As befits a racing driver who drove cars with thin skins of aluminum, the blueberry cheesecake we made him is garnished with metallic bits of decorative candy and strips of aluminum foil. It’s a very easy cake to make: if you’ve ever set foot in a kitchen, you can probably make your own. Head over to Hyperleggera for the recipe.

Photo Credit: Audi AG (Rosemeyer doing a burnout in his Auto Union Type C at the 1937 Donington Grand Prix) and the author (cake)

The bar is manufactured by the peculiarly named Belgian chocolatier Starbrook Airlines and is part of their Classic Wheels range, all of which come in automotive themes. They are sold all over Europe in gourmet delis for around $5 a pop.

Perhaps if you gobble down an entire bar of Rosemeyer in one go, you will be able to do what he did in 1936 at the Nürburgring. Where, in thick fog, he took his finicky mid-engined V16-powered Auto Union to first place in the Eifelrennen, overtaking Tazio Nuvolari on the last lap.

Behold der Nebelmeister wreak absolute havoc on his skinny Continentals:

My Rosemeyer bar has sat in my candy box ever since I acquired it. I don’t dare touch it. Who knows, maybe it makes you fling antediluvian racing cars around with reckless abandon. And while I've watched videos of Bernd Rosemeyer, studied in great detail Bernd Rosemeyer, admired Bernd Rosemeyer, I'm no Bernd Rosemeyer.

See, if you're serious about Porsches- and what Porsche zealot isn't?- you want a book about Ferdinand Porsche, the father of the brand, to pack some heft! You'll need a level of detail that's so overwhelmingly, in fact alarmingly, obsessive that you'll learn something new on every page.

This is such a book. Nearly 500 pages, a bonanza of Über-Geeky technical details (ever wonder how Ferdinand managed to make the connecting-rod arrangement work in a W9 aircraft engine in 1917?), and eleventy-million vintage photographs. On top of that, you get eight gorgeous, porn-grade foldout color pages with cutaway illustrations by artist Wolfgang Franke, featuring such machines as the 1922 Austro-Daimler ADS-R and the 1936 Auto Union C-Type. This thing- which weighs about as much as a manhole cover- is definitely one of the most beautiful car books I've ever seen, and it will make the other car books on your coffee table look like Go, Dog Go.

But hey, now that I've mentioned Porsche's role in designing the Auto Union race cars, we've got to address the most troubling aspect of Genesis Of Genius: its treatment of Ferdinand's activities once Hitler and the National Socialist Party came to power. Here's what we get on that subject: deafening silence. The narrative reaches the early 1930s and then… starts… treading… very… carefully… among… the… land mines. For example, the Auto Union racers were pure propaganda tools for the Third Reich, just like their athletes in the '36 Olympics- surely Porsche had some comments on the subject at the time? Not in this book. As Ludvigsen states in the preface: "This account of Ferdinand Porsche's career stops short of detailed description of the well-known achievements that some consider his greatest, the Auto Union racer and the Volkswagen. Thus we've characterized these years as the Genesis Of Genius." A cop-out? Sure! Perhaps acceptable in a straight-up wank job of a book aimed at the most devoted of single-interest car geeks, but we're dealing with a high-quality, obsessively researched and well-executed biography here and such omissions say something- is ominous too strong a word?- about the author's expectations of his readership.

So, because I'm an elitist biography snob who gets offended when the subject's warts get airbrushed out (I'm reading this book at the moment), I'm going to deduct a rod from the highest possible 5-rod rating (in honor of the Mercedes-Benz OM617) and give this book four rods. Murilee says check it out!

Images reprinted with permission from Ferdinand Porsche—Genesis of Genius by Karl Ludvigsen, © Bentley Publishers, all rights reserved.
[Bentley Publishers]

Exhibit A

The problem:

We see a young lady trying to place a bag of groceries inside her Audi R8 V10. She is prevented from doing so by the R8’s 5-liter V10 engine which gives off enough heat to prepare an instant meal from the chicken and the produce in her shopping bag. This is undesirable as her dinner guests are yet to arrive and she would hate to serve them a less than fresh meal.

