whilst with Lohner, Porsche developed a petrol-electric system with an internal combustion engine supplying power to electric motors built in to the vehicle's wheel-hubs. The system had its drawbacks for ordinary motorcars, but it later proved its worth for heavy transport vehicles operating in difficult terrain. In 1906 Porsche became technical director of Austro Daimler and four years later came his first major international success when cars that he had designed took the first three places in the Prince Henry Cup competition, an arduous 1200 mile rally across Germany contested by some of the leading European makes of the day. The fact that Porsche also drove the winning car was a bonus.
Following this success Austro Daimler advertising featured a photograph of "Engineering-Director Porsche" and described him as: "Europe's most efficient Designer". In an era when prestigious motorcar makes were generally advertised with a list of their distinguished clientèle; for a designer to be given this level of exposure and credit for his achievements was unprecedented and shows that his creative and technical abilities were not only recognised by his employers, but more importantly they were prepared to say so publicly.
Porsche stayed with Austro Daimler until 1923, during which time he had been responsible for some outstanding aero engines, some fine motorcars, and he had received the award of an honorary Doctorate in engineering from the Technical University of Vienna in 1917. However, disagreements with the Board regarding motor racing policy led him to move to Mercedes, a firm that had a distinguished motor racing history, to which Porsche was keen to add. As technical director he developed the straight-eight and the S-class cars into race winners but he was uncomfortable with overall policy of the company that had become Daimler-Benz following the amalgamation of 1926. Similarly, the Directors did not appreciate his desire for continual innovation and in 1928 his contract was not renewed. Consolation came in the form of a second honorary Engineering Doctorate, this time from the Technical University of Stuttgart.
A brief spell with Steyr in Austria followed, but ripples from the Wall Street financial crash obliged this firm to join with Austro-Daimler, and Porsche was back where he had been before and did not want to be again. He resolved to set up his own independent design consultancy, and this is where the Auto Union directors found him when they decided to go motor racing. The fact that the first project of the "Dr Ing h c Ferdinand Porsche GmbH Konstrukionsbüro" (to give the business its abbreviated title) was for Wanderer, perhaps made their task a little easier.
Design and development of the P-Wagen Grand Prix car
Very soon after the new racing formula had been announced the Porsche bureau had developed the design for new racing car and this became its Type 22, often referred to as the P-Wagen, and ultimately the Auto Union. At its heart lay a V-16 engine, the first time that such a power plant had been projected for a racing car, but it was the decision to place the engine behind the driver that really surprised the motor racing fraternity. It was a dramatic and innovative design, if not quite as revolutionary as it seemed at first sight.
Whilst there had been rear-engined and mid-engined racing cars since the dawn of the sport, by 1900 anyone who was serious about going motor racing placed the engine where it just had to be: at the front of the chassis. Come 1923, and Benz, not yet joined with its rival Mercedes, decided to take a fresh approach to racing car design, inspired by the work of aeroplane and motorcar constructor Dr Edmund Rumpler. He had made in limited numbers rear-engined cars, with independent rear suspension, and streamlined bodies that in plan view were shaped like a rain-drop. Originally called in German the Tropfen-Auto (droplet-auto) they soon became known as Tropfenwagens. Benz acquired a licence to the Rumpler patents and built a team of 2-litre six-cylinder twin-overhead camshaft rear-engined racing cars with streamlined bodywork. Three Benz Tropfenwagens ran in the 1923 Italian Grand Prix at Monza and whilst one retired the other two finished in fourth and fifth places, several laps down on the trio of leading surcharged cars. This was the time when inflation was roaring away in Germany and even the well-established Benz company had to be very careful if it was to survive - and motor racing was a frivolity it did not need. Several of the Tropfenwagens were produced as sports cars and used in hill-climbs driven by Willy Walb, who was to become the first manager of the Auto Union racing team. Another was owned by Adolf Rosenberger, the man whose financial assistance was key to the establishment of the Porsche Konstruktionsbüro and who managed the commercial side of the business in its early days.
Original or not, once the concept had been agreed by Porsche and his design team the detail of the P-Wagen was very quickly drawn up. Not only was the engine placed towards the rear of the chassis, but the fuel tank was located immediately behind the driver; Porsche reasoning that as the fuel load decreased during the course of a race the handling characteristics of the car would be unchanged. The chassis was essentially a simple affair with two large diameter parallel tubes on each side, whilst independent suspension was used all-round, by torsion bars at the front and swing axles at the rear. Into this chassis was fitted the compact 45 degree V-16 4.4-litre engine, with a single overhead camshaft that operated all 32 valves, producing an output of around 290 brake horsepower at 4,500 revolutions per minute. From the outset it was designed as a rugged, reliable unit, with a very broad torque curve. Despite this it drove to a five-speed gearbox situated in the tail of the car, and then forwards to the limited-slip differential unit. The car was clothed in a streamlined body, and considerable attention was paid to airflow, for example the air that passed through the front-mounted radiator was carefully ducted to emerge through slots in the body side, not just left to find its own way out.
Such confidence did Porsche have in the design that he registered a separate company that could, if necessary, build and race the cars. Once the representatives of Auto Union came knocking at his door, this proved not to be necessary. For a price of 75,000 Reichsmarks Auto Union had the design for its racing car, and Dr Porsche was hired as consultant to oversee the project.
It was at this point that another character entered the story: the German Chancellor. At the opening of the Berlin Motor Show on the 11th February 1933, the Chancellor announced his intentions regarding motoring and the motorcar, including the building of Autobahns and also his enthusiasm for motor sports. Almost immediately Mercedes-Benz announced its intention to return to motor racing and the government, which even at this early date effectively meant the Chancellor was persuaded to provide state aid to assist the funding of the project. When Auto Union heard about this, a delegation that included Dr Porsche and the racing driver Hans Stuck met him and asked that money should also be made available the new team. The Chancellor agreed, but the original sum remained the same and was divided equally between Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union. It provided only about a tenth of the annual costs of the racing team for Auto Union, and was an even smaller fraction for Mercedes-Benz who were able to spend far more lavishly, but it helped to ensure that Germany would have two viable racing car makers that would compete against each other and ensure that races would not be a 'walk-over' - which would have impressed few people. The fact that there were also win and place bonuses available provided further incentive for the two makes to vigorously contest each race.
Racing the V-16 Auto Unions
With all the pieces in place, Auto Union was ready to go motor racing at the beginning of the 1934 season. The major problem that the team faced was not with the cars, although there were inevitably some 'teething' problems, but with finding drivers capable of exploiting the potential of the cars. The lead driver was the Austrian Hans Stuck, who in particular had a record second to none on the long continental hill-climb courses, but his two team-mates: Prince Hermann zu Leiningen and August Momberger; were not of the same calibre. Stuck showed the potential of the Auto Union by taking the world one-hour record at the Avus track in March 1934 at an average speed of 134.9 mph, (215 kph), but it was not until the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring in July that he achieved the first victory for Auto Union. Stuck was treated as a national hero, and his status was sustained by two more wins later in the year.
