Audi Tradition brings the road-going Auto Union Type 52 to life. A remarkably-engineered Grand Tourer from a different era.

WEST SUSSEX, ENGLAND

Away from chasing dreams-electric, Audi visited their archives and have brought the Auto Union Type 52 sports sedan to life. An idea which began with the first sketches from Ferdinand Porsche’s office, at the end of 1933, the project was eventually abandoned in 1935.

Audi commissioned Crosthwaite & Gardner, historic race car manufacturers and restorers, who painstakingly built the Auto Union Type 52, with references from surviving archive documents, plans, and design sketches. At the heart of things, the Auto Union Type 52 takes inspiration from its side of the period Silver Arrows racing team, where Auto Union cars had a mid-engine layout, as opposed to the traditional front-engine format, adopted by Mercedes-Benz.

While the engine was mounted midship, the Type 52 was intended to be a Grand Tourer, designed to conquer long-distance races, like the Mille Miglia, yet it was to remain road-legal.

But producing this one-off, codenamed the Schnellsportwagen, was not straightforward, as the Type 52 did not even enter the prototyping stage (but if so, it would likely have been taken away by Soviet occupation forces after the war). Therefore decisions had to be made on certain solutions, if they would pass or not. Timo Witt, Head of Audi’s historical vehicle collection, mentioned that “One insight that came out of our intensive exchange is that the developers in the 1930s would probably have had to adjust some of the technical details in the course of testing, too.

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The Type 52 does deviate from the original plans, by being longer, with the wheelbase extended some 315mm, to accommodate components, which included the front suspension, steering, engine and transmission. On the inside, builders took inspiration from the Auto Union Grand Prix race cars, but with a modern take on colours and fabrics.

As for body finishing, Audi Tradition went with Cellulose Silver, which was the colour their period Grand Prix cars used. Legend has it that the Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix cars were originally coated in white lead-based paint, which made them tip the maximum-permissible weight at the scrutineering scales; hence they stripped off the paint, revealing the silver we all know the collective Silver Arrows team for.

The engine is a 6-litre supercharged 16-cylinder unit from the Auto Union Type C, which runs on a special blend of 50-percent methanol, 40-percent super unleaded and 10-percent toluene. This setup puts out 513hp. Originally, it was to be a 4.4-litre 16-cylinder engine, which ran purely on petrol, delivering a more humble 197hp.

On 11 August, the Auto Union Schnellsportwagen made its debut, at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

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