The Jalopnik solution:

Invite dinner guests to parking lot. Produce copy of Manifold Destiny: The One! The Only! Guide to Cooking on Your Car Engine! and find a recipe. Prepare chicken on intake manifold of engine. Serve piping hot. Initiate highbrow petrolhead conversation by pointing out Bernd Rosemeyer’s 1936 Auto Union Type C racing car on shopping bag.

Exhibit B

The problem:

We see a bike rack installed above the 5-liter V10 engine of a Lamborghini Gallardo, with a bicycle clipped to it. Even if this is a high-end racing bike made of titanium with a melting point of 3034 °F, the immense heat from the engine will cause it to melt and splatter said engine with molten metal. This is undesirable, as a Lamborghini with a melted engine will quickly come to a complete stop.

The Jalopnik solution:

Take off bike rack. Take off bike. Get on bike. Find skilled driver. Hold on to passenger side rearview mirror. Acquire balls of titanium. Enjoy 200 MPH ride on skinny bike tires.

Model: Natalie Polgar. Photo Credit: Balázs Fenyő (Audi), Milano Fixed (Lamborghini)

VW is reportedly set to buy a stake of up to 49 percent in Porsche, although VW CEO Martin Winterkorn has given assurances that Porsche would remain an independent brand, as is Audi. This is a marked change in affairs since Porsche, which still controls a stake of roughly 20 percent of VW, attempted to buy VW earlier this year. Sales projections for the combined companies are estimated at more than $171 billion from as many as 6.4 million vehicles.



It is currently unknown whether the VW/Porsche "Auto Union" will collaborate to produce some sort of bulbous rear-engined car. [Automotive News (Subs. Req)]

Born in Budapest, Glass started work as a cartoonist and retoucher. In 1931 he moved to Berlin where he became an established photographer. Always a fan of racing, Glass became best known for his officially comissioned pictures of Mercedes racing cars.

In 1938 Glass fled Germany for London, where he took on fashion and nude photography. [via Science and Society]

Mercedes-Benz W25 GP coupe racing car, 1934.

Manfred von Brauchitsch with Mercedes racing car, Berlin, 1933.

Mercedes-Benz being transported onto a ship by crane, 1934.

Nude model and Mercedes wing-door car, c 1961.

Mechanics working on a Mercedes-Benz racing car, Berlin, 1934.

W25 GP coupe racing car and Mercedes-Benz special roadster, 1934.

Mercedez-Benz W25 on the starting grid at Nurburgring racetrack, 1934.

Couple drinking beer, c 1950s

Roger Moore, Silvercrin advert, c 1950.

Bugatti Type 53 racing car being driven along a race track, Germany, 1930s.

Mercedes-Benz sK racing car, Nurburgring, 1931.

Mercedes-Benz W25 GP display racing car, Germany, 1930s.

Suspension and wheel of Auto-Union V16 racing car, Germany, 1930s.

Auto-Union V16 racing car engine, Germany, 1935-1937.

Couple with a Stoewer saloon car, Germany, 1930s.

Battilana in an Alfa Romeo Monza racing car, Nurburgring, 1930s.

Nazi salutes at a motor racing track, Germany, 1930s.

Mercedes-Benz convertible, and swastika on Junkers tailplane, 1930s.

Achille Varzi beside a Bugatti Type 51 racing car, Germany, c 1931.

Louis Chiron at the wheel of his Bugatti racing car, Berlin, 1933.

Racing driver smoking a cigarette, Germany, c 1935.

Louis Chiron in his Bugatti, Nurburgring, Germany, 1932.

Gerhard Macher in his DKW racing car, AVUS race track, Berlin, 1933.

A swastika-wearing driver of a motor racing car, Germany, c 1934.

Front wheel of a 1911 Auto-Union racing car, c 1934-1935.

Mercedes-Benz W25 GP racing car covered with cloth, Nurburgring start area, 1934.

Reporter typing in a BMW convertible, Paris, 1934.

Model reclining in Mercedes wing-door car, c 1961.

