The pre-war period was a weird time for Grand Prix cars. Engineers had figured out that by cramming more fuel and air into ever more cylinders, you could create vast amounts of power. They hadn’t quite figured out the chassis and tires yet, however, which led to Auto Union’s V16 dually beast.
Welcome to Paper Jam, the feature where we highlight the best automotive advertisements from the past! Print might be nearly dead, but our scanners are just getting warmed up.
Long before Audi, there was DKW and Auto Union. If you thought Saab two-strokes were the business, check out what a three-cylinder two-stroke of German origin could do surrounded by the wilderness of Africa.
We love our supercars to death. We obsess over their top speeds and great power. But what is it like to actually use one? Over 500 miles of European motorway, we discover an inconvenient truth.
Hunting game and racing cars are generally pursued as separate pastimes, but not by Tazio Nuvolari at the 1938 Donington Grand Prix, where, as evidenced by a severed head, he did both with great aplomb.
Auto Union's Grand Prix racecars of the 1930s were the greatest the world had ever seen. But few know the story of the road car that shared all the motorsports tech with those spectacular racecars. It was called the "Type 52," and it almost became the world's first modern supercar.
This Sunday will mark the 75th anniversary of the Hungarian Grand Prix, an event held since…1986. Fifty years before Formula One came to the Hungaroring, there was a Grand Prix race in downtown Budapest with 100,000 people in attendance. The Silver Arrows came. Scuderia Ferrari came. Three-quarters of a century later,…
So there's Hans Stuck, sitting in his dad's Auto Union grand prix car, and all he wants to know is "What is hooning?" There's no one better to explain it than Ken Block, who gives an accurate description and then asks Stuck to do a donut in the car.
If you like your race cars silver, wicked and German, Motorhome is a tumblr you should check out: nothing but photos of Silver Arrows, like this Auto Union A-Type, page after page after page.
Formula 1 racers Jacky Ickx and Hans-Joachim Stuck took to the streets of Monaco last May in Auto Union Silver Arrows Type D and C, respectively, briefly creating an eight wheel, 28-cylinder piece of history. [HellForMotors]
Auto Union was the result of the merger of 4 German car companies formed in 1932. Few are aware during the 1960s, the German company which became Audi licensed car production in Argentina. These photos show the factory in action.
This stuff'll keep engineer kids up all night. The third of Auto Union's Grand Prix racecars, the 1936 Typ(e) C sparred with Benzes and Alfas, and made Bernt Rosermeyer world champion. Now see it in wireframe glory.
In a case of visual merchandising gone slightly weird, this is a display window of the Italian fashion brand Benetton selling kids’ clothes with a toy version of the V16-powered 1936 Auto Union Type C.
We love our supercars to death. We obsess over their top speeds and great power. But what is it like to actually use one? Over 500 miles of European motorway, we discover an inconvenient truth.
Think super-serious Audi would run an ad like this nowadays?
Dampf-Kraft-Wagen! One of the all-time great car-company names was phased out by Auto Union not long after this jaunty ad for the '64 DKW F11, F12, and F12 Roadster came out.
It was 72 years ago on this day that Bernd Rosemeyer flipped his streamlined V16 Auto Union on the Autobahn at 268 MPH and died. Come and watch a video of his very photogenic life.
Auto Union’s fearless prewar grand prix driver, who died 71 years ago in a 270 MPH crash on the public road, has turned 100 years old. Come and share his birthday cake.
You can buy a bar of Belgian chocolate with Bernd Roseyemer’s Auto Union Type C on the wrapper. Just make sure you don’t exceed 270 MPH while eating it.
You know how a lot of marque-specific car books tend to be a bit on the lightweight side? A couple of anecdotes about the designers and then a lot of pretty pictures? Not this monster!
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