Reinhart Von König-Fachsenfeld would become a famous advocate for streamlining in the 1930s, but he got his start as a works racer for DKW in the late 1920s. Starting first in motorcycles, he would move on to motor racing and would be responsible for rebodying DKW's F1 cars with streamlined bodywork. That story can be found here: https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2017/07/auto-union-streamliners.html In 1930 Von Konig-Fachsenfeld and his co-driver Meyer-Stuttgart travelled to France to try their luck on the new Montlhery track in a DKW PS600. Their achievements received a glowing report in Motor und Sport magazine, Issue 17, April 1930. This is my translation from the original German.
The lack of a motor vehicle highway that could serve to achieve speed records is becoming more and more noticeable. In Germany, where there really are no flat routes longer than 4 or 5 km and no circular routes at all, the development of a motor vehicle that minimizes wind resistance is hampered. This deficiency is particularly noticeable now that German industry has created some high-performance machines. So, we too are forced to go to France in order to try our luck alongside the French and British on the magnificent Montlhery track near Paris. The 2.5 km long route is the fastest racetrack in Europe. The Zschopauer Motorenwerke have recently achieved great success there.
DKW have just achieved twelve international class records with their little green and white sports car. We say world records, but this designation does not agree with the international motor vehicle sport laws, which (in contrast to the motorcycle sport law) recognise as world records only the absolute highest speeds over a certain distance or the absolutely longest distance in a certain time, regardless of the power of the wagon. A vehicle with a displacement of just under half a litre can, of course, never achieve such a world record compared against larger displacement vehicles. That is why the Commission Sportive Internationale set the so-called international records class. It is within the class of sports cars from 350 to 700 ccm displacement that the twelve records have been obtained by the small DKW car, some of which are recognized by the CSI.
At the wheel of the record car, as Schou reports, sat the two German drivers Von König-Fachsenfeld and Meyer-Stuttgart. They used the DKW-Sport two-seater, known from many other competitions, with a two-cylinder two-stroke engine with a standard displacement of around 600 cc. In order to meet the requirements of the international sports regulations, the displacement of the engine was reduced to 494 cc. The record attempts were registered with the Association in due time and under the supervision of engineer Prussing from the Zschopauer Motorenwerke in the presence of the international timekeepers.
The record runs on the Montlbery track began on April 5th at noon and ended after 24 hours. During this time, the car achieved a record average speed over the 24 hours of 91.505 km/h, covering 296.124 km. The remaining 11 records were performance milestones within this time and distance. The car achieved an absolute top speed of little more than 110 km/h. This was not enough to break existing records, but everyone knew that these short-distance records could only be achieved with specially developed vehicles. Surpassing greater distance records is much, much more important in practice. So, they started with the 100-mile record, which was previously set by Kaye Don in an Avon-Jap with 101.114 km/h. The DKW-Wagen achieved a much higher speed of 110.341 km/h. The car also set a new 200 km record of 110.46 km/h. With the next new records, the speeds climbed incrementally. The list of results below shows this tendency, but also the great performance of the DKW. For example, the 3-hour record was improved upon by no less than 7.8 km/h.
If you consider that the car with this small engine has an average speed over 24 hours above 91 km/h, which of course includes all the interruptions of driver changes, refuelling and the repair of a clutch defect, as well as taking into account the natural speed reduction at night, then the construction of the vehicle and the excellent performance of the two drivers deserves the highest recognition.
After a long time, Germany is once again on the world record list for motor vehicles.
A DKW PS600 in traditional green and white paint scheme at the August Horch Museum in 2016. The PS600 was developed specifically as a sport/competition tourer version of the P-15 sedan. Jorge Rasmussen's son Ove, was one of the first to use the model in racing. Due to the cars' light weight it performed well in the sub-litre class. In 1932 it would be superseded by the revolutionary front wheel drive F1.
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