Auto Union GP car to be auctioned--Porsche design

[Formerly Steve Wilkinson]

Bonham's & Butterfield have just announced that they will be auctioning, during the August Monterey weekend this year, the Auto Union D-Type GP car raced by Hans Stuck in the late '30s, chassis #19, confirmed to be legit. They expect it to bring $8 million. It is, of course, a Ferdinand Porsche design--rear/mid-engine, as I remember 16 cylinders though that could be the cabernet talking, three liters, two-stage blowers.

Fascinating story of the chassis' rescue from the former Soviet Union, where a couple dozen Prewar Auto Union GP cars were cut up, destroyed, scrapped and otherwise ruined. (One had its chassis removed and cut in half for some commissar who needed a trailer.)

Go to the Bonham's & Butterfield website to learn all the details.

[SpeedracerIndy]

Didn't they already try to auction this same car once last year? There was a special on HD Net about the car, and Audi suddenly decided there was a problem with it's "confirmed" historical data and would not back it up. Maybe I'm thinking about another Auto Union, but this sounds awfully familiar. Either way, what a cool car!

[elpresidente]

Yep, I think this is the same one. I still have that episode on my DVR. Either way, this is an amazing car. The chassis/engine/gearbox numbers shouldn't be made such a big deal of. These amazing beasts were simply tools to get the job done - win grands prix. Can't wait to follow this auction

[SpeedracerIndy]

Yep, found it: http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2007/02/28/breaking-christies-statement-on-the-auto-union/

[James Brown]

someone good with a english wheel should start making repos of this car. it would be way cool for a daily driver

[Nine17]

Originally Posted by Formerly Steve Wilkinson

It is, of course, a Ferdinand Porsche design--rear/mid-engine, as I remember 16 cylinders though that could be the cabernet talking, three liters, two-stage blowers.

The Auto Union D Type of 1938-39 which is being offered by Bonhams was NOT a Porsche design nor was it a V-16. Ferdinand Porsche's contract with Auto Union ended after the 1937 season and the D Type was developed by a team at Zwickau led by Dr. Robert Eberan von Eberhorst featuring a supercharged V-12 engine. The D Type also dropped Porsche's swing-axles in favor of a de Dion set-up. The V-16 C Type is associated with Rosemeyer and Varzi; the V-12 D Type with Nuvolari and Muller. Stuck (Sr.) drove them both. Must be a FINE cabernet...

EDIT: BTW, Shouldn't this be in Off-Topic. Not exactly a 911 (or even a Porsche).

[Bench-Racing]

Here is the latest press release from Bonhams. Read on down, they have presented facts and new evidence that this is indeed the car it is purported to be.

Bonhams & Butterfields to Offer Hans Stuck's Legendary Auto Union Grand Prix Racer

at Quail Lodge in August

Bonhams & Butterfields is delighted to offer for sale by auction nothing less than one of the most charismatic Grand Prix racing cars ever built - the 1939 Auto Union 'D-Type' with rear-mounted 3-liter twin-stage supercharged V12-cylinder engine. The annual collector's motorcar car auction is set for August 14, 2009 in Carmel, CA.

This legendary racing car - absolutely confirmed today as chassis number '19' - was driven to placing finishes in the 1939 Grand Prix racing season. Handled by Auto Union factory team drivers Rudolf Hasse and Hans Stuck, this pioneering rear-engined Grand Prix projectile finished fifth in the German EifelRennen event on the North Circuit of the Nurburgring, and sixth in the Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France around the super fast public road course at Reims-Gueux.

The 1938-39 V12-cylinder Auto Union racing car - retrospectively classified postwar as the Chemnitz company's 'D-Type' model - was developed to meet a new set of international regulations governing Grand Prix racing. They specified a maximum engine capacity of 3-liters and a minimum weight limit of 850-kilograms. The 'D-Type' Auto Union was based upon a highly sophisticated and advanced new chassis design, featuring de Dion rear suspension and its fuel load centralized in pannier tanks hung along each side, within the wheelbase. The 3-cam V12-cylinder engine developed some 420bhp in 1938 single-stage supercharged form, rising to some 485bhp at 7,000rpm when two-stage supercharging was adopted for 1939.

That final pre-war season - whose leading cars such as this Auto Union represent the absolute high-tide of 'Silver Arrows' period technology - then opened on May 21 with the EifelRennen, at Germany's Nurburgring, where Nuvolari's 'D-Type' finished second and Rudi Hasse fifth in chassis '19' now being offered by Bonhams & Butterfields.