A classic equestrian statue—albeit with neither Archduke Charles of Austria nor Tamerlane riding it—was the first massive automotive installation at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, created in 1997 to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of Ferrari. The practice has since become a major visual hallmark of the festival along with the endless bales of hay and the scores of racing drivers in attendance.

I had already heard of this year’s colossal outcrop of Aluminum und Shteel before emerging from behind a copse to arrive at the entrance of Goodwood House but that did not diminish at all its power to awe. A 40-ton loop of steel played heavenly tarmac to two pinnacles of Vorsprung durch Technik. On one end was parked Audi’s latest and greatest, the V10-powered Audi R8. Opposite the R8 was a seventy-year-old race car with 1.6× the cylinders.

Quite a car, that. A contemporary of Art Deco marvels like the Chrysler Airflow and the Cadillac Sixteen, it is a streamlined version of the V16 monster that Bernd Rosemeyer drove to win the 1936 European Grand Prix Championship with. During the Rekordwoche—Record Week—of October 1937, Rosemeyer drove this car to 406 km/h (252 MPH) on the public road. That’s within rounding error of the Bugatti Veyron’s top speed and is officially the second fastest anyone has ever gone on a public highway. The record was set three months later on a cold January morning, when Rosemeyer’s nemesis Rudolf Caracciola drove his Mercedes-Benz W125 Streamliner at 268 MPH. Rosemeyer followed ninety minutes later in the Auto Union’s successor, which accidentally developed ground effects that broke the car apart at a speed very close to Caracciola’s, killing the ethereal German.

The man who makes these leviathans of car geekery is a rather unlikely candidate for the job. Gerry Judah is a Baghdadi Jew from Calcutta living in London since 1961.

He is a classically trained artist with diplomas from Goldsmith College and the Slade School of Fine Art. Like a fellow Baghdadi Jew—Sir Victor Sassoon, builder of the gorgeous Peace Hotel in Shanghai—Judah is drawn to making large things. He has worked with many institutions and artists in creating oversized sculptures, displayed outside of museums. Like at the Festival of Speed.

A most interesting aspect of Judah’s work for the Earl of March is its remarkable variety. From Land Rovers climbing a wireframe mountain to a line of Toyota racecars strung up in line, he rarely does the same thing twice. Or, as he was quoted by Wallpaper* magazine in a grammatically correct play on the classic Apple tagline: “You've got to think differently every year.”

Photo Credit: Wallpaper* (second from top), Bruno Postle/Flickr (second from bottom), Mark Thompson/Getty Images (bottom) and the author

For serious road racing, you need a car with the engine in the middle: behind the driver but in front of the rear axle. While pretty in its physics on paper, the idea of mid-engined car construction was a difficult birth. In spite of its conception and very successful application by Ferdinand Porsche in the pre-war Benz Tropfenwagen (pictured left) and various Auto Unions, motor racing emerged from World War Two with front-engined cars.

But then physics came marching down on a racing establishment uncomfortable with the idea of horse-pushed carriages. 1958 would be the last season in Formula One won by a front-engined car, followed by Le Mans in 1962 and the Indianapolis 500 in 1964. Since these respective years, all of these races and championships have been won by mid-engined racing cars. Road cars soon followed, with the tiny fiberglass De Tomaso Vallelunga in 1964, then a year later the very car that gave birth to the word supercar: the Lamborghini Miura, with its transversely mid-mounted V12.

In Formula One and at the Indianapolis 500, it was pesky outsiders who convinced the ruling elite with their performances that mid-engined was the way to go. At Le Mans, a most unlikely development occured: reigning Ferrari replaced its front-engined 1962 330 TRI/LM Spyder (a derivative of a five-year-old design) with the radically new 250 P (pictured above at the Nürburgring) for 1963. The scuderia promptly won both at Sebring and at Le Mans.

It was all doom and gloom for the front engine as the Ferraris were followed by the Ford GT40 and decades of Porsches, beginning with the monstrous 917. But then in 1997, an American decided to give the mid-engine the finger. His name was Dr. Donald Panoz and he liked his six-liter V8’s up front, thank you very much.

The Panoz Esperante GTR-1 was a closed coupé with a Roush V8, named after the Panoz Esperante roadster with which it had little in common. In a sense, it was also mid-engined—but unlike every other mid-engined car, it had its engine between the front axle and the driver.

