Before creating the Volkswagen Beetle or 911, Ferdinand Porsche designed and proposed a V16-powered Grand Prix race car for the road. Think of it as a proto-Bugatti. It was called the Auto Union Type 52 or, more romantically, the Schnellsportwagen. It was never built because it was the 1930s and everyone in Germany was about to become busy for… reasons. Almost a century passed before Auto Union, now Audi, decided to recreate the car from drawings.
I had no intention of seeing the reveal for the Schnellsportwagen as I was planning to grab a duck sandwich from a little stand after the unveiling of the new M5. En route to said duck stand I spied none other than racing legend Hans Stuck standing next to a car under an impossibly large cover. What the hell was this?
A press conference was in progress and I couldn’t hear anything, but I saw Type 52 written on the wall and it occurred to me that this could possibly be a Type 52. Of course, every nerd obsessed with this era of German cars knows that WWII basically doomed the vehicle.
The Concept Behind The Type 52
I’m probably going to see a few cars this week that are, conceptually, F1 cars turned into street cars. Red Bull is going to debut its RB17 hypercar tomorrow and there are plenty of cars from Porsche, BMW, and McLaren that carry an F1 spirit if no actual F1 parts. The Type 52 has the heart of an actual pre-F1 Grand Prix racer and the mid/rear-engine layout first popularized by the company.
Auto Union was formed in 1932 as the conglomeration of a bunch of different German automakers and one of the first projects they took on was the building of a then-futuristic series of race cars designed to set speed records and win races. These are the famous “Silver Arrow” cars and they typify the best of 1930s European car design.
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By 1934, Auto Union had hired the already well-known engineer Ferdinand Porsche to create a racing team that would see drivers like Bernd Rosemeyer, Hans Stuck, and Tazio Nuvolari compete with Mercedes for dominance in their cleaning metallic and slightly phallic machines. One of the more advanced cars they built was the V16-powered Type C.
At some point, Auto Union decided they needed a car to compete in the longer endurance races that were becoming popular in Europe. They turned to Porsche, who penned an extravagant, almost Zeppelin-like Type 52 Schnellsportwagen with a smaller slightly de-tuned version of the Type C’s supercharged V16 motor, this time putting out 200 horsepower.
From Audi:
Unlike its Grand Prix siblings, the car is more suitable for everyday driving, as the designers intended, with an overhead roof, headlights, and room for luggage. There is also space for the two spare tires. But that is where the three-passenger car’s comfort features end. As is typical for a race car, the Auto Union Type 52 driver sits in the middle, with the rear passenger seats slightly offset to the side. With three passengers, 70 kilograms of luggage, and 150 kilograms of equipment, the technical data sheet lists the car’s total weight at 1,750 kilograms, with an unladen weight of 1,300 kilograms.
While the engine, transmission, and open 5-speed gearbox were taken from the Grand Prix car, the engineers chose different technical solutions for the suspension and damping. Instead of a combination of transverse leaf springs and friction dampers like the Auto Union Type 22, the Type 52 uses longitudinal torsion spring suspension in combination with hydraulic dampers. During development, the 29-gallon fuel tank was relocated under the seats.
Then Germany had the terrible idea of trying to conquer more than just race tracks, making race cars a second priority to tanks, guns, and airplanes. The Type 52 was forgotten, some documents were lost or destroyed after the Soviets moved in, and the car was nothing more than a historical footnote.
They Built The Damn Thing
I do have an inherent discomfort with German cars of this era because it’s impossible to ignore that the Nazi government was heavily invested in the idea of motorsports superiority as part of a poisonous form of patriotism that plunged the world into darkness.
In a way, the fact that this car was never built, never possibly owned by someone with an SS badge on their sleeve, makes it a bit easier to enjoy. And enjoy it I do. It’s remarkable.
Audi tapped British firm Crosthwaite & Gardner, who manages the company’s historic cars of the era, to build the car from surviving archive documents, plans, and design sketches
“We are thrilled to present the Auto Union Type 52 at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. This car gets people excited about design and technology,” said Stefan Trauf, Head of Audi Tradition. “For me, it is an absolute dream car. In its day, unfortunately, it remained only a dream – one that we are now, 90 years later, able to bring to life.”
The car definitely embraces the concept of überholprestige, with an imposing presence and a length that I would conservatively estimate at somewhere between the size of a football field and a runway capable of landing a 747 (it’s about 16 feet long in reality). It has the engine out back and feels quite Tatra-like, which is no coincidence given that Porsche was clearly influenced by the Czech automaker.
There are a few McLaren F1s here at Goodwood so it’s amusing to see a car that’s 60 years younger and also features the same mid-ship driver with two seats on either side. “Bring your daughter and wife or your golf bags” joked Hans Stuck’s son, racing driver Hans Stuck (great driver, not great at naming things I supposed) who helped test the car.
Look behind the rear wheels and you’ll see a huge storage area, extra wheels and tires, and that gorgeous motor. The V16 is not, as originally intended, the lower horsepower version intended to run on gasoline, but the fully supercharged 6.0-liter V16 that puts out more than 500 horsepower and runs on a methanol/gas mixture.
It actually reminds me a lot of the Bugatti Tourbillon on display around the corner.