Everyone knows the Auto Union Silver Arrows, the legendary 1930s Grand Prix race cars.
But hardly anyone knows that a street-legal sports car version with a 16-cylinder engine was also planned for these pioneering racing cars: the Auto Union Type 52.
Now Audi has built this car, the Schnellsportwagen, and will present it to the public for the first time at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in England in mid-July.
Back to the time when the Auto Union Type 52 was imagined: Auto Union AG, formed in 1932 from the merger of Audi, DKW, Horch, and Wanderer, became a motorsports contender from early on to make its new logo, the four rings, a household name around the world.
The same year, the rules were published for the new 750 kg formula used in the Grand Prix held from 1934 to 1936.
In 1933, Auto Union AG commissioned the Stuttgart design office of Ferdinand Porsche to develop a race car based on the 750 kg formula.
Work on the Auto Union Type A (internally, Porsche called it the Type 22) began in March of 1933.
Just one year later, Hans Stuck set a world record driving the car on the AVUS circuit in Berlin.
When the innovative Auto Union and Mercedes-Benz race cars burst onto the international racing scene, the legend of the Silver Arrows was born.
