Porsche-Designed, Auto Union Silver Arrow-based Type 52 Schnellsportwagen: Audi Follows The Road Not Taken
The Goodwood Festival of Speed, which opens today and runs through Sunday, July 14, has become a must-attend event in the automotive industry calendar. This annual motorsport event is one of a number held on the Chichester, West Sussex grounds of Goodwood House, in England, ancestral home to the Duke of Richmond. The circa-1948 Goodwood Circuit, tracing the perimeter of the World War II-era airport constructed on site, is where enthusiasts gather to celebrate the love of motion, and automakers come to show off their latest and greatest vehicles. Audi Tradition is using this event to unveil a fascinating new piece of its century-old corporate history in the form of a never-built-until-now road car based on the mid-engine Auto Union Silver Arrow.
Automakers with long histories and deep pockets find real benefit in recreating “missing link” vehicles for their heritage collections. Some recent examples of these include the 2019 versions of Bentley’s Mark V Corniche show car from 1939 and the Marcello Gandini-penned BMW Garmisch from 1970. Audi has done them one better by commissioning Crosthwaite & Gardiner to engineer and build a car from a turbulent time in its history that never went beyond engineering drawings.
In the Nazi era of 1930s Germany, Auto Union and Mercedes-Benz vied for competition superiority with their so-called Silberpfeile or Silver Arrows. These technologically advanced race cars competed in grands prix and hill climbs and set world speed records exceeding 230 mph. Auto Union’s versions of these racers, engineered by none other than Ferdinand Porsche, would be built as the V-16-powered Type A, Type B, and Type C, plus the V-12 Type D. The Auto Union AG corporation –consisting of the Audi, Horch, Wanderer, and DKW brands– was not even two years old when Porsche devised the Type 52 Schnellsportwagen (fast sporting car), a roadgoing version of the contemporary Type A/22 Grand Prix racer. This car was not built in period, but was envisioned to be what we now call a grand tourer suitable for use in endurance events like the Mille Miglia and 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The innovative Type 52 project would be dropped by Auto Union and Porsche in 1935, but before that happened, its development was partially laid out. As Audi Tradition explains, “It was based on the technology of the Grand Prix race car that was developed at the same time: The chassis from the Auto Union Type 52 was designed as a ladder frame with a mid-mounted engine. The drivetrain of the Auto Union Type 22 was used, but the compression of the powerful 16-cylinder engine was reduced to allow the car to run on regular gasoline. At the same time, the engineers reduced the gear ratio of the Roots supercharger. The Auto Union Type 52’s engine was to draw around 200 PS [197 hp] from 4.4 liters of displacement at 3,650 rpm. Its maximum torque of 4,450 kgf-cm [436 Nm/322 lb-ft] was achieved at a moderate 2,350 rpm. Compared to the Grand Prix legend, this was a reduction in output, but the excellent performance of around 200 km/h [124 mph], as calculated by the engineers, shows that the Schnellsportwagen would have lived up to its name.”
Audi has an ongoing relationship with the British race engineering specialty firm Crosthwaite & Gardner, which restored three original Auto Union Type D cars before the automaker commissioned it to recreate examples of each of its Silver Arrow racers along with the 1937 Avus Typ C Stromlinie, or Type C Streamliner. The U.K. firm’s expertise with Auto Union’s period engineering made it the perfect partner for this multi-year full-custom-build project that was based on surviving archival documentation. Audi Tradition notes that, since the original plans were never proven in construction and testing, some important technical decisions had to be made. Timo Witt, head of Audi’s historical vehicle collection, noted how, compared to the 90-plus-year-old engineering drawings, the Type 52’s wheelbase had to be stretched 12.4 inches so the mechanical components could properly function, they had to decide how the interior design would be handled, and of course, what color it would be painted. For many decisions, they took inspiration from the Grand Prix race cars.
According to Audi Tradition:
“None of the documents specified the color the car would have had at the time. So, Audi Tradition again took the race car as the foundation and chose Cellulose Silver for the finish. When it came to the engine that would power the Auto Union Type 52, Audi consciously decided to deviate from the designers’ original plan. Audi Tradition used the 16-cylinder engine from the Auto Union Type C; its output was not restricted to the Type 52 to ensure compatibility with the Grand Prix race cars. For that reason, the engine runs on a special methanol mixture. Based on the information handed down, which Audi Tradition has interpreted and implemented with considerable care, the Auto Union Type 52, which will be presented for the first time at Goodwood, is the closest approximation to the Schnellsportwagen Auto Union Type 52 that was imagined some 90 years ago but never built – until now!”
The Schnellsportwagen is visually imposing at some 200-inches long, with its Grand Prix racer-sourced, supercharged 6.0-liter V-16 engine mounted behind a bulkhead delineating the cabin with a racing-inspired central driver’s seat and two offset passenger seats. Accessible through small doors at either side, there’s space for luggage and two spare wire wheels ahead of the engine and open-gate five-speed transmission. Like the different engine choice, this car was built with a torsion-spring suspension and hydraulic shocks rather than the contemporary Type A’s leaf springs and friction shocks. The fuel tank was also relocated under the seats, rather than behind the driver as in the racer. True to the original are its four-wheel drum brakes.
This 513-hp, 3,197-pound car is being demonstrated at Goodwood by racer Hans-Joachim Stuck, son of Auto Union championship driver Hans Stuck, along with Le Mans-winning Audi racer Tom Kristensen. In a statement, Hans-Joachim Stuck said, “When I occasionally drive the Auto Union Type C, which my father drove in his day, at Audi Tradition events, the excitement and fascination of the motorsport fans is palpable. It is a great honor and pleasure to drive the Auto Union Type 52 at Goodwood for the first time. The Schnellsportwagen is simply breathtaking: Its sound is incredibly sonorous – like it came from an orchestra. And the design of the Auto Union Type 52 will practically blow you away – it’s genius!”
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