The GTR-1 had its share of teething problems in its debut year, but it returned for 1998 to take seventh place at Le Mans. One of the drivers was David Brabham, the son of triple Formula One world champion Jack "Black Jack” Brabham, who would go on to win last weekend’s race with Peugeot.

At the end of the 1998 racing season, the GT category that the GTR-1 raced in was eliminated. Panoz countered with a brand-new prototype for the next season: the open-top LMP-1. The car retained the GTR-1’s Batmobile proportions and its six-liter thunder-happy V8, presenting an even more Cyrano-esque nose.

The LMP-1 raced at the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans, a race made famous by the flying CLR’s of Mercedes-Benz. Driven by Brabham and company, the car finished seventh, similar to its closed-top sibling at the previous year’s race. The LMP-1 would produce its best result in 2000 with a fifth overall finish—which it would repeat in 2003 behind the all-conquering Audis and Audi-derived Bentleys.

By then, the LMP-1 was an aging design, and it was replaced with the LMP07, which would prove disappointing. Panoz withdrew from prototype racing and returned to Le Mans in the GT2 class for 2005, to compete against Ferraris, Porsches and Spykers derived from road cars. Their first outing at the scorching 2005 race would produce no results, but a front-engined Panoz Esperante GT-LM driven by three Brits would beat both Ferrari and Porsche to win GT2 in 2006.

While Panoz’s front-mid-engined prototypes could never really hold up against mid-engined racing cars from major manufacturers, they proved that the front-mid engine construction was a viable concept. In the years that followed, a crop of supercars built on the same principle would emerge: the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren and the Ferrari 599 GTB. The latter is now also available as a track-only version, for decades inconceivable in a front-engined Ferrari, showing perhaps that we have indeed come full circle since Enzo Ferrari first commissioned a mid-engined prototype for Le Mans in 1963.

All we need now is a team with the funding and the guts to follow through.

Photo Credit: Matt Turner/ALLSPORT, Speedhunters, Lokis_world/Flickr, Mike Hewitt /Allsport, Ferrari, Ker Robertson /Allsport

Although Porsche declined to comment, we're told the one key sticking point revolves around who would lead the new company. There has been mounting pressure to name Volkswagen's CEO, Martin Winterkorn, the leader of the merged company, a move which likely doesn't sit well with Porsche.

Ferdinand K. Piëch, the VW chairman, last week offered a vision of a combined company in which Volkswagen would be in control - based in Wolfsburg, like Volkswagen, with Martin Winterkorn, the VW chief executive, holding that role in the new company. He also warned that Porsche would have to get its debt under control before a deal could be completed.

Porsche, with a market value of 7.2 billion euros, is dwarfed by VW, which has a value of 69.6 billion euros. Porsche holds 50.76 percent of Volkswagen shares. It also has said it holds options giving it the right to acquire a total of about 75 percent.

Probably not helping negotiations may be the relations of the controlling families. Ferdinand K. Piëch is chairman of VW, and his cousin Wolfgang Porsche heads the Porsche board. Ain't nothing but a family thing. [via NYT]

Photo Credit: Andreas Rentz / Getty Images News

It is not without a sense of unease to contemplate the meteoric rise of Audi these past few years. A company with a Gordian knot of a history best known for making slightly better Volkswagens has somehow replaced both BMW and Porsche at the bleeding edge of German design and technology. And being on top is, of course, uncool by default.

It may already be too late. Audi is perhaps already what Porsche was in the 80s and buying an R8 these days may now perhaps be akin to purchasing a yellow 911 convertible in Thatcherite Britain.

But none of this really matters for making up your mind whether to attend this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, where Audi will be the featured carmaker. What matters is that they will have on display the entire spectrum of Audi racing cars, including the prewar Auto Unions. With twelve and sixteen cylinders and as many straight pipes for exhausts which carried Bernd Rosemeyer to Grand Prix victories and, later on, to death.

Read more and plan your trip at the Festival of Speed site.