For the start of the 1935 season the engine size of the Auto Unions was increased to 4.95-litres and the power output rose to 375 bhp. This improved car was known as the Type B. New drivers were recruited to support Stuck, including the former Italian champion Achille Varzi who was noted for his calm manner in the cockpit of a racing car and his delicacy of control. Very much an unknown quantity was a new driver from the DKW motorcycle racing team, Bernd Rosemeyer. Varzi won two races during the season, Stuck one, but the performance of Rosemeyer in only his second race when he almost won the rain-soaked Eiffelrennen run at the Nurburgring, beaten by 1.9 seconds by Mercedes-Benz ace Rudolf Caracciola, showed that whilst he lacked experience his driving talent was not in question. His first win came three months later at the Masaryk Grand Prix run at Brno in Czechoslovakia and Auto Union had a new star driver.
The ultimate V-16 Auto Union, the Type C, was ready for the 1936 season, which started with a record breaking session on a stretch of Autobahn between Frankfurt and Heidelburg, where a maximum speed of a shade over 195 mph (312 kph) was attained. The car used was a streamlined version with an engine of 6.01-litres, giving a power output of 520 bhp at 5,000 rpm. Without the enclosed bodywork and geared to give a maximum speed of around 175 mph (280 kph) with consequent improved acceleration, the Type C Auto Unions dominated Grand Prix racing in 1936, Rosemeyer achieving five wins, and Varzi one. With the 750 kg formula extended into 1937 the Type C cars continued to be raced, and Rosemeyer won four major events during the year whilst unsung hero Rudi Hasse convincingly won the Belgian Grand Prix, Rosemeyer being on his way back from America at the time where he had won the Vanderbilt Cup race on Long Island. Once the circuit racing was over for the year Auto Union and Rosemeyer went record-breaking on the Frankfurt-Darmstadt Autobahn. With a streamliner that had the engine capacity increased to 6.3-litres he set new flying kilometre and mile records for the International Class C (5,000 to 8,000 cc) at 252 mph (406.3 kph).
Commenting on the V-16 cars in his monumental book The Grand Prix Car 1906 -1939, that stern technical observer Laurence Pomeroy noted: "As on the chassis, so on the engine, the general design, despite the use of sixteen cylinders, had a fundamental simplicity which compels admiration." However, because of the mid-mounted engine and the forward driving position, other less objective critics had decided from the day that the cars were unveiled that the Auto Unions were particularly difficult to drive. This view has never been entirely dispelled, but the results that the V-16 cars achieved in the years 1934 to 1937 with 19 wins out of 46 races entered, plus numerous hill-climb successes, shows that they were not the unwieldy aberrations that those wedded to the front-engined idea wanted to believe. It is true that because of the swing-axle rear suspension with its high roll centre the V-16 cars had a marked tendency to over-steer, but the skilled drivers who claimed the victories possessed an innate sensitivity of control and were able to exploit the potential of the cars to the full.
Tragedy at speed
On the 28th January 1938 an Auto Union Type C with improved streamlining was wheeled out on the Frankfurt-Darmstadt Autobahn to defend the speed records that its arch-rival was keen to take. In the calm morning air Caracciola had pushed the speed of his Mercedes-Benz up to 270 mph (435 kph) whilst on his test run, as the weather deteriorated, Rosemeyer achieved 268 mph (428 kph). Convinced that he could go faster to retake the record, and that he was able to control the car in the blustery weather, Rosemeyer set off again. He took the car up to a record-breaking speed but as it passed a gap in the forest a side-wind pushed the car off the concrete carriageway and even Rosemeyer's lightning-quick reactions could not bring it back under control. It crashed heavily and he was killed instantly.
In his book Motor Racing with Mercedes-Benz, published early in 1938, George Monkhouse who had, as the title implies, spent the previous season in close company with the motor racing community wrote: "Bernd Rosemeyer can safely be hailed as the fastest road-racing driver in the world today. He has a most likeable and dynamic personality and is exceedingly popular with the German crowds being young, good-looking, dashing, and carefree." It is therefore no surprise that the death of Rosemeyer shocked not only the motor racing fraternity but also the many who could only admire his talents from a distance.
Beyond the personal loss to his wife and infant son, it was such a severe setback to a team that always struggled to meet the costs of motor racing that very serious consideration was given to withdrawing from the sport altogether. Furthermore, Dr Porsche had ceased to be involved with the project, being occupied with the development of the Volkswagen and having been induced to join Mercedes-Benz once again to design a car capable of taking the World Land Speed Record.
The driver situation was also very difficult. Hans Stuck had been dismissed from the team, allegedly for telling Rosemeyer how much more money he was receiving than the young star, Varzi had temporarily retired from the sport a victim of morphine addiction, whilst his fellow Italian Luigi Fagioli, who had joined Auto Union at the start of the 1937 season after a successful period with Mercedes-Benz, was unable to continue racing due to ill health. Also reported to be unwell was Rudi Hasse, whilst the 1937 German motorcycle champion Hermann P Müller was still honing his skill behind the wheel of a racing car. Fortunately, Auto Union managed to persuade the great Tazio Nuvolari to take on the leadership of the team. Above all else Nuvolari loved winning races, but he knew that it had only been by superhuman efforts at the wheel of the out-dated Alfa Romeos that he had managed to beat the German cars, and even he had not been able to do this since 1936.
The Type D Auto Union V-12
In September 1936 the AIACR announced that the formula to be used for Grand Prix racing for the years 1938 to 1940 was to be on a sliding scale with a direct relationship between the minimum weight and the maximum engine capacity of the cars. The largest engine sizes permitted was 3-litres supercharged or 4½-litres unsupercharged, and cars with these engines had to weigh at least 850kg complete with their with wheels and tyres, but not the fuel and cooling water.
Auto Union met these requirements by developing a new car. This retained the fundamental concepts of the V-16 models, but it was extensively redesigned by a team overseen by Auto Union director Dr Werner and including Doctors of Engineering Karl Feuereissen, Oskar Siebler, and Professor Robert Eberan von Eberhorst. This Type D car used a 3-litre supercharged V-12 engine and to retain even firing impulses the angle between the two banks of cylinders was increased from 45 degrees to 60 degrees. This in turn meant that it was no longer possible to use the central camshaft between the blocks to operate all the valves, but this was retained to activate the inlet valves, whilst a camshaft on the outside of each block operated the exhaust valves. Designed to produce peak output at a significantly increased figure of 7,000 rpm, the initial figure was around 420 bhp. This engine was installed in a chassis of similar pattern to that previously used, but the rear suspension was fundamentally changed. The swing-axle was abandoned and a de Dion-type rear axle system was adopted, with lateral location controlled by a Panhard rod. Both these features were inventions from the earliest days of motoring, but the de Dion axle had been revived by Mercedes-Benz in 1936 and had proved very effective. The Auto Union version was simpler, and therefore cheaper. The best for the least expenditure necessary had always being an important consideration when designing and building the cars from Saxony since they did not enjoy the almost unlimited resources of their competitors from Stuttgart.
