WITHOUT FURTHER ADO

Audi Tradition has unveiled the Auto Union Type 52 Schnellsportwagen - only 90 years since it was designed. Glen Waddington takes an exclusive ride with Hans-Joachim Stuck

- Glen Waddington

"There might be flames, you should stand back!" smiles Timo Witt, head of the historical car collection at Audi.

We're at a secret location, a few miles from the company HQ at Ingolstadt, to witness some of the earliest movements of the Auto Union Type 52. The reason for our covert operations? This car was conceptualised in the 1930s though not built. Until now. Octane is here as part of a shakedown; as you read this, you may have seen racing legend HansJoachim Stuck drive the car up the hill at this year's Goodwood Festival of Speed, where it made its public debut. As I stand, now a few metres from those paired, broad, ovoid, bright-finished and potentially lethal tubes, Herr Stuck has just arrived and will shortly drive the car for the first time. And I will be its first passenger.

So, what are we looking at here? Audi Tradition refers to the Auto Union Type 52 as the 'Schnellsportwagen. The name translates as 'fast sports car, which it undoubtedly would have been, given that it is a three-seat mid-engined fastback bred from the Auto Union racing cars of the era, drawn-up originally by none other than Ferdinand Porsche to be powered by a 200bhp version of the Auto Union Type A's 4.4-litre V16 engine.

Auto Union AG was formed in 1932 from the merger of Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer. The company sought to make its name internationally through motorsport, and an initial order for a Grand Prix car had actually been made in 1931 by Wanderer director Hermann Klee to Stuttgart-based Ferdinand Porsche. Porsche had founded his own consulting firm following a period at Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft and, after its merger with Benz & Cie, at Mercedes-Benz, where his work had culminated in the supercharged Mercedes-Benz SSK that dominated racing in the 1920s.