The Auto Union Survivors
The Auto Union Cars -- In their book, A History of Progress, Audi states,
“Auto Union’s total financial outlay on Grand Prix racing amounted to 14.2 million Reichsmarks. Since 1935, the racing department had maintained a large store of components and assemblies from which cars were assembled for each individual race, so that the actual cars were never the same from one race-meeting to the next. The total numbers of cars built in this way were 5 in 1934, 7 in 1935, 12 in 1936 and 1937, 16 in 1938 and 15 in 1939. After the war the Soviet occupying powers took possession of 12 Auto Union racing cars and shipped them back to the Soviet Union as reparations, where they were supplied to the local automobile industry for experimental purposes.”
Other historians, such as Mike Riedner, claim that the Soviets took as many as eighteen Auto Union cars behind the Iron Curtain in 1945. Historian Peter Kirchberg estimates that a total of 65 Auto Union Silver Arrows were built and that eighteen were at the factory in Zwickau when the war broke out. Whatever, the actual number should be, it is clear that the majority of the Auto Union Silver Arrows hardware was confiscated by the Soviets. At the time this property was considered exceptional examples of Germany’s engineering capabilities and not an exceptional example of 1930s Grand Prix racing history. As a result the Russians distributed their Auto Union war reparations material to their industries with direction to exploit the technology – not preserve it.
As everyone knows, the USSR was very secretive during the cold war years but in the 1970s, four sixteen-cylinder Auto Union Silver Arrows were supposedly located at the Russian Institute of Technology (aka Institute for Vehicle Development) in Moscow. A few years later three of the cars were said to have disappeared. After that many rumors circulated through the automotive community but there was little supporting evidence to back the claims. Portions of a chassis and a twelve-cylinder engine were smuggled out of the USSR during this time however.
In the 1980s, enthusiasts Paul and Barbara Karassik found the remains of two Type D Auto Union cars near Kiev in the Ukraine. After twenty four months of effort, the material was sent to Dick Crosthwaite and John Gardiner in Buxted, England for restoration. The restoration of these cars was completed in the Fall of 1994. Audi eventually bought the 1938 car from Karassik. The 1939 D-Type went to a private owner. It’s this car that was slated to be sold at Christie's February 2007 Retromobile auction for an expected $15 million. Christie's postponed the sale and later in March stated, “Based on our now completed research, we are accepting sealed tender bids for a period of one week today and invite prospective bidders to contact Christie's London office directly to receive applications for this tender.”
The most complete of the five Auto Union Silver Arrows in existence is a bit of an oddity. Known as the ‘Riga’ car, it is said to owe its survival to the actions of Leonoid Brezhev who intervened to have the car donated to the Latvian Veteran Car Club. It was a hillclimb car that used a 1937 sixteen-cylinder engine and a 1939 chassis. Audi was able to purchase the car from the Latvians after promising to also supply them with a replica. It was restored by Audi and debuted at Goodwood driven by Hans Stuck Junior.
Audi also was responsible for restoring a V-16 car that was donated to the Munich Museum in 1937. This car was a technical display piece that used a cutaway body to expose the interior mechanics. It was damaged during the war but Audi commissioned a replica body to be built and restoration was completed in 1980.
The final Auto Union Silver Arrow known to exist belongs to a Korean CEO. It is a V-12 that was discovered in Czechoslovakia and restored in England. Few details of the car are available.
Finally, one special recreation should be mentioned. It too was financed by Audi to bring their streamlined land speed record Silver Arrows back to life. Using details from the remaining artifacts as faithfully as possible, original technical drawings and photographs, a six liter V-16 racer was constructed to the likes of the car that ran at AVUS during 1937.