-More-

Auto Union Bonhams Quail Lodge Sale -2-

During the 1939 racing season, Auto Union deployed 11 'D-Type' chassis in the six significant Grand Prix Formula events contested. In addition to Nuvolari's second place in the EifelRennen, Hasse finished second in the Belgian GP, before his team-mates H.P. 'Happy' Muller and 'Schorsch' Meier brought the team a wonderful 1-2 success in the French race at Reims-Gueux.

It was there that chassis '19' raced for the last time, driven by Hans Stuck, the veteran Austrian star. In his hands, this 'D-Type' Auto Union completed the works team's day by finishing sixth.

Today, Auto Union 'D-Type' chassis '19' is the only proven surviving Grand Prix car of its type with contemporary 1939 racing history. It is one of the classic car world's most charismatic machines, and is exquisitely well-restored to running order. In a world hungry for genuine intrinsic value, it has much to commend it.

Post-war Myth and Mystery

For nearly half a century the survival in Communist Russia of ex-works German 'Silver Arrow' Grand Prix cars from the 1930s seemed little more than unproven myth. The search for any such cars from Mercedes-Benz or - much more so - Auto Union - was regarded as historic motor sport's quest for the Holy Grail. While several 1930s Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix cars survived at the Stuttgart factory and in private Western hands, the only known Auto Union was a sectioned 1936 V16 model exhibited in the Deutsches Museum in Munich.

It was known that the surviving Auto Union team cars had been expropriated by Soviet forces in the Autumn of 1945. In fact, no fewer than 13 Auto Union cars were transported by train from the company's devastated factories in Zwickau and Chemnitz, Lower Saxony, in what was to become Communist East Germany.

They were delivered to the Soviet Union's NAMI motor industry research institute in Moscow, where early in 1946 a working group of engineers was established to investigate these dazzlingly high-tech German designs. Four Auto Unions - one with wheel-enveloping streamlined bodywork - were dismantled and effectively destroyed during the NAMI group's inspection and analysis.

Two sister cars were delivered to Moscow's ZIS production car factory for parallel examination and research. One, a V16-cylinder, was subsequently scrapped. The other - which was a hill-climb car comprising a 16-cylinder-type chassis powered by the later V12 engine - escaped destruction, eventually passing into a museum in Riga, Latvia, and subsequently to Audi.

-More-

Auto Union Bonhams Quail Lodge Sale -3-

Four other Auto Unions - three 1938-39 V12 Grand Prix cars, plus one streamliner - went to the GAS factory in Gorky (now renamed Nizhniy Novgorod) where some components were cannibalized for use in GAS, Moskvich and ZIL-based competition cars. When one staffer required a trailer, a stripped Grand Prix chassis frame was cut in half to suit...!

Generally, the Soviet technicians were unable to run the cars, with the exception of one V12 'D-Type' at Gorky, whose tanks were found to contain the correct sophisticated German fuel mix. This car was started successfully and tested at high speed, only for driver Leonid Sokolov to find his path obstructed by encroaching roadside crowds. He lost control under braking, and crashed into them, killing as many as 18.

Around 1950, two surviving open-wheel GP Auto Unions and one 16-cylinder streamliner were assigned to engineer Vladimir Nikitin in Kharkov, Ukraine. He cannibalized the streamliner to build his 'Kharkov' racing car, powered by a 4-cylinder Podeba street engine. A fellow Ukrainian engineer, Eduard Lorent, also benefited from Auto Union study in building his small- capacity 'Kharkov L1' and 'L2' racing cars.

One complete open-wheeler chassis, the trailer-frame and their major mechanical components survived surplus to Nikitin and Lorent's requirements, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian-born American Paul Karassik - a Florida-based antique car enthusiast - spent much time in Russia hunting down the truth of the Auto Union legend. Karassik accumulated an incredible treasure-trove of pre-war Grand Prix car components, including Auto Union serial '19's complete, unspoiled chassis and the late-model V12-cylinder engine which powers it today. Mr Karassik entrusted restoration of this car to the renowned British 'Silver Arrow' specialists, Crosthwaite & Gardiner in Buxted, England, and they rebuilt it in as-original two-stage supercharged form.

