DKW Auto-Union Project: A second DKW F9 prototype discovered 2016

The Werner DKW F9 prototype at Ingolstadt with its luxury stablemate, the Horch 920S, in the background

The story of the Audi Tradition DKW F9 car's survival is quite extraordinary and worth retelling. The car was built in late 1944 as the last of a series of pre-production prototypes for road testing during the war years. The car was assigned to Auto-Union technical director, William Werner, who was also the lead designer on the F9 project. Werner did not get to enjoy it for very long as the car was badly damaged in a bombing raid in Berlin in February 1945 and was shipped back to Auto-Union's Chemnitz factory for repairs.

On 6 May 1945, Auto-Union board held an emergency meeting and decided that the company's executive would flee westwards to escape possible Soviet retribution for the company's use of Soviet POW and slave labour during the war. Werner's car, still damaged and immobile, remained behind at Chemnitz, but as the Soviet Engineering Teams began stripping factories for reparations, the car was transported to the western zone along with plans in an effort to distribute the company's assets. In 1946 the British recognized the car as a new type and seized it for technical evaluation. The non-running car was repaired by British engineers, tested and then handed the car over to the Australian government as part of a war reparations exchange. At that time the Australian government was interested in establishing a domestic automobile industry and the studies done during the war years had recommended manufacturing a cheap and robust car "like the German DKW." However, in 1948 the government decided to support the American backed General-Motors Holden project and the DKW idea was dropped. The car was now deemed surplus to requirements and was sold off at an army surplus auction in September 1950 along with an F8 and a V4 Sonderklasse.

The car was a not running (none of the three DKWs were) due to catastrophic engine failure, but the purchasers managed to rebuild the engine and keep it on the road. By the 1980s however, the car was in very poor condition and in an attempt to keep it running, the prototype's body was transplanted onto a 1953 DKW F89P running gear. Fortunately the owner retained the original chassis and engine.

The car as it looked when Peter Thorogood owned it in the late 1980s. It has F89 running gear and bonnet.

In the late 1980s the car, along with its original chassis and engine, was acquired by DKW Club of Australia (now defunct) president, Peter Thorogood, who intended to restore it to its original spec. Unfortunately the boom years of the 1980s did not last and he was forced to sell it before the restoration could be undertaken. The car eventually returned to Audi Tradition in Ingolstadt where it is now on display.

The Estonia car
In late September 2016 I was contacted by Winfried Kuhl in Germany with some exciting news. Winfried had long been on the trail of the lost F9 prototypes and had even managed to locate a pre-production 1940 engine in the hands of a collector, which he hoped to use in a F9 replica he was planning to build. To build his replica he began searching for a very early IFA F9 to provide a donor body, as the early East German version of the F9 is very similar to the pre-war DKW original.

East German brochure for the IFA F9. Early F9s are identifiable by their split front and rear windows.

From a client in Estonia he obtained a lead on a promising car, but upon inspection he found that it was not a 1949 IFA but chassis 7358, a very early pre-production prototype. While the majority of prototypes were destroyed during the war, chassis 7358 escaped almost unscathed.

When the Soviet Occupation Administration was set up in 1945, a survey was undertaken of all the manufacturing facilities in the Soviet Zone. Auto-Union's factories were designated as military facilities and were earmarked to be dismantled as part of the reparations program. The administration at the BMW plant at Eisenach, after realizing the Soviet's intention to dismantle their plant, had built a BMW motorcycle and BMW 327 roadster from spare parts and presented them as a gift to Soviet Marshal Zhukov. Zhukov recognised that a functional BMW plant producing high quality motor vehicles was worth more than the salvage cost of plant and equipment, cancelled the order to strip BMW and converted the company into a state owned concern called an Autowelo. For the next few years, BMW continued to manufacture cars and motorcycles at Eisenach, exporting them to western markets.

Similarly, Auto-Union were tasked to present both the plans and an F9 test car for assessment by the Soviet authorities and in 1946, chassis 7358 was signed over to Captain Turbin, head of the Soviet engineering department of the Occupation Government. The car received the Soviet license number 'Proba 13-10' and was shipped to Moscow for evaluation, where it eventually disappeared.

To say it 'disappeared' is a bit of a misnomer. After evaluation, it along with other German vehicles that were tested after the war, was sold on. The car was used for many years as a personal vehicle and was recognised as an interesting car on the Russian classic scene (see contemporary photo from a Russian classic car rally). Even so, the car was eventually taken off the road and its condition deterioriated.

The car as originally discovered was in shockingly poor condition and barely recognisable.

Fortunately, the missing wing panels and doors were in storage.

My friend attempted to buy the car but his interest in this wreck (as the car was in very poor condition) led the owners to suspect they had something of greater significance. They contacted Audi Tradition independently, who after examining their records confirmed the car was indeed one of the lost prototypes. This confirmation led to a bidding war for the car and the was secured by Audi Tradition historian, Ralf Friese. The car itself is little more than a shell and will require extensive restoration, but it will be great to see it saved. The biggest technical challenge is sourcing a pre-production engine. Ralf has a lead on an engine but the owner is reluctant to sell.

As with the Werner car, the original engine failed and, as was typical for ingenious Soviet engineers, the body was transplanted onto new running gear. In this case, the original body was transplanted onto Skoda running gear.