Audi builds a 16-cylinder super sedan that was not designed and built in the 1930s.
In the 1930s, Audi's predecessor, Auto Union, designed a 16-cylinder sports sedan that was never built. Ninety years later, it will finally be shown to the public for the first time at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2024. [The Auto Union, created by the merger of Audi, DKW, Horch, and Wanderer in 1932, was intended to be a high-performance road car. Audi's four-wheel logo represented the four brands.
Together with Mercedes-Benz, Auto Union dominated Grand Prix racing in the 1930s (before Formula 1). The two German automakers dominated the competition with their Silver Arrows, so named because they raced with bare metal bodies to save weight. According to history, the success of the Silver Arrow was a propaganda coup for the Nazi regime that came to power at the same time, but it was never reflected in the road car.
However, things could have been different. Porsche's design office (Ferdinand Porsche had worked with Auto Union before founding the car company after World War II) intended to sell it to customers for long-distance road cars like the Mille Miglia and endurance races like the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and in 1933 Sketches for the Type 33 were started in late 1933. A prototype was also planned, but the project was abandoned in 1935.
As a result, a truly radical machine was never introduced to the world. Underneath the sedan body was a mid-mounted V-16 supercharger from an Auto Union Type A racing car. The 4.3-liter displacement engine was intended to have a lower compression ratio (to use regular gasoline) and less boost than the racing version, but Audi estimates that the Type 52 still reached a top speed of 124 mph.
The five-speed transmission was adapted from the race car, but the transverse leaf springs and friction dampers were replaced by longitudinal torsion spring suspension and hydraulic dampers.
Audi commissioned British firm Crosthwaite & Gardner to build a modern replica, swapping in a 6.0-liter V-16 supercharger similar to the 1936 Auto Union Type C racing car, 50% methanol, super unleaded gasoline Several changes were made to the car, including running it on a fuel mixture of 40% methanol and 10% toluene. This increased the output from the original 197 hp to 512 hp.
Audi also specified a longer wheelbase, which proved necessary for the drivetrain and suspension. The finished car is over 16 feet long, but has room for three people (the driver sits in the middle, McLaren F1 style), two spare tires, and luggage in its streamlined form. At Goodwood, the car will be driven by nine-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen and Hans Joachim Stück, a veteran whose father drove an Auto Union Grand Prix car in the 1930s.