It was decided to move the driving compartment further back in the chassis and so the fuel tank behind the seat was done away with and replaced by pannier tanks, thus retaining the idea of no change in overall balance of the car as the fuel was used during a race. The suspension changes altered the cars to have inherent under-steer qualities which made them less demanding to drive, and on the circuits they were not significantly slower than the earlier models. Nevertheless, 1938 was a disappointing year for Auto Union and it was not until towards the end of the season that Nuvolari was able to achieve two victories for the team, in the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, and the British Grand Prix on the Donington circuit.
The Type D in its final form appeared for 1939, being fitted with two-stage supercharging which compressed the fuel-air mixture in progressive steps, increasing engine efficiency and reducing the power lost to drive a single supercharger. Still running at maximum of 7,000 rpm the power output rose to 485 bhp - a 65 bhp increase, giving a maximum road speed in circuit racing trim of up to 195 mph.
In an inevitably shortened season, and with Hermann Lang at the absolute peak of his form for Mercedes-Benz, Auto Union managed to win two major races, the first being the French Grand Prix at Reims where Müller took the honours. Then on the 3rd September, two days after Germany had invaded Poland and initiated the Second World War, Nuvolari won the Yugoslavian Grand Prix on a difficult circuit in Belgrade, bouncing over the cobbles in an alarming manner, to bring the final curtain down on a momentous and spectacular period of motor racing.
The lost racing cars
Following the defeat of Germany in 1945 the country was in a state of chaos and was divided by the victorious allies, America, Britain, France, and the USSR, into four administrative zones, the eastern one, that included Saxony, being overseen by the latter and generally referred to as the Russian Zone. All the allies were keen to learn as much as possible about Germany's 'high-tech' industries, notably aviation and rocketry, and much materiel and many German scientists and engineers in these fields went east or west as chance dictated. The USSR that had lost over 20-million of its citizens in the course of the war was perhaps unsurprisingly the most rapacious, dismantling and taking whole factories back to the motherland. Among the items that were taken back to Russia were around thirty Auto Union racing cars, although in the context of the times this was hardly a significant matter. Within a year of the ending of the war in Europe the 'iron curtain' had descended across the continent and the onset of the Cold War that was to last for almost fifty years was only months away.
For motor racing enthusiasts the disappearance of the Auto Unions was a matter for regret and they had to content themselves with photographs, the written word, and Dinky Toy die-cast models, to evoke the sight and sound of these legendary racing cars. For many years the only example known to exist was a V-16 car that pre-war had been prepared for exhibition and was on display in the Deutsches Museum in Munich. This was eventually restored to working order by Audi at the NSU factory in 1979-80 but remains on display in Munich.
As the interest in historic racing grew from the 1960s onwards efforts were made to find out what had happened to the rest of the cars. It emerged that the Russian authorities, somewhat uncertain as to why they possessed the cars, had distributed the Auto Unions to Technical Institutes and car factories (one source says this included a tractor factory) throughout the USSR as objects possibly worthy of study, though not emulation.
In 1974 an Auto Union Type D of 1938 minus most of its mechanical elements was discovered in Czechoslovakia, reputedly 'liberated' as the train carrying the entire stock of cars had passed through the country in 1945. A 1939 engine was located in eastern Europe and the car was restored to running order by the specialist firm of Crosthwaite & Gardner in Sussex, England, and it was then used for a number of years in historic racing by an English enthusiast before disappearing into an Asian corporate collection.
Also in the early 1970s the old car world became of aware of a V-16 car in Riga, Latvia. This turned out to be a Type C hill-climb car, not in running order, that had been kept for many years in Moscow, and was rescued by a Latvian enthusiast just before it was due to be cut up for scrap. It was then displayed at the Riga Museum. Audi acquired the car in the early 1990s and had it restored, with a copy being made for the museum.
Then in the early 1980s an American car collector of Russian descent, Paul Karassik, who had a passion for the Grand Prix Auto Unions and had seen the Riga car, decided to properly investigate the rumours of surviving cars that he heard about on visits to Russia. The full story was engagingly recounted by Doug Nye in Classic and Sportscar magazine in 1994 and it reads like a cross between a Sherlock Holmes detective story and one of the escapades of cinema adventurer Indiana Jones. Firstly a 1938 car with single-stage supercharger was tracked down near Leningrad, it having been dismantled and the chassis cut in half to provide the materials for a trailer. Karassik and his wife Barbara, who had spent her childhood in Saxony, were able to buy the parts and bring them out of Russia via Finland and send them to the United States.
The couple then located another Type D with two-stage supercharging in Kharkov in the Ukraine, one of two, or perhaps three, that had been in the Technical Institute there. The story was recounted that soon after one of the cars had arrived there, the staff being unable to strip the engine down as they lacked the requisite tools, had simply sawn it in half to see how it worked! This car had escaped such a fate, merely having been dismantled into its major components. With the reams of legal paperwork completed all the parts except the bodywork, which was beyond repair, were also transported across Russia to Finland, and on to America.
Over a three-year period the two cars were restored by Crosthwaite & Gardner, the 1938 single-stage supercharged car, chassis number 19, with engine number 11, was subsequently acquired by Audi.
The 1939 two-stage supercharged car found in the Ukraine has remained in private ownership and is the example offered here.
1939 Auto Union Type D, Chassis number 21, engine number 37
Technical specification:
Engine: mid-mounted 60 degree V-12 with two six-cylinder blocks cast in siluminium (silicon-aluminium) alloy with 'wet' steel cylinder liners and detachable alloy cylinder heads. Two valves per cylinder operated from a single inlet-valve camshaft and one camshaft per block for the exhaust valves driven by vertical shaft and bevel gears. Built-up Hirth-pattern crankshaft running in seven plain main bearings, forged con-rods with roller bearing big and little ends and Mahle alloy pistons. Dry sump lubrication with front-mounted oil-cooler. Dual magneto ignition with one plug per cylinder. Two stage Roots-type superchargers providing approx 24lb boost.
Dimensions: cylinder bore 65 mm, piston stroke 75 mm, 2986 cc.
Power output: 485 bhp at 7,000 rpm.
Transmission: plate clutch, rear-mounted 5-speed gearbox and integral final-drive unit with ZF limited-slip differential and right-hand gate change.