Photo Credit: VOLKER HARTMANN/AFP/Getty Images

Contrary to the teenage sprinters in Formula 1, the field at a race like Le Mans is mostly made up of middle-age guys, with a few granddads thrown in for good measure.

Take Yojiro Terada. Born in 1947, he has raced cars since the 60s and has competed at Le Mans an astonishing 29 times. While victory has eluded him so far, he has won his class on four occasions. He also appears to like perfectly circular fried eggs, as evidenced on his blog.

While frying eggs is a relaxing pastime, driving racing cars at Le Mans is not: if you stand at the braking zone of a corner, you can see that cars decelerate with the ferocity of spaceships reentering the atmosphere. Now imagine taking that pummeling with grandpa bones, corner after corner, lap after lap.

Only a few years younger than Terada is Hans-Joachim Stuck, the son of 30s Grand Prix driver Hans Stuck whose Auto Union will be up for auction in August. Hans-Joachim is an highly accomplished racing driver himself: he has won two times at Le Mans and three times at Sebring, a race he is returning to this weekend.

Stuck will race at the 12 Hours of Sebring in VICI Racing’s #18 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, teamed up with Nicky Pastorelli and his son Johannes Stuck. “Racing at Sebring again after winning for the first time in 1975 means a lot to me, especially when it comes to the fact that I can compete in the 2009 race with my son Johannes and further to that it will be my first race with Porsche since my last race for the factory in Laguna Seca 11 years ago in 1997,” the 58-year-old said.

The Sebring race on Saturday will also mark the debut of Audi’s new diesel R15, which is replacing the R10. The new car has had all its testing in cold, rainy Europe and Ralf Jüttner, Technical Director of Audi Sport Team Joest, is somewhat jittery:

We are not as well prepared as we would like to be—but this is actually always the case with a new car. Unfortunately, it hurt us a lot this year that the tests in Europe were affected constantly by bad weather and we have not run in hot conditions like we can expect at Sebring. Furthermore, for the first time we did not test at Sebring before the race—which means we have no experience whatsoever with the Audi R15 TDI on the track.

This is shaping up to be a wonderful Florida weekend.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images, Yojiro Terada, Vici Racing, Audi

Audi’s last V12 ran on diesel and won at Le Mans three times between 2006 and 2008. The one before that was built seventy years before, ran on gasoline, and powered the Auto Union Type D in the 1938 and 1939 seasons of the European Grand Prix Championship. It was Ferrari-small, only three liters of displacement, but by the time it gained two-stage supercharging for 1939, the engine developed close to 500 HP. This was the car Tazio Nuvolari hit a deer with, in practice for the 1938 Donington Grand Prix.

If you would like to one-up the great little man of Mantua and upgrade to perhaps smacking into a bison, now is your chance: chassis #19 of the Type D will be up for auction by Bonhams & Butterfields on August 14 in Carmel, California. Number nineteen was driven by Nuvolari’s teammate Hans Stuck on the Nürburgring and at Reims.

Expect to spend about $8,000,000 and remember: bison are large, aggressive animals.

Source: Keith Martin’s Sports Car Market

Rosemeyer, known as the Silver Comet, was a famous German motorcycle and car racer almost unequaled in his day. His greatest rival was Rudolf Caracciola of the rival Mercedes team. The two would face off in numerous races, with Rosemeyer behind the wheel of the awesome Auto Union Type C, until the final showdown in 1938 when Adolf Hitler demanded a world record speed from a German car with a German driver.

Both men made passes on a stretch of autobahn, attempting to outdo each others high speed. Caracciola finally set the record at 268 MPH in his gleaming Mercedes. Rosemeyer jumped into his rekordwagen and took off down the long stretch attempting to chase that record. Whether or not he made it, or would have made it, is a matter of historical guesswork as the car met aerodynamic difficulties and flew into the air, flipping twice and killing Rosemeyer.

The Audi Rosemeyer concept, which influenced both the Audi R8 and Bugatti Veyron, was named for him.

[via Wired, Photo: Serious Wheels]

Pink Floyd's big drummer boy owns quite a few cars. OK, that's an understatement. Mason reportedly owns around 40 with "25-30" being what you'd call "serious." He's owned or still owns a Type 35 Bugatti, D-type Jaguar, Maserati 250F, Ferrari 250GTO, just to name a few. So we're pretty sure he'll feel comfortable handling the '39 replica.

