Malcolm Barnes' 1938 DKW F7 Restoration

Story by Malcolm Barnes

The DKW F7-700 described in this story was originally exported to Johannesburg, South Africa in 1938. It lived there for 37 years before I found it in mid-1975 standing on the side of the road in a derelict condition. The canvas-covered wooden body was in a very bad condition and the metal parts were quite rusted. The photo below was taken in 1975 at my wife’s parent’s farm near Johannesburg.

I paid the owner, Mr Lombard, in cash, as was customary at that time and enthusiastically started to work on the vehicle … starting with the chassis. I replaced the wheel and suspension bearings, fitted new brake pads, machined the brake-drums, etc. I was not able to make much progress after that as I got married in 1977, followed by the arrival of our 2 children shortly after. I was also very busy with my work as an electrical engineer, which distracted me even further. Then in 1989 we decided to migrate to Perth and we brought the derelict vehicle with us, packed in the shipping container with our furniture. By that time, the wooden body had completely rotted and very little of the body or the internal seat upholstery and trim was salvageable. When the car was inspected by Customs, they looked at the condition of the vehicle and never bothered to record either the engine number or the chassis number on the import paperwork.

Being a migrant in a new country was hard work, but I was able to set myself up as an electrical engineer in the WA mining industry. Once again, due to the pressure of work, I was not able to make must progress until I retired in 2019.

Once I restarted work on the car, I travelled to Germany to visit the various Auto Union motor museums in Ingolstadt (now the headquarters of Audi), Zwickau and Chemnitz. This gave me an opportunity to look at the many restored DKWs located in these museums and to see first-hand how the various models were constructed. After reviewing the various alternatives, I decided to aim for the colours, style and quality similar to this beautifully restored DKW F7 shown in the photo below.

The mechanical parts of the car including the chassis, suspension, wheels, shock-absorbers, engine, gearbox, mudguards, glass, interior upholstery, electrical wiring, etc, were all refurbished here in Perth as there are people (including myself) with the technical skills and ability to successfully complete this work. The main problem I faced was the wooden body. The original body was of German construction, which was different to the wooden bodies manufactured in Australia. There were no templates for the construction of the body not available here in Australia, nor anyone experienced in building one.

While in Germany, I traveled to the small Bavarian town of Selb to meet a man called Winfried Kuhl, who operated a small business (working from home) called DKW-Karosseriebau (DKW Body Builder). His name was given to me by Paul Markham (Secretary of the KBG Club in Perth). Winfried uses the original templates to build wooden DKW car bodies for collectors in Europe. He constructed several alternative body styles for the F7 – Saloon Hard-top, Cabriolet soft-top and Sports soft-top, etc. The chassis and engines for all of these models are the same. I was very keen on the idea of a Cabriolet (ideal for WA sunshine) and luckily, he had already partially completed a Cabriolet body in the colours I preferred. After some negotiation, Winfried agreed to complete the cabriolet soft-top body and sell it to me. After arranging for the shipment via a company called Transitainer, the body was packed into a crate and arrived in Perth in February 2020.

While waiting for the wooden body to arrive, I was able to completely refurbish and repaint the steel chassis, check the wheel and suspension bearings, refurbish the brake cables, rebuild the shock absorbers, etc. When the body arrived from Germany, I was able to mount it directly onto the refurbished chassis. 

The four mudguards, engine side-panels, bonnet and front grill were quite badly rusted and damaged in many places. These metal components were repaired and painted during 2021 by Balcatta Panel and Paint to match the colour of the body. This work was completed in a very skilled and most professional way as can be seen I the photos below.


Fortunately, the five spoked wheel rims were in very good condition and did not require any repair work. I had them sand-blasted and powder-painted at S and S Powder Coaters in Oborne Park. The 19” x 4.5” tyres were sourced from Antique Tyre Supplies in Melbourne, who have a wide variety of tyre sizes available.

The internal and underbody surfaces of the wooden body delivered from Germany needed some additional attention. The underbody edges were finished off with a protective aluminum beading, which were fixed with stainless-steel screws. These surfaces were then all hand-painted with a satin-black epoxy enamel paint before installing and bolting the refurbished mudguards into position. In addition, there were numerous small metal parts fitted in various places throughout the body, such as the steering wheel, seat hinges, front door window winders, etc. Where necessary these metal parts were sandblasted and powder-painted at S and S Powder Coaters. For the exterior finish, I was able to source some new chromed hubcaps and chromed bumpers from a parts supplier in East Germany, so could replace the old rusty and damaged items with new shiny ones.

During 2022. the refurbished metal body panels and other parts were assembled along with the refurbished headlights, aluminum trim along the side of the body, spoked wheels and hubcaps, new tyres, chromed bumpers, door handles, windup window mechanisms for the front doors and install replacement window glass.