Chassis: tubular frame with parallel side-members utilising the engine as a semi-stressed unit. Independent front suspension with twin trailing links and transverse torsion bars, hydraulic dampers. De Dion-pattern tubular rear axle with exposed drive-shafts and paired universal joints, lateral location by Panhard rod, transverse torsion bars, hydraulic and friction dampers. 400 mm diameter by 50 mm drum brakes. Rudge-pattern wire wheels with (currently) Dunlop tyres 19 × 6 front, and 19 × 7 rear. Steering via worm and nut with divided track rods, approximately one turn lock to lock, detachable steering wheel.
Wheelbase: 2.77 m; track: 1.42 m; overall length: 4.20 m.
Bodywork: polished aluminium, single seater.
Reading the pre-war race reports one regularly comes across comments that the spectators were "overawed" by the sight and sound of the Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union racing cars, or that they were "awe-struck" by the performance of these powerful machines. The writer first saw this silver, streamlined, Auto Union on a dull day in a London street with red buses and black taxicabs passing by, and was so overawed by its presence that the car became, like a precious jewel, the gleaming centre of attention and the incongruous location and the mundane traffic faded from view. When the engine cover was removed there was beautiful machinery on display - beauty derived from function as well as form. This Auto Union has something of the quality of a fabulous beast of mythology - like an encounter with a unicorn - and after viewing it one was left wondering if it had really happened.
And one is also left wondering how could it be that mere mortals conceived, constructed, and drove such wonderful creations. For this actual car had been driven as it was intended to be, had endured some fifty years of hibernation, and then it had been miraculously found and restored to perfection by people with outstanding talents.
The Auto Union engineers built the car in 1939, and the team records, preserved in Dresden by Professor Peter Kirchberg, show that it was this car that was driven to victory by Hermann P Müller in the 1939 French Grand Prix at an average speed of 105.25 mph (169.38 kph). Paul Karassik and his wife tracked it down and rescued it. Crosthwaite and Gardner and their team of skilled engineers brought it back to life and the dextrous panel-beaters at Rod Jolley Coachbuilding re-clothed it in its sleek aluminium bodywork.
Dick Crosthwaite was able to drive it at the Nürburging on October 1st 1994, soon after work on it was completed. His comments are recorded in Classic and Sportscar magazine and he concludes: "The single-stage car is by far the more pleasant to drive, but its the two-stager which feels like a real racer. I'd love to see a proper racing driver use one of these cars competitively; their true potential was never realised because the war came along. Just picture one of these V-12s in amongst a historic race field. That would be a sight to see - and a sound to hear."
Having just been subjected to a mechanical refreshing at Crosthwaite and Gardiner, the car is absolutely ready to show, demonstrate or indeed race. As listed above only five Auto Union racing cars survive. Of these survivors, only the two Karassik-found cars can legitimately claim to be have been Grand Prix racing cars - the others are universally regarded as having been exhibition or hillclimb cars. Of the two cars that Karassik found, this is not only the most complete in terms of mechanical components, all of which were found in the same location, but is the definitive 1939 form of the model, with the big two-stage supercharger. In the words of Dick Crosthwaite, the reknowned restorer who has been involved with each of these cars, this is the best of all, with the added benefit of having been certified Professor Kirchberg of the Audi works themselves as the French Grand Prix winner - none of the other cars comes even close to such a provenance.
Audi owns three of these cars, the fourth is owned by a major private corporation collection, the same is true for every single Mercedes-Benz Grand prix car from this period, making this an unrepeatable opportunity to own a Grand Prix "Silver Arrow" Racing Car.
Major reference sources
Bamsey, Ian: Auto Union V-16 Supercharged - A Technical Appraisal; Foulis, 1990
Beinhorn Rosemeyer, Elly, & Nixon, Chris: Rosemeyer!; Transport Bookman Publications, 1986
Cohin, Edmond : L'Historique de la Course Automobile 1894-1965; Paul Couty, 1966
Earl, Cameron C: An Investigation into the Development of German Grand Prix Racing Cars between 1934 and 1939; His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1947
Frankenberg, Richard von: Porsche - The Man and his cars; G T Foulis, 1954
Molter, Günther & Wörner, Kurt: German Racing Cars and Drivers;Clymer, 1950
Monkhouse, George: Motor Racing with Mercedes-Benz; George Newnes, 1938
Norbye, Jan P; The Complete History of the German Car, Chapter: 'The four rings of Auto Union'; Portland House, 1987
Pomeroy, Laurence: The Grand Prix Car 1906-1939; Motor Racing Publications, 1949
Pomeroy, Laurence: The Grand Prix Car, Volume Two; Motor Racing Publications, 1954
Thiriar, Dr Michael : l'Epopée Porsche - Porsche Epic 1875-1948; Eder, 2001
Journals: The Motor 1939, Classic and Sportscar December 1994/January 1995.
Prologue
In the six years between 1934 and 1939 Grand Prix motor racing was dominated by two makes: Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union. Apart from being four-wheeled single-seaters, the cars from these two firms were fundamentally different in concept, design, and execution, and yet when they raced against each other the make that was the best on one occasion would frequently be beaten by the other at their next meeting. Whilst the two teams competed against one another in a professional and sporting manner, they did so against a background of aggressive nationalism that was to lead to the mayhem and misery of war. Regardless of whichever country the cars raced in, the spectacle they created excited and enthralled the spectators who showed a partisan support for either Mercedes-Benz or Auto Union that had no basis in logic but lacked nothing in conviction.
The second half of the nineteen-thirties was undoubtedly one of the truly great eras of motor racing, a period of closely contested races and dramatic technological development that culminated in its final year with two-stage supercharged three-litre engined cars that could attain speeds just short of 200 miles per hour of over 300 kilometres per hour.
For many years it was thought that every example of the charismatic 1939 Grand Prix Auto Unions had been lost forever, but this unique survivor, rescued from oblivion, demonstrates in the metal why the model is considered to be one of the all-time masterpieces of racing car design.
Auto Union - the origins of a business
The consortium named Auto Union came into being in 1932 and consisted of four makes: Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer; all located in Saxony in the eastern part of Germany. In the depressed economic climate of the time although Horch had 25 per cent of the German luxury car market, which inevitably was quite small, its factory was working at less than half its capacity and there was a distinct possibility that it would close down. DKW had also seen a steep decline in the sales of its cars and motorcycles, and Audi, by then 100 per cent owned by DKW, was scarcely functioning at all. Following discussions with the Saxon State Bank a merger of the three firms was unanimously agreed in June 1932 and almost immediately after this the new group purchased the Wanderer company. Auto Union adopted as a trade-mark four interlocking circles in a horizontal line, this being a plagiarised version of the Olympic rings. At the time of the formation of the new business it had a short-term debt of 12.4-million Reichsmarks (then the equivalent of about £800,000), and in its first year suffered an operating loss of around half a million Reichsmarks (£35,000). However, within two years Auto Union had made a dramatic recovery by rationalising its model range between the four makes and had become a powerful industrial concern, employing some 25,000 workers.
