Auto Union, founded in Saxony during the Depression year 1932 by merging the DKW, Audi, Horch and Wanderer makes, was mostly known to car enthusiasts for the racing exploits of the firm's fearsome mid-engined V12 and V16 Grand Prix cars. These wore the logo of four linked circles representing the four makes, and were actually called Auto Union cars. The war put an end to racing as well as to the luxury Horch and upper class Wanderer as well as the more middle-class Audi, and when Auto Union resumed car production in 1949, they concentrated on utilitarian vehicles with the DKW label. The first vehicle presaged the VW Microbus by a.good half decade, and was called the DKW Schnellaster ("rapid transport"). Shortly afterwards, a new DKW sedan appeared in the form of the F89. The 684cc two-stroke inline two-cylinder drove the front wheels through a 3 speed manual transmission, and while it was water-cooled, the design had no water pump, trusting a thermosiphon system, and the engine was oddly located forward of the radiator, like cars associated with a much earlier part of the century.
Despite the simple engine which provided a top speed of about 62 mph, the body design was appealing, with teardrop fenders giving it form which seemed smoother and more modern than the competing Volkswagen being built in Wolfsburg. By early '53 it was joined, and later replaced, by the F91 (the second car above), also known as the 3=6, as DKW emphasized the efficiency of the two-stroke inline 3-cylinder of 896cc… a two-stroke triple was supposed to equal a six. DKW, by the way, originally stood for Dampkraftwagen, or "steam-powered car", as that is how the company had originally specialized when founded in the unpromising year of 1916 by a Danish engineer named Rasmussen. Sometime during their transition to making small gasoline-powered cars after that war, the company decided that the initials instead stood for Das Kliene Wonder, or "the little wonder." By the time the F93 version of the 3=6 appeared in 1955, DKW had offered some attractive two-seaters in the same teardrop style (coupes by Hebmuller, a cabriolet by Karmann) and also offered the two-door pillarless hardtop (an unusual move in Europe) shown below.
Both F91 and F93 featured 4-speeds, but the F93 had a 10 cm wider track, and was also slightly taller and longer than the first 3-cylinder. By 1957 a four-door sedan joined the model line, as well as an aerodynamic 2-seater fiberglass-bodied coupe called the Monza. The Monza body, designed by racers Gunther Ahrens and Albrecht Mantzel, was especially light, and the car set 5 class records at Monza (where else?) at the end of 1956.
Production, organized by enthusiast Fritz Wenk and employing 3 different coach builders, ended after 1958 when Auto Union refused to provide any more chassis, apparently fearing the car would compete with their just-introduced faux Thunderbird-styled Auto Union 1000 SP. In view of the current collector value of the DKW Monza compared with the 1000 SP, this appears to have been a mistake. During this period, Daimler-Benz acquired a controlling interest in Auto Union, taking complete control in 1959 and signing a US distribution agreement with Studebaker-Packard. Most of the DKWs and Auto Unions imported in to the US were brought in during this period. Owing to the scattered, interrupted manufacturing effort and the fact that some cars were sold as kits, production figures are hard to pin down, but it appears likely that less than 200 DKW Monzas* were built. A similar fate befell the DKW-powered Malzoni GT and Puma GT, which were built using the 3-cyllinder front-drive powertrain provided by DKW-Vemag of Brazil. Privateer racer Genaro Malzoni was approached by the firm to design a light sports car to compete with the Willys Interlagos (locally-built Alpine Renault) which was having some success on race days. By 1964 he had prototyped the smoothly-contoured, Italianate Malzoni DKW GT in metal, but could produce no more than 35 of these in fiberglass because of limited facilities.
In 1966, larger scale production began under the Puma name, assisted by DKW-Vemag. Production continued into 1968, a bit after the 1967 Volkswagen takeover of DKW-Vemag, which terminated production of DKW sedans (VW had already purchased Auto Union's German operation from Daimler-Benz in 1964). The Puma racers sometimes had 1.1 liter engines with up to 100 hp, and are highly prized by collectors in Brazil. Total production amounted to no more than 170 cars; subsequent Puma cars were rear-engined and VW-based…
During the last days of DKW-Vemag, the firm produced a glassy sedan styled by Fissore in Italy. Fissore's namesake design, produced in around 2,000 examples from 1964-67, featured a bigger engine of 1,000 cc. A similarly-conceived sedan, the DKW F102, with a two-stroke triple of just under 1,200 cc, began production in Germany in autumn of 1963. Despite visual similarities, the cars share no body panels, though the German parent Auto Union must have been aware of the plans for the Brazilian car. The F102 was the last car designed by DKW to go into production, and it was discontinued in 1966, after VW had substituted a four-stroke inline 4 to create the first car carrying the Audi nameplate since production had been suspended in 1938. By 1967, two-stroke engines were in eclipse all around the automotive world (even Saab had replaced their DKW-inspired 3 cylinder with a Ford-sourced V4), and when the minions of the VW corporate empire decided that they needed a new nameplate, Audi was their choice. By this time, Americans had moved on from the smoky, popcorn-popper two-strokes (except in some motorcycles), and the initials DKW might have stood for "Don't Know Why."
*Footnote: Production numbers for the Monza are hard to pin down. During the car's brief production life; bodywork was supplied by 3 different coach builders with the first being Dannenhauer & Stauss and the last being Robert Schenk (both in Stuttgart), while in the interim between these two bodies came from Massholder in Heidelberg. Also, Monza kits were sold to the public, somewhat like the Lotus Type 14 Elite. So estimates range from a low of 35 to a high of 240, with Wikipedia quoting a "realistic" number as 70 to 80 completed cars.
Top: car-review.com
2nd: wikimedia
3rd: Auto Union AG
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5th: lanemotormuseum.org
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7th: Paulo Fernando, at ciadecarros.files, wordpress.com
8th: Flavio Gomes at grandpremio.uol.com
9th & 10th: wikimedia
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