Sure, he's a Brit driving a replica of an original Auto Union racer — a car engineered by Ferdinand Porsche, and commissioned by Adolf Hitler and the government of Nazi Germany. See, Nazis and Grand Prix Racing go way back. [via Carscoop, Times Online]

To tell the story of the Type C, you have to start at the Great Depression. As they were everywhere, the period was hard for Germany, and though the engineering talent of Ferdinand Porsche was well know at the time, the commissions for automobiles had simply dried up. Not one to have his ambitions squelched, Porsche joined with a group of his former associates including Adolf Rosenberger and Karl Rabe to form the Hochleistungs Motor GmbH (High Efficiency Engines company). At this point, development work on a Grand Prix-competitive engine began in earnest without a contract.

In parallel, the companies of Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer formed Auto Union in an effort to ride out the storm of the depression by way of leveraged finances and increased purchasing power. As all good, freshly minted European auto makers in the 30's must do, a race car was commissioned, and this one went through Porsche, who had connections to Auto Union through Wanderer. The cash to do the development is what gives these cars a special, perhaps infamous place in history. Adolf Hitler, the newly appointed Chancellor of Germany, had commissioned Mercedes Benz to build a car to dominate racing and had provided 500,000 Reichmarks to do it. After convincing Hitler of the benefit of two entries from Germany, the chancellor split the pot and 250k RM went to each team.

At the time, the front engine, rear-driver layout was considered the state of the art, but flush with funds, Porsche's team set to work bringing the drawings of a low, mid-engined, wundercar to life — and the design would be called the Auto Union Type C. By placing the engine at the rear, fuel tank in the center, and the driver in the front, concessions for the drive shaft and transmission tunnel were no longer necessary. And oh, that engine, a twin-block, 6 liter, 45 degree bank, 32 valve V16, was force fed air through a Roots supercharger and developed 520 HP in its final form. With the uneven 40/60 front to rear weight distribution and the massive power available, the car tended to oversteer and it was difficult for drivers used to a rear seating position to determine the limits of adhesion. Before the advent of the ZF limited slip differential, the car was known to produce wheel spin at speeds as high as 150 MPH.

The front and rear suspensions were considered state of the art at the time. The driver sat over a split axle and torsion bar setup in the front while the rear was managed with a double wishbone and transverse leaf spring suspension. The body stretched over this mechanical symphony was carefully crafted in the German Institute for Aerodynamics and provided both efficient cooling and enviable aerodynamic effect. When completely developed, the 1,618 lb. car was capable of 211 MPH flat out.

Drivers of this infamous car read like a who's who of early Grand Prix driving — Hans Stuck, Ernst von Delius, Achille Varzi and of course Bernt Rosemeyer. It was Rosemeyer who mastered the chassis and drove these cars into legend, securing six victories of twelve races in the 1936 season. The wins lead to Auto Union securing the builders title, and Rosemeyer being awarded the European Champion title. Over the next two years he would win another eight races outright and lose to Mercedes in 1938 only after they tied in race wins, but lost in laps led to the newly developed W125.

The Auto Union Type C, as well its competitor the Mercedes Benz W125, represent a pinnacle of engineering achievement not seen again until the turbocharged racers of the 1980s.The Type C was the exact car that started the racing revolution, the shift which was necessary to go faster and lighter. The move to mid engine racing was ultimately inevitable, but the confluence of history, engineering passion, staggering performance, and intimidating design captures the imagination. It also demands a place in the Jalopnik Fantasy Garage.