Within six months of its formation Auto Union decided that it would become involved in motor racing to promote its products. In October 1932 the a new Grand Prix formula had been announced by the governing body of motor sport, the Association Internationale des Automobiles Clubs Reconnus, and this was to apply for the years 1934 to 1936, although it was eventually extended to include 1937 as well. Its principal requirement was that the maximum weight limit of the cars would be 750 kg (1653 lbs) without fuel, water, or tyres. It was assumed that with this comparatively low maximum weight limit that the engines of the competing cars would probably not exceed about 3-litres capacity, therefore race speeds would be kept to reasonable levels, and that the cars would not be too expensive to construct and so more firms would build cars to take part in Grand Prix races. As events turned out, the AIACR was wrong on all counts.
Auto Union may have decided that it wanted to compete in the Grand Prix class, but time was short if it wanted to be in at the beginning of the new formula and it lacked the internal resources to create a top-level racing car from scratch. However, senior staff at Auto Union did know Ferdinand Porsche who and in December 1931 had established an independent design and engineering studio in Stuttgart. Today the name of Porsche is well enough known, but in the nineteen thirties he was but one of a number of leading motorcar designers in Europe and it is worth considering his record to this point to see why Auto Union chose to consult him regarding its particular problem.
Ferdinand Porsche
Born in Austria in 1875, Porsche showed mechanical aptitude from an early age, developing a particular interest in electricity. At the age of 18 he moved to Vienna to work for the firm of Bela Egger (later Brown Boveri) manufacturers of electrical equipment and machinery. He was also able to become a part-time student at Vienna Technical University to add theoretical knowledge to his innate creative ability. Within four years he had become manager of the test department and soon after this he entered the employment of Jacob Lohner, a Viennese coachbuilder who was keen to build electric cars. Whilst with Lohner, Porsche developed a petrol-electric system with an internal combustion engine supplying power to electric motors built in to the vehicle's wheel-hubs. The system had its drawbacks for ordinary motorcars, but it later proved its worth for heavy transport vehicles operating in difficult terrain. In 1906 Porsche became technical director of Austro Daimler and four years later came his first major international success when cars that he had designed took the first three places in the Prince Henry Cup competition, an arduous 1200 mile rally across Germany contested by some of the leading European makes of the day. The fact that Porsche also drove the winning car was a bonus.
Following this success Austro Daimler advertising featured a photograph of "Engineering-Director Porsche" and described him as: "Europe's most efficient Designer". In an era when prestigious motorcar makes were generally advertised with a list of their distinguished clientèle; for a designer to be given this level of exposure and credit for his achievements was unprecedented and shows that his creative and technical abilities were not only recognised by his employers, but more importantly they were prepared to say so publicly.
Porsche stayed with Austro Daimler until 1923, during which time he had been responsible for some outstanding aero engines, some fine motorcars, and he had received the award of an honorary Doctorate in engineering from the Technical University of Vienna in 1917. However, disagreements with the Board regarding motor racing policy led him to move to Mercedes, a firm that had a distinguished motor racing history, to which Porsche was keen to add. As technical director he developed the straight-eight and the S-class cars into race winners but he was uncomfortable with overall policy of the company that had become Daimler-Benz following the amalgamation of 1926. Similarly, the Directors did not appreciate his desire for continual innovation and in 1928 his contract was not renewed. Consolation came in the form of a second honorary Engineering Doctorate, this time from the Technical University of Stuttgart.
A brief spell with Steyr in Austria followed, but ripples from the Wall Street financial crash obliged this firm to join with Austro-Daimler, and Porsche was back where he had been before and did not want to be again. He resolved to set up his own independent design consultancy, and this is where the Auto Union directors found him when they decided to go motor racing. The fact that the first project of the "Dr Ing h c Ferdinand Porsche GmbH Konstrukionsbüro" (to give the business its abbreviated title) was for Wanderer, perhaps made their task a little easier.
Design and development of the P-Wagen Grand Prix car
Very soon after the new racing formula had been announced the Porsche bureau had developed the design for new racing car and this became its Type 22, often referred to as the P-Wagen, and ultimately the Auto Union. At its heart lay a V-16 engine, the first time that such a power plant had been projected for a racing car, but it was the decision to place the engine behind the driver that really surprised the motor racing fraternity. It was a dramatic and innovative design, if not quite as revolutionary as it seemed at first sight.
Whilst there had been rear-engined and mid-engined racing cars since the dawn of the sport, by 1900 anyone who was serious about going motor racing placed the engine where it just had to be: at the front of the chassis. Come 1923, and Benz, not yet joined with its rival Mercedes, decided to take a fresh approach to racing car design, inspired by the work of aeroplane and motorcar constructor Dr Edmund Rumpler. He had made in limited numbers rear-engined cars, with independent rear suspension, and streamlined bodies that in plan view were shaped like a rain-drop. Originally called in German the Tropfen-Auto (droplet-auto) they soon became known as Tropfenwagens. Benz acquired a licence to the Rumpler patents and built a team of 2-litre six-cylinder twin-overhead camshaft rear-engined racing cars with streamlined bodywork. Three Benz Tropfenwagens ran in the 1923 Italian Grand Prix at Monza and whilst one retired the other two finished in fourth and fifth places, several laps down on the trio of leading surcharged cars. This was the time when inflation was roaring away in Germany and even the well-established Benz company had to be very careful if it was to survive - and motor racing was a frivolity it did not need. Several of the Tropfenwagens were produced as sports cars and used in hill-climbs driven by Willy Walb, who was to become the first manager of the Auto Union racing team. Another was owned by Adolf Rosenberger, the man whose financial assistance was key to the establishment of the Porsche Konstruktionsbüro and who managed the commercial side of the business in its early days.
Original or not, once the concept had been agreed by Porsche and his design team the detail of the P-Wagen was very quickly drawn up. Not only was the engine placed towards the rear of the chassis, but the fuel tank was located immediately behind the driver; Porsche reasoning that as the fuel load decreased during the course of a race the handling characteristics of the car would be unchanged. The chassis was essentially a simple affair with two large diameter parallel tubes on each side, whilst independent suspension was used all-round, by torsion bars at the front and swing axles at the rear. Into this chassis was fitted the compact 45 degree V-16 4.4-litre engine, with a single overhead camshaft that operated all 32 valves, producing an output of around 290 brake horsepower at 4,500 revolutions per minute. From the outset it was designed as a rugged, reliable unit, with a very broad torque curve. Despite this it drove to a five-speed gearbox situated in the tail of the car, and then forwards to the limited-slip differential unit. The car was clothed in a streamlined body, and considerable attention was paid to airflow, for example the air that passed through the front-mounted radiator was carefully ducted to emerge through slots in the body side, not just left to find its own way out.
