1939 Auto Union D type expected to fetch record auction

[devilmaster]

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=118688


PARIS — When the rare 1939 Auto Union D-Type commissioned by German dictator Adolf Hitler hits the auction block in February, it is expected to fetch the highest price ever paid for an automobile, according to Christie's.

The car was originally used as a propaganda tool to demonstrate the supposed technological superiority of the Third Reich.

The car was shipped to Russia after World War II and taken apart so Russian scientists could study it. The car, still in pieces, was rediscovered in Ukraine in the late 1980s. The D-Type had an engine mounted behind the driver and four-wheel independent suspension. Its twin-supercharged 3.0-liter V12 churned out 485 horses, giving the car a top speed of 185 mph.

There is also a CNN clip of it on the front news page....

[pchall]

Its twin-supercharged 3.0-liter...

Gotta love the unread reporters rewriting the press releases. Somebody ought to explain to the twit the difference between two-stage supercharging in the Rootes era and modern twin turbocharged engines.

[datachicane]

That's not the only groaner in that story.

1. Hitler sure as hell didn't 'commission' the D-Type, and Auto Union didn't 'secure' 500,000 Reichmarks in 'financing'. The award was split with Mercedes, and per Walb and Feuereissen (who were in a position to know), the remaining 250,000 Reichmarks amounted to less that 10% of Auto Union's annual racing budget, and a smaller percentage yet of Mercedes' much more highly funded effort.

This was an incentive, akin to the tax incentives given industry today, NOT a 'commission' or a blank check. It is an oft-repeated myth that German GP cars of this era were financed largely by the German government, a myth initially promoted by the British motoring press of the day.

2. There are only three, not five, 'remaining' D-Types. The fourth and fifth existing Ds were built by the British firm of Crosthwaithe & Gardiner in recent years for Audi.

3. Audi was one of the firms that came together to form Auto Union (along with Horch, Wanderer, and DKW), not the other way around.

At least they didn't call it Hitler's Sports Car or claim that Ferdinand Porsche designed it, like some of the other wire service stories about this car.

[NismoZ]

Yeah, and about that "supposed" technical superiority?

[datachicane]

That would be the 'supposed' ass-kicking they gave Alfa, Maserati, Delahaye, Bugatti, Talbot, etc.

BTW, on the subject of pre-war subsidies for racing programs, it should be noted that Bugatti received 400,000 francs for their GP efforts from the Fonds de Course committee in 1937, and Talbot and Delahaye split a cool million francs from the committee in 1938.

[NismoZ]

Yep, and assorted artillery, tanks, jet planes and missiles. Good thing they had a loony running that show.

[datachicane]

Most of these guys were racers, plain and simple, not politicos- they don't deserve to be remembered for the serious political missteps some of their countrymen made. Rosemeyer was notorious for mocking Hitler, once doing an impression of him behind his back...
:eek:

[Anteater]

Here's another article:
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/sports/motorsports/16553851.htm

It's a beautiful car.
http://www.montereyherald.com/images/thatsracin/thatsracin/16553/274016622935.jpg

[datachicane]

This model, which has a body shaped like an airplane fuselage, was designed by Ferdinand Porsche.

Well, except it wasn't designed by Ferdinand Porsche. Porsche left Auto Union after the 1937 season, and was working for Mercedes by 1939. The D-Type was designed by Prof. Eberan von Eberhorst, and other than the basic layout it did not closely resemble the earlier Porsche designed cars.


In racing, German cars were always silver, British were racing green and French were blue.

Except- German cars weren't silver, they were white. The story, possibly aprocyphal, is that Alfred Neubauer ordered the traditional white paint sanded off the Mercedes W25 in 1934 when it turned out to be 1 kg over the 750 kg limit, and they were left bare aluminum after that.

Oops- sorry [/end rant]

[devilmaster]

Forgot to end my rant. Didn't want folks to think I was always this insufferable.

We didn't have to think it. We already knew. ;)

[datachicane]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just because I love them so much, here's some pics of the C Stromlinienwagen...

http://www.classics.com/lagsc16s.jpg
http://www.classics.com/lagsc15s.jpg

[cameraman]

:rolleyes:
:rofl:

[Gnam]

http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/2522/lagsc16svp3.jpg

http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/479/lagsc15sth7.jpg


Not to confuse this thread with the Dogfights one or associate the D-Type with the German war machine, but to put these cars in historical context, this was also built in 1939 Germany:

Battleship Bismarck
http://img506.imageshack.us/img506/479/bismarck2vm7.jpg

I'd say the better example of German engineering survived.

[chop456]

http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/2522/lagsc16svp3.jpg
http://www.kolumbus.fi/leif.snellman/er2.jpg