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The Jalopnik Fantasy Garage:
1978 Aston Martin V8 Vantage | Honda 1300 Coupe 9 | 1931 Daimler Double Six 50 Corsica Drophead Coupe | Ferrari 288 GTO | Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1 | 1970 Buick GSX 455 | First Generation BMW M Coupe | Bugatti Veyron 16.4 | Ford GT | Citroen SM | Porsche 928 | Jensen FF | DeTomaso Vallelunga | Audi Quattro S1 | Buick GNX | Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R | Honorary Fantasy Garager: The LS1 Powered Rotus | Lamborghini LM002 | Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe | Ferrari 250 GTO | Bentley Speed Six | Talbot-Lago T150C SS Figoni et Falaschi Raindrop/Teardrop Coupe | Porsche 917 | Audi RS4 Avant | Lamborghini Miura | Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9 | BMW E39 M5 | Jaguar E-type | Mercedes-Benz 300 SL | Dodge Charger/Challenger R/T | Toyota 2000GT | Facel Vega HK500 | Voisin C28 Aerosport | Bugatti Type 41 Royale | McLaren F1 | Maserati Bora | Continental MK II | Tucker 48 | Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato | BMW 507 | Porsche 959 | 1925 Rolls-Royce Phantom 1 Jonckheere Coupe | Land Rover Defender | Lotus Eleven | Cadillac Eldorado Brougham | 1963 Mini Cooper S | 1934 Duesenberg Model SJ | Caparo T1 | Morgan Aero 9

Sources: Classics, Wikipedia, DDavid.com, The Supercars, Youtube

Anyone who doesn't like the idea of a 50-year-old front-wheel-drive German car that looks like a Thunderbird and gets its motive power from a three-cylinder two-stroker... well, you've come to the wrong website! And since the rest of you presumably want to walk the walk in addition to talking the talk, we've got just the project to fill that empty space in your garage and create an even emptier space in your wallet: this 1958 Auto Union 1000 SP, which is currently sitting at a nice friendly sub-$2500 price, with no reserve. This is one of the most complete 1000 SPs you're going to find in North America, but as the seller says: "There are likely many missing parts." But haven't you always wanted to take a parts-shopping trip to Germany? Travel tip: airport security personnel frown on brake drum and carburetors in your carry-on baggage. The engine doesn't run (of course), and there's rust, and the upholstery has "exploded" from sun damage, so you'll never run out of things to work on! Thanks to MadHungarian for the tip!

It's tough to out-cool an Auto Union, but a Corvair van with a 70s custom job might do the trick... especially if it's a chopped, shortened Corvair van like this one from 1963. And the price- why, it was only $366.01 at the time of this writing, and that's with no reserve! It's hard to tell from the photos, but this thing may be designed for the driver's head to protrude through the sunroof, Rat Fink style (which means it needs a 5' long gearshift lever for the full effect). Now, the same busybodies who bleat about games of Midnight Drunken Lawn Darts being unsafe will no doubt point their bony puritanical forefingers at this van and tell you that a vehicle with super-short wheelbase and a six-cylinder engine in the back is a deathtrap. Pay them no mind- what this van needs is more power, preferably courtesy of an engine that will make Corvair purists hate you even more than they hate R***h N***r! How about the hairest, most hyperboosted Subaru six possible? Before you can get to that point, however, you'll need to deal with the rust. Lots of rust. Then you'll need to get custom glass made, because it seems to lack a windshield and (probably) door glass. And, of course, you'll need to get the most bongtastic 70s black-light interior money can buy, for reasons too obvious to get into here.

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Auto Union Type C pedal car Paying homage to the bygone era of motor racing

* Audi brings out the Type C again as a pedal car
* Limited-edition collector's item with only 999 cars built
* Spearheads quattro GmbH's line of lifestyle articles

A body made from aluminium, handcrafted leather trim and an extraordinary design - the vehicle sends Hubert Waltl, Head of Audi Toolmaking, into a rapture the instant he lays eyes on it: "This car is something really special." And, indeed, the car in front of him is no ordinary car - it's the Auto Union Type C pedal car which AUDI AG has brought onto the market as an absolute first. No other car manufacturer offers a pedal car built so elaborately and to such a high standard.

How did Audi stumble upon this idea? "We needed a highlight for our collection which conveys the brand message and, at the same time, is spectacular enough to find buyers," says Katharina Wicker, Head of Audi design - Lifestyle Articles. And this was how the idea came about to design a pedal car that mirrors the company's heritage at first sight. The Type C Grand Prix racing car provided the ideal blueprint for doing this. The Auto Union Silver Arrow dominated the world of motor racing in 1936, racking up a total of ten Grand Prix victories. Furthermore, the Type C is one of the best-selling heritage models in the range of Audi miniatures. The pedal car will therefore be an exhibition piece for "grown-up" fans too.

