That V16 Auto-Union — a hillclimb special

Last month we published pictures of a V16 Auto-Union at a rally in Latvia, the car having been acquired from Moscow, and this recent appearance of a complete car was the first sign of one of these 1934-37 Grand Prix cars since 1939.

It was obviously not an authentic 1937 Grand Prix car-as the wheelbase was shorter than normal, there was no large fuel tank between the cockpit and the engine, or filler cap in the head fairing, and the nose cowling was different from the 1937 Cars, and looked more like a 1938/39 V12 car. It could only be a special hill-climb car that the works ran at places like the Grossglockner.

Cyril Posthumus came up with the answer by producing photographs from his archives of the car in action in 1939, one of which we publish on this page (click on page 64 above for original image). There seems little doubt that the car that was in the Latvian rally was this special short-chassis hill-climb Auto-Union with 6.1-litre V16 supercharged engine, developed from the components of the 1936 C-type Grand Prix car by the factory.
D.S.J.