Such confidence did Porsche have in the design that he registered a separate company that could, if necessary, build and race the cars. Once the representatives of Auto Union came knocking at his door, this proved not to be necessary. For a price of 75,000 Reichsmarks Auto Union had the design for its racing car, and Dr Porsche was hired as consultant to oversee the project.
It was at this point that another character entered the story: the German Chancellor. At the opening of the Berlin Motor Show on the 11th February 1933, the Chancellor announced his intentions regarding motoring and the motorcar, including the building of Autobahns and also his enthusiasm for motor sports. Almost immediately Mercedes-Benz announced its intention to return to motor racing and the government, which even at this early date effectively meant the Chancellor was persuaded to provide state aid to assist the funding of the project. When Auto Union heard about this, a delegation that included Dr Porsche and the racing driver Hans Stuck met him and asked that money should also be made available the new team. The Chancellor agreed, but the original sum remained the same and was divided equally between Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union. It provided only about a tenth of the annual costs of the racing team for Auto Union, and was an even smaller fraction for Mercedes-Benz who were able to spend far more lavishly, but it helped to ensure that Germany would have two viable racing car makers that would compete against each other and ensure that races would not be a 'walk-over' - which would have impressed few people. The fact that there were also win and place bonuses available provided further incentive for the two makes to vigorously contest each race.
Racing the V-16 Auto Unions
With all the pieces in place, Auto Union was ready to go motor racing at the beginning of the 1934 season. The major problem that the team faced was not with the cars, although there were inevitably some 'teething' problems, but with finding drivers capable of exploiting the potential of the cars. The lead driver was the Austrian Hans Stuck, who in particular had a record second to none on the long continental hill-climb courses, but his two team-mates: Prince Hermann zu Leiningen and August Momberger; were not of the same calibre. Stuck showed the potential of the Auto Union by taking the world one-hour record at the Avus track in March 1934 at an average speed of 134.9 mph, (215 kph), but it was not until the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring in July that he achieved the first victory for Auto Union. Stuck was treated as a national hero, and his status was sustained by two more wins later in the year.
For the start of the 1935 season the engine size of the Auto Unions was increased to 4.95-litres and the power output rose to 375 bhp. This improved car was known as the Type B. New drivers were recruited to support Stuck, including the former Italian champion Achille Varzi who was noted for his calm manner in the cockpit of a racing car and his delicacy of control. Very much an unknown quantity was a new driver from the DKW motorcycle racing team, Bernd Rosemeyer. Varzi won two races during the season, Stuck one, but the performance of Rosemeyer in only his second race when he almost won the rain-soaked Eiffelrennen run at the Nurburgring, beaten by 1.9 seconds by Mercedes-Benz ace Rudolf Caracciola, showed that whilst he lacked experience his driving talent was not in question. His first win came three months later at the Masaryk Grand Prix run at Brno in Czechoslovakia and Auto Union had a new star driver.
The ultimate V-16 Auto Union, the Type C, was ready for the 1936 season, which started with a record breaking session on a stretch of Autobahn between Frankfurt and Heidelburg, where a maximum speed of a shade over 195 mph (312 kph) was attained. The car used was a streamlined version with an engine of 6.01-litres, giving a power output of 520 bhp at 5,000 rpm. Without the enclosed bodywork and geared to give a maximum speed of around 175 mph (280 kph) with consequent improved acceleration, the Type C Auto Unions dominated Grand Prix racing in 1936, Rosemeyer achieving five wins, and Varzi one. With the 750 kg formula extended into 1937 the Type C cars continued to be raced, and Rosemeyer won four major events during the year whilst unsung hero Rudi Hasse convincingly won the Belgian Grand Prix, Rosemeyer being on his way back from America at the time where he had won the Vanderbilt Cup race on Long Island. Once the circuit racing was over for the year Auto Union and Rosemeyer went record-breaking on the Frankfurt-Darmstadt Autobahn. With a streamliner that had the engine capacity increased to 6.3-litres he set new flying kilometre and mile records for the International Class C (5,000 to 8,000 cc) at 252 mph (406.3 kph).
Commenting on the V-16 cars in his monumental book The Grand Prix Car 1906 -1939, that stern technical observer Laurence Pomeroy noted: "As on the chassis, so on the engine, the general design, despite the use of sixteen cylinders, had a fundamental simplicity which compels admiration." However, because of the mid-mounted engine and the forward driving position, other less objective critics had decided from the day that the cars were unveiled that the Auto Unions were particularly difficult to drive. This view has never been entirely dispelled, but the results that the V-16 cars achieved in the years 1934 to 1937 with 19 wins out of 46 races entered, plus numerous hill-climb successes, shows that they were not the unwieldy aberrations that those wedded to the front-engined idea wanted to believe. It is true that because of the swing-axle rear suspension with its high roll centre the V-16 cars had a marked tendency to over-steer, but the skilled drivers who claimed the victories possessed an innate sensitivity of control and were able to exploit the potential of the cars to the full.
Tragedy at speed
On the 28th January 1938 an Auto Union Type C with improved streamlining was wheeled out on the Frankfurt-Darmstadt Autobahn to defend the speed records that its arch-rival was keen to take. In the calm morning air Caracciola had pushed the speed of his Mercedes-Benz up to 270 mph (435 kph) whilst on his test run, as the weather deteriorated, Rosemeyer achieved 268 mph (428 kph). Convinced that he could go faster to retake the record, and that he was able to control the car in the blustery weather, Rosemeyer set off again. He took the car up to a record-breaking speed but as it passed a gap in the forest a side-wind pushed the car off the concrete carriageway and even Rosemeyer's lightning-quick reactions could not bring it back under control. It crashed heavily and he was killed instantly.
In his book Motor Racing with Mercedes-Benz, published early in 1938, George Monkhouse who had, as the title implies, spent the previous season in close company with the motor racing community wrote: "Bernd Rosemeyer can safely be hailed as the fastest road-racing driver in the world today. He has a most likeable and dynamic personality and is exceedingly popular with the German crowds being young, good-looking, dashing, and carefree." It is therefore no surprise that the death of Rosemeyer shocked not only the motor racing fraternity but also the many who could only admire his talents from a distance.
Beyond the personal loss to his wife and infant son, it was such a severe setback to a team that always struggled to meet the costs of motor racing that very serious consideration was given to withdrawing from the sport altogether. Furthermore, Dr Porsche had ceased to be involved with the project, being occupied with the development of the Volkswagen and having been induced to join Mercedes-Benz once again to design a car capable of taking the World Land Speed Record.