The car's execution called for a great deal of technical know-how and creativity. For a start, how large should the pedal car be made? How close should it keep to the original in order to nevertheless demonstrate the quality and workmanship of a true Audi? Which materials are best suited to underlining the Audi brand values of sophistication, progressiveness and sportiness? "The greatest challenge of all was transposing a historical model to a pedal car for children whilst remaining as faithful as possible to the original," reveals Achim Badstübner, director of the Munich design studio that created the first draft designs. Those responsible for the project eventually decided to build the pedal car on a scale of 1:2 to make it large enough to accommodate budding racing drivers up to 1.35 metres tall.

The technical drawings originated in Audi's own tool shop. And in true keeping with the premise "designed by Audi, produced by Audi", special tools and jigs were purpose-designed for the pedal car's manufacture in the Audi tool shop too. The pedal car is made up of over 900 individual parts. It features a hydraulic dual-disc brake and its speed is controlled via the seven-speed hub gear with back-pedalling brake function. Further technical highlights include the aluminium space frame and the body made from aluminium panelling which, just like on the full-size Audi models, symbolise the brand's expertise in the field of lightweight design. The seats, framing and steering wheel have been upholstered in leather by a bag-maker, as in the Audi TT, while the elegant spoke wheels have been custom-made. And because this pedal car seeks to replicate many different aspects of the racing car on which it is modelled, the steering wheel can be removed to make getting in and out easier, just as on the original.

The prototype of the pedal car was unveiled to the public for the first time at the Paris Motor Show in autumn 2006. Visitors to the show were instantly enthralled. "Lots of people even wanted to buy the exhibition model there and then!" recalls Katharina Wicker.

This pedal car, which is limited to a run of 999 models and is far more than just an exclusive collector's item, was an absolute joy to work on for all involved in the project. "It took me straight back to my childhood days. And I wasn't the only one to be seized by that play instinct again," says a delighted Hubert Waltl, Head of Audi Toolmaking. And Achim Badstübner is equally thrilled about the project's success: "Everyone put their heart and soul into this pedal car. And that is something we are all very proud of."

The pedal car can be ordered from the Audi importer for the specific country, who will also be able to provide details regarding the respective price.

Predecessor to the modern minivan, the DKW F800 was woefully underpowered (20hp! Upgraded through the addition of another cylinder to 32!), featured a flat load-floor due to its front-drive configuration, and was built from 1949 to 1962. We'll take ours mid-engined and RWD'd, thanks. An Audi R8 drivetrain seems as if it would do the trick (after all, one must keep with the Auto Union theme now, mustn't one?) Yes, that might be the ultimate sleeper death-hoon van to beat all sleeper death-hoon vans. It just might. – Davey G. Johnson

DKW [Wikipedia]

Related:
The Audi Munga: You Just Gotta Have One [Internal]

Excuse us for a second while we wipe the drool from our chin. And our chest. And our toes. Unsavory as it might be, we are literally swimming in a sea of saliva at the moment, and here's why. In the 1990s, this Auto Union was discovered in pieces in the former Soviet Union, having been taken back to the Rodina after the war to be studied in the hopes that the precision of German racecar technology could somehow advance The State's auto industry. It didn't work. We got the Lada instead.

It's since been reassembled and restored, and now Christie's is putting it up for bid. We fantasize about buying the car, getting a vintage racing suit and a red metalflake open-face helmet with "Bruce" emblazoned on it, and tearing through New Braunfels, Texas and on up to Gruene while all the while screaming, "ALUMINUM UND SHTEEL, LEUTE! ALUMINUM UND SHTEEL!" And then going out like Bernd Rosemeyer, only, you know, with more Texas State Troopers. – Davey G. Johnson

Hitler's racing car to set record? [Ananova via Autoblog]

Related:
The Racing Car as Propaganda Machine; The Auto Union Type D in NYC [Internal]