DKW Auto-Union Project: 1931 Audi Type P - the last throw of the dice

In 2003 Audi Tradition had the good fortune to acquire one of the rarest vehicles in the Audi back catalogue, an original and largely unmolested Type P of 1931. After he bought out the insolvent Audi company in 1928, Jorgen Rasmussen of DKW tried to pull the company back into the black by rationalizing their product line and releasing two new models, the Dresden and SS. Both of these cars were powered by Rasmussen's Rickenbacker engines that he had bought from the US at great cost. The engines proved to be a failure in the German market and neither of the new Audi cars sold well. As a last ditch effort to salvage the Audi brand, Rasmussen re-engined his 'luxury' DKW 4=8 model with a four-stroke motor sourced from Peugeot and released it as the Audi Type P. It too would fail to find a market, leading Rasmussen to abandon Audi as a brand and in 1932 gave the factory over to manufacturing the revolutionary new DKW F1 model. The DKW Front proved to be a sensation and became an enormous success. As the Audi Type P is so rare, Audi Tradition were delighted to acquire one in 2003 and Audi historian, Thomas Erdmann, wrote about the find in the AUVC Nachrichten July edition. I have translated Herr Erdmann's article from the original German https://auvc-archive.blogspot.com/2020/02/auvc-nachrichten-vol-113-july-2003.html

Hardly anyone at Audi Tradition believed that this type of vehicle could have survived the chaos of the times - and then suddenly one was offered for sale in the magazine ‘Oldtimer Markt’, unrestored but relatively original condition. Some of you may have read the advert "Audi built in 1931" with a small photo of the partially dismantled car, which at least made it clear to those familiar with the history of Audi what type of car it was - the Audi Type P, which was presented for the first time at the Berlin Motor Show in February 1931.

The history of the Audi Type P is symptomatic of the time of global economic crisis. In order to reach those customers who did not like two-stroke engines, Jorgen Skafte Rasmussen substituted the DKW 4=8’s 26HP 1000cc V four-cylinder two-stroke engine (with charging pumps) with a 30HP four-stroke engine from Peugeot. The small four-cylinder engine with a displacement of 1,122cc came from the Peugeot 201 and was considered a robust and reliable unit. However, since the name DKW was synonymous with two-stroke engines, the DKW with a Peugeot engine was presented at the Berlin Motor Show in 1931 as the Audi 5/30 PS Type P. As a reminder, in 1928/29 Rasmussen had taken over the majority shareholding of the economically troubled Audiwerke AG in order to considerably expanded his production capacities in the automotive industry.

As with the DKW 4=8, the Audi Type P came in three body styles - as a sedan, a four-seater convertible sedan and, in small numbers, as a two-seater convertible sedan.

The magazine "Motor und Sport" commented on the marketing strategy behind the two different versions of the same car: "It has always been Mr. Rasmussen's endeavor to be able to present the most versatile program to the automobile market by combining the existing models." Obviously, Rasmussen hoped to kill two birds with one stone. While the DKW plant in Spandau saw an increase in production, the Audi brand experienced an expansion of its product range with this inexpensive model, adapted to the bad times, without additional development costs.

With double bumpers at the front and rear and a stone guard in front of the radiator - which was fashionable at the time - the "little Audi" was a little more luxurious than the "Big DKW". Of course, the new Audi wore the '1' on the radiator as it graced all Audi cars since 1923.

At 3385 Reichmark, the Audi Type P was not an economic success for either Audi or DKW. In the years 1931 and 1932, no more than 327 examples of this Audi-Peugeot-DKW were built.

A reader inquiry to the Allgemeine Automobil Zeitung (AAZ) in July 1932 was indicative of the situation at the time: "What about the little Audi 5/30 hp? You hardly ever see it here. The sales representative tells me that it doesn't 'go' here. Here are two brand new models which should be available for about two thirds of the normal price! That seems suspicious to me, which is why I would like to inquire about it."

The answer given by the editorial team is interesting: "The fact that the 'Little Audi' didn't 'go' and was therefore given up again, strangely enough, was not down to quality. The car is outstanding in that there is nothing untested about it. It consists of the well-known Big DKW car, which differs only in that it has the (well-known) Peugeot engine installed. It was all a question of price. The Little Audi was more expensive than the DKW car with a two-stroke engine, and Peugeot engine did not deliver better speed or performance and was in fact a bit slower. Since the cars were otherwise completely the same, the audience preferred the faster and cheaper two-stroke engine."

A contemporary photo of the DKW 4=8 highlights its link to the Audi Type P.

Whether this seemingly plausible conclusion is true is questionable. In some cases, it may have been correct. The real reasons for the lack of success were more likely to have something to do with the fact that the Audi brand had become an absolutely marginal player in the German automotive industry at the time, to which buyers hardly paid any attention. In addition, the Audiwerke did not have the necessary sales network to be able to successfully market a small car in sufficient volume to make it economic. The Audi Type P thus became nothing more than a marginal note in the DKW Audi story, one of many episodes in the time of the crisis. But let's get back to the restoration project mentioned at the beginning. This rare example that was soon acquired by Audi Tradition survived, not somewhere in one of the former Eastern Bloc states, but in a barn in Ludwigsburg. The condition of the vehicle’s self-supporting wooden body appeared to be in need of restoration but was otherwise complete and intact. Only the trunk attached to the rear was a later addition, probably rebuilt in sheet metal for the sake of simplicity during the 1950s. At the same time, the fabric upholstery of the interior, whose flowery ornamentation was strongly reminiscent of the 'Church Baroque' was renewed.

As fascinating as the vehicle itself is, the fact that the original vehicle registration documents has survived with the car is extremely interesting. This document was issued in 1939, replacing the original owner’s registration. The second owner was a master baker from Pirmasens in the Palatinate, which at that time still belonged to Bavaria. This is why the vehicle received an II-D license plate. All license plates in Bavaria began with Roman numerals for ‘two’ at that time (Roman numeral ‘one’ was for Prussia; IA therefore stood for the capital Berlin). Later, the Audi was given the license plate III-E due to a one-year period in Vaihingen-Enz in Wurttemberg.

After the war the owner changed from master baker to master burgher from Itzingen. On August 8, 1947, the Audi was re-registered in the American zone under the number AW 55-3238 (AW - that meant 'American Zone Wurttemberg'). On July 5, 1955, the car’s registration was cancelled at the Leonberg district office. It is no longer possible to determine whether the Peugeot engine had already been dismantled at this time and stored in the car. In any case, a decade-long slumber followed, from which the Little Audi is now to be woken up. A few weeks ago the Audi Type P went to Riga in Latvia, where the car is being restored to its former glory in the restoration workshop of the local automobile museum. In two year’s time, Audi Tradition expects to present this historically interesting vehicle, freshly restored.