The driver situation was also very difficult. Hans Stuck had been dismissed from the team, allegedly for telling Rosemeyer how much more money he was receiving than the young star, Varzi had temporarily retired from the sport a victim of morphine addiction, whilst his fellow Italian Luigi Fagioli, who had joined Auto Union at the start of the 1937 season after a successful period with Mercedes-Benz, was unable to continue racing due to ill health. Also reported to be unwell was Rudi Hasse, whilst the 1937 German motorcycle champion Hermann P Müller was still honing his skill behind the wheel of a racing car. Fortunately, Auto Union managed to persuade the great Tazio Nuvolari to take on the leadership of the team. Above all else Nuvolari loved winning races, but he knew that it had only been by superhuman efforts at the wheel of the out-dated Alfa Romeos that he had managed to beat the German cars, and even he had not been able to do this since 1936.
The Type D Auto Union V-12
In September 1936 the AIACR announced that the formula to be used for Grand Prix racing for the years 1938 to 1940 was to be on a sliding scale with a direct relationship between the minimum weight and the maximum engine capacity of the cars. The largest engine sizes permitted was 3-litres supercharged or 4½-litres unsupercharged, and cars with these engines had to weigh at least 850kg complete with their with wheels and tyres, but not the fuel and cooling water.
Auto Union met these requirements by developing a new car. This retained the fundamental concepts of the V-16 models, but it was extensively redesigned by a team overseen by Auto Union director Dr Werner and including Doctors of Engineering Karl Feuereissen, Oskar Siebler, and Professor Robert Eberan von Eberhorst. This Type D car used a 3-litre supercharged V-12 engine and to retain even firing impulses the angle between the two banks of cylinders was increased from 45 degrees to 60 degrees. This in turn meant that it was no longer possible to use the central camshaft between the blocks to operate all the valves, but this was retained to activate the inlet valves, whilst a camshaft on the outside of each block operated the exhaust valves. Designed to produce peak output at a significantly increased figure of 7,000 rpm, the initial figure was around 420 bhp. This engine was installed in a chassis of similar pattern to that previously used, but the rear suspension was fundamentally changed. The swing-axle was abandoned and a de Dion-type rear axle system was adopted, with lateral location controlled by a Panhard rod. Both these features were inventions from the earliest days of motoring, but the de Dion axle had been revived by Mercedes-Benz in 1936 and had proved very effective. The Auto Union version was simpler, and therefore cheaper. The best for the least expenditure necessary had always being an important consideration when designing and building the cars from Saxony since they did not enjoy the almost unlimited resources of their competitors from Stuttgart.
It was decided to move the driving compartment further back in the chassis and so the fuel tank behind the seat was done away with and replaced by pannier tanks, thus retaining the idea of no change in overall balance of the car as the fuel was used during a race. The suspension changes altered the cars to have inherent under-steer qualities which made them less demanding to drive, and on the circuits they were not significantly slower than the earlier models. Nevertheless, 1938 was a disappointing year for Auto Union and it was not until towards the end of the season that Nuvolari was able to achieve two victories for the team, in the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, and the British Grand Prix on the Donington circuit.
The Type D in its final form appeared for 1939, being fitted with two-stage supercharging which compressed the fuel-air mixture in progressive steps, increasing engine efficiency and reducing the power lost to drive a single supercharger. Still running at maximum of 7,000 rpm the power output rose to 485 bhp - a 65 bhp increase, giving a maximum road speed in circuit racing trim of up to 195 mph.
In an inevitably shortened season, and with Hermann Lang at the absolute peak of his form for Mercedes-Benz, Auto Union managed to win two major races, the first being the French Grand Prix at Reims where Müller took the honours. Then on the 3rd September, two days after Germany had invaded Poland and initiated the Second World War, Nuvolari won the Yugoslavian Grand Prix on a difficult circuit in Belgrade, bouncing over the cobbles in an alarming manner, to bring the final curtain down on a momentous and spectacular period of motor racing.
The lost racing cars
Following the defeat of Germany in 1945 the country was in a state of chaos and was divided by the victorious allies, America, Britain, France, and the USSR, into four administrative zones, the eastern one, that included Saxony, being overseen by the latter and generally referred to as the Russian Zone. All the allies were keen to learn as much as possible about Germany's 'high-tech' industries, notably aviation and rocketry, and much materiel and many German scientists and engineers in these fields went east or west as chance dictated. The USSR that had lost over 20-million of its citizens in the course of the war was perhaps unsurprisingly the most rapacious, dismantling and taking whole factories back to the motherland. Among the items that were taken back to Russia were around thirty Auto Union racing cars, although in the context of the times this was hardly a significant matter. Within a year of the ending of the war in Europe the 'iron curtain' had descended across the continent and the onset of the Cold War that was to last for almost fifty years was only months away.
For motor racing enthusiasts the disappearance of the Auto Unions was a matter for regret and they had to content themselves with photographs, the written word, and Dinky Toy die-cast models, to evoke the sight and sound of these legendary racing cars. For many years the only example known to exist was a V-16 car that pre-war had been prepared for exhibition and was on display in the Deutsches Museum in Munich. This was eventually restored to working order by Audi at the NSU factory in 1979-80 but remains on display in Munich.
As the interest in historic racing grew from the 1960s onwards efforts were made to find out what had happened to the rest of the cars. It emerged that the Russian authorities, somewhat uncertain as to why they possessed the cars, had distributed the Auto Unions to Technical Institutes and car factories (one source says this included a tractor factory) throughout the USSR as objects possibly worthy of study, though not emulation.
In 1974 an Auto Union Type D of 1938 minus most of its mechanical elements was discovered in Czechoslovakia, reputedly 'liberated' as the train carrying the entire stock of cars had passed through the country in 1945. A 1939 engine was located in eastern Europe and the car was restored to running order by the specialist firm of Crosthwaite & Gardner in Sussex, England, and it was then used for a number of years in historic racing by an English enthusiast before disappearing into an Asian corporate collection.
Also in the early 1970s the old car world became of aware of a V-16 car in Riga, Latvia. This turned out to be a Type C hill-climb car, not in running order, that had been kept for many years in Moscow, and was rescued by a Latvian enthusiast just before it was due to be cut up for scrap. It was then displayed at the Riga Museum. Audi acquired the car in the early 1990s and had it restored, with a copy being made for the museum.
Then in the early 1980s an American car collector of Russian descent, Paul Karassik, who had a passion for the Grand Prix Auto Unions and had seen the Riga car, decided to properly investigate the rumours of surviving cars that he heard about on visits to Russia. The full story was engagingly recounted by Doug Nye in Classic and Sportscar magazine in 1994 and it reads like a cross between a Sherlock Holmes detective story and one of the escapades of cinema adventurer Indiana Jones. Firstly a 1938 car with single-stage supercharger was tracked down near Leningrad, it having been dismantled and the chassis cut in half to provide the materials for a trailer. Karassik and his wife Barbara, who had spent her childhood in Saxony, were able to buy the parts and bring them out of Russia via Finland and send them to the United States.