I then turned my attention on the 6 Volt electrical wiring system, using the electrical wiring diagrams from a 1938 Workshop Manual as a guide. Several changes to the electrics were necessary because the original car only had one tail-light. To meet modern road requirements, I upgraded the tail-lights to LED lamps mounted on the back bumpers and, while I was at it, I added amber indicator lights (front and back) to replace the badly damaged indicator arms that were previously located in the door pillars. A directional lever on the dashboard was available to control the direction indicators. Another non-standard safety feature was to add side-mounted mirrors on both front doors. It was also necessary to repair the 6 Volt hooter and windscreen wiper motor.

Once the electrical wiring was complete, I directed my attention onto the engine/gearbox. Firstly, the exhaust system for a 2-stroke engine requires some special expertise to ensure that the back-pressure of the silencer (accumulator) matches the requirements of the engine. I worked with Gary Mason at Custom Exhausts to build a suitable exhaust system. Fortunately, I had the original (rusted and damaged) silencer and Gary used this as a template to fabricate a new exhaust system to match the requirements of this particular 700cc engine. Gary’s expertise was essential to achieve a successful outcome.

The refurbishment of the engine and gearbox took a lot longer than expected because the cylinders and pistons were badly corroded and needed to be replaced. Unfortunately, this work could not be done here in WA mainly due to the difficulty in sourcing suitable replacement 2-stroke pistons, rings, machining, cylinder head gaskets, etc. So, this work had to be done in Germany which, understandably, took a considerable length of time. Fortunately, these cars were very popular in Germany before WW2, so there are still many DKW enthusiasts in Europe with suitable mechanical expertise and spare parts to work on these engines. On these DKW engines, there is a flywheel mounted on the end of the crankshaft known as the Dynastart. The Dynastart is a combined Flywheel, 6 Volt Starter Motor and 6 Volt Generator. Fortunately, the original Dynastart was in good condition so we were able to reuse it without further repair or machining of the commutator. All it needed was a cleanup and some new brushes.

While the engine was in Germany, we had the opportunity to repair the seats and work on the interior trim. I was very fortunate to have met Kim Logue (of Kim's Custom trimmers) because he undertook to fabricate the seat covers and install the interior trim as shown below. Kim is a member of the KBG club, operates from a workshop next to his home and is very highly regarded by all those who have worked with him.

In addition, Kim assembled the engine for me, installed the machined cylinders and cylinder head using the parts that were machined and returned from Germany. He also connected the clutch and the gearshift mechanism, sorted out some problems with the carburetor, connected the choke and accelerator pedal, adjusted the brakes, connected the petrol tank, etc.

The engine cooling system is very simple and does not require a water pump. The cooling water is circulated through the cylinder head by thermal convection. The original vehicle did not have a temperature gauge, but I suspect that I may need to add one later. During December 2023, Kim successfully started the engine for the first time. Initially, the engine was very “rough” but Kim adjusted the timing and tuned the engine to run more smoothly.

I don’t know how I would have managed without Kim’s help to overcome the many difficult obstacles that arise towards the end of any project to get everything to work together. So may I add a BIG thank you to Kim for all his help and generous support.

The fuel for the 2-stroke engine uses a normal mixture of petrol and special 2-stroke oil. The two fluids must be mixed before adding it to the petrol tank. The tank is mounted in front of the driver in the engine compartment. Notice how the gear lever passes through the petrol tank.

The photos below show the result of the very long rebuild period between 1975 to 2024 – almost 50 years!!!!

A huge congratulations to Malcolm Barnes and everyone who worked on the project over the years. The outcome is magnificent.

Due to health reasons, Malcolm has now decided to sell the car. Asking price $20,000. Contact me here for details.

Addendum:
Winfried Kuhl sold his DKW business several years ago. I believe Malcolm's body was the last one he constructed. Winfried's last project was the recreation of an early 1948 IFA F9 prototypes. He wrote a series of posts I published here a few years ago:
The IFA F9 Project Part One - Prologue - https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2021/08/1948-ifa-f9-replica-project.html
The IFA F9 Project Part Two - The Engine - https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2021/09/1948-ifa-f9-replica-project-part-two.html
The IFA F9 Project Part Three - The Chassis - https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2021/09/1948-ifa-f9-replica-project-part-three.html
The IFA F9 Project Part Four - The Body - https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2021/11/1948-ifa-f9-project-part-four-body.html

1931 DKW R1000 Stationary Engine

In 1919, Jorge Rasmussen and Hugo Ruppe began showcasing an 18cc 'toy' stationary motor nicknamed "the boy's wish" at industrial shows. Often described as a toy motor, there was scarcely a market for such an expensive frivolity in post-Great War Germany. The true purpose of this first 'DKW' was as a demonstrator stationary motor targeting the small business market.

In the years before the Second World War, DKW would become the world's biggest motorcycle company as well as a major German automobile manufacturer, but a gigantic part of the company's business