Seventy years later, Auto Union 'D-Type' chassis '19' will star in the Bonhams & Butterfields sale at Quail Lodge in California on August 14, when it is expected to realize in excess of $8-million. It represents a uniquely attractive investment in cutting-edge history, and will likely provide a new owner with a unique and enduring entry ticket to every one of the classic car world's most prestigious events.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

Hans Stuck

Hans Stuck was born (officially) on December 27, 1900, although some consider he may have been five or even ten years older. He served in World War I before becoming a dairy farmer, exploring how fast he could drive on country roads while making his deliveries. In 1923 he won his class in a hill-climb event, and never looked back. He became a specialist hill-climber, winning repeatedly in a factory Austro-Daimler until 1931 when the company withdrew from competition. Charming, personable Stuck won support from Crown-Prince Wilhelm, son of the exiled Kaiser, in buying a racing Mercedes-Benz SSKL, and later that year he married leading tennis player Paula von Reznicek.

The well-connected racing driver later approached Prof Dr Ferdinand Porsche - the former Austro-Daimler and Mercedes-Benz chief engineer - for a prospective Grand Prix car design. The newly-formed Porsche Buro penned the rear-engined V16-engined 'P-Wagen' which the freshly-established Auto Union concern then took on to publicize its capabilities.

Apart from a brief period in 1936, he drove for Auto Union up to the outbreak of World War II. He returned to competition postwar, and reasserted his hill-climbing credentials as 'The King of Mountains', winning his last German national Championship as late as 1960. His son Hans-Joachim Stuck became a leading Formula 1 and endurance racing driver, winning the Le Mans 24-Hours twice for Porsche, and in 1990 adding the German Touring Car Championship title for Audi - the modern successor to Auto Union...

Rudolf Hasse

Engaging, bespectacled Rudolf Hasse was born on May 30, 1906, in Mittweida, Saxony. He was not only the tallest of all the great German racing drivers of the 1930s, he was also captain of his local fire brigade! He had begun racing Wanderer motor-cycles as early as 1926, and competed on four wheels from 1929, winning more than 30 awards in long-distance events. In 1932 he drove Adler sports cars and was highly regarded as being utterly dependable, competent and strong as an ox!

His capabilities earned his place in the Auto Union Grand Prix team in 1936, and he won the 1937 Belgian GP for them at Spa-Francorchamps. Hasse drove in 20 major GPs before racing was ended by World War II. He immediately volunteered for military service but when he was not accepted immediately he joined the Truppenbetreuung army welfare body. He was finally drafted in 1940 and became involved in military vehicle servicing. He died on the Russian front on August 12, 1942, aged 36.

[AndyK!]

Originally Posted by Bench-Racing

When one staffer required a trailer, a stripped Grand Prix chassis frame was cut in half to suit...!

I imagine this is one fast and extremely valuable trailer sitting in some Ukrainian farmer's barn.

[vanwyk4257]

If I won the lottery I would buy that car in a heartbeat, they are simply incredible! They are truly on par with the 917's in terms of historical significance as a world-beating race car.

[Formerly Steve Wilkinson]

Sorry, thought it was a Porsche design. Wouldn't have posted it if I'd known...

[davidbir]

Originally Posted by Bench-Racing

Here is the latest press release from Bonhams. Read on down,

Bench Racer: Another TNFer I think?

(Only a TNFer would give that kind of response)


As an aside in about 1979 Colin Crabbe in England acquired the first Auto Union grand prix car to escape from behind the Iron Curtain-somewhere I have a photograph of myself sitting in it taken by Crabbe in 1980.

[Markus33]

Well, even though it was built after the Professor left Auto Union, I suspect it would be safe to say the spirit of his influence is still in that car.

Markus

[daepp]

I saw the HD special. Waited the entire time to hear it start. Why in the world do the people who make these shows for car guys let us hear them roar.

We can't sit in them, can't drive them, can't smell them. At least let us hear the cark (cranked) and rev'd.

Anyone know the HP of a 37-39 V12/16???

[Laneco]

Originally Posted by Formerly Steve Wilkinson

Sorry, thought it was a Porsche design. Wouldn't have posted it if I'd known...

Oh it would have been even better if it were a Porsche design, but thank you for posting, Steve. The Auto Union is an absolute landmark motor vehicle, by any standard.

angela

[Nine17]

Originally Posted by Formerly Steve Wilkinson

Sorry, thought it was a Porsche design. Wouldn't have posted it if I'd known...

I'm glad that you posted, Porsche design or not. I saw a couple of these beasts on track at the Monterey Historics in 1999 -- the 6 liter V-16 cars make the most incredible sound you will ever hear. They were built to a formula much like the Can-Am -- the only restriction was a 750 kilogram dry weight. Whenever one of these cars, whether a Porsche-designed V-16 or a Eberan von Eberhorst V-12, comes on the market it is a topic worthy of discussion among those of us who are passionate about cars. I'm also glad that the car at Bonham's is now recognized as having been constructed from original components; it might have made more money for its seller last year.