The couple then located another Type D with two-stage supercharging in Kharkov in the Ukraine, one of two, or perhaps three, that had been in the Technical Institute there. The story was recounted that soon after one of the cars had arrived there, the staff being unable to strip the engine down as they lacked the requisite tools, had simply sawn it in half to see how it worked! This car had escaped such a fate, merely having been dismantled into its major components. With the reams of legal paperwork completed all the parts except the bodywork, which was beyond repair, were also transported across Russia to Finland, and on to America.
Over a three-year period the two cars were restored by Crosthwaite & Gardner, the 1938 single-stage supercharged car, chassis number 19, with engine number 11, was subsequently acquired by Audi.
The 1939 two-stage supercharged car found in the Ukraine has remained in private ownership and is the example offered here.
1939 Auto Union Type D, Chassis number 21, engine number 37
Technical specification:
Engine: mid-mounted 60 degree V-12 with two six-cylinder blocks cast in siluminium (silicon-aluminium) alloy with 'wet' steel cylinder liners and detachable alloy cylinder heads. Two valves per cylinder operated from a single inlet-valve camshaft and one camshaft per block for the exhaust valves driven by vertical shaft and bevel gears. Built-up Hirth-pattern crankshaft running in seven plain main bearings, forged con-rods with roller bearing big and little ends and Mahle alloy pistons. Dry sump lubrication with front-mounted oil-cooler. Dual magneto ignition with one plug per cylinder. Two stage Roots-type superchargers providing approx 24lb boost.
Dimensions: cylinder bore 65 mm, piston stroke 75 mm, 2986 cc.
Power output: 485 bhp at 7,000 rpm.
Transmission: plate clutch, rear-mounted 5-speed gearbox and integral final-drive unit with ZF limited-slip differential and right-hand gate change.
Chassis: tubular frame with parallel side-members utilising the engine as a semi-stressed unit. Independent front suspension with twin trailing links and transverse torsion bars, hydraulic dampers. De Dion-pattern tubular rear axle with exposed drive-shafts and paired universal joints, lateral location by Panhard rod, transverse torsion bars, hydraulic and friction dampers. 400 mm diameter by 50 mm drum brakes. Rudge-pattern wire wheels with (currently) Dunlop tyres 19 × 6 front, and 19 × 7 rear. Steering via worm and nut with divided track rods, approximately one turn lock to lock, detachable steering wheel.
Wheelbase: 2.77 m; track: 1.42 m; overall length: 4.20 m.
Bodywork: polished aluminium, single seater.
Reading the pre-war race reports one regularly comes across comments that the spectators were "overawed" by the sight and sound of the Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union racing cars, or that they were "awe-struck" by the performance of these powerful machines. The writer first saw this silver, streamlined, Auto Union on a dull day in a London street with red buses and black taxicabs passing by, and was so overawed by its presence that the car became, like a precious jewel, the gleaming centre of attention and the incongruous location and the mundane traffic faded from view. When the engine cover was removed there was beautiful machinery on display - beauty derived from function as well as form. This Auto Union has something of the quality of a fabulous beast of mythology - like an encounter with a unicorn - and after viewing it one was left wondering if it had really happened.
And one is also left wondering how could it be that mere mortals conceived, constructed, and drove such wonderful creations. For this actual car had been driven as it was intended to be, had endured some fifty years of hibernation, and then it had been miraculously found and restored to perfection by people with outstanding talents.
The Auto Union engineers built the car in 1939, and the team records, preserved in Dresden by Professor Peter Kirchberg, show that it was this car that was driven to victory by Hermann P Müller in the 1939 French Grand Prix at an average speed of 105.25 mph (169.38 kph). Paul Karassik and his wife tracked it down and rescued it. Crosthwaite and Gardner and their team of skilled engineers brought it back to life and the dextrous panel-beaters at Rod Jolley Coachbuilding re-clothed it in its sleek aluminium bodywork.
Dick Crosthwaite was able to drive it at the Nürburging on October 1st 1994, soon after work on it was completed. His comments are recorded in Classic and Sportscar magazine and he concludes: "The single-stage car is by far the more pleasant to drive, but its the two-stager which feels like a real racer. I'd love to see a proper racing driver use one of these cars competitively; their true potential was never realised because the war came along. Just picture one of these V-12s in amongst a historic race field. That would be a sight to see - and a sound to hear."
Having just been subjected to a mechanical refreshing at Crosthwaite and Gardiner, the car is absolutely ready to show, demonstrate or indeed race. As listed above only five Auto Union racing cars survive. Of these survivors, only the two Karassik-found cars can legitimately claim to be have been Grand Prix racing cars - the others are universally regarded as having been exhibition or hillclimb cars. Of the two cars that Karassik found, this is not only the most complete in terms of mechanical components, all of which were found in the same location, but is the definitive 1939 form of the model, with the big two-stage supercharger. In the words of Dick Crosthwaite, the reknowned restorer who has been involved with each of these cars, this is the best of all, with the added benefit of having been certified Professor Kirchberg of the Audi works themselves as the French Grand Prix winner - none of the other cars comes even close to such a provenance.
Audi owns three of these cars, the fourth is owned by a major private corporation collection, the same is true for every single Mercedes-Benz Grand prix car from this period, making this an unrepeatable opportunity to own a Grand Prix "Silver Arrow" Racing Car.
Major reference sources
Bamsey, Ian: Auto Union V-16 Supercharged - A Technical Appraisal; Foulis, 1990
Beinhorn Rosemeyer, Elly, & Nixon, Chris: Rosemeyer!; Transport Bookman Publications, 1986
Cohin, Edmond : L'Historique de la Course Automobile 1894-1965; Paul Couty, 1966
Earl, Cameron C: An Investigation into the Development of German Grand Prix Racing Cars between 1934 and 1939; His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1947
Frankenberg, Richard von: Porsche - The Man and his cars; G T Foulis, 1954
Molter, Günther & Wörner, Kurt: German Racing Cars and Drivers;Clymer, 1950
Monkhouse, George: Motor Racing with Mercedes-Benz; George Newnes, 1938
Norbye, Jan P; The Complete History of the German Car, Chapter: 'The four rings of Auto Union'; Portland House, 1987
Pomeroy, Laurence: The Grand Prix Car 1906-1939; Motor Racing Publications, 1949
Pomeroy, Laurence: The Grand Prix Car, Volume Two; Motor Racing Publications, 1954
Thiriar, Dr Michael : l'Epopée Porsche - Porsche Epic 1875-1948; Eder, 2001
Journals: The Motor 1939, Classic and Sportscar December 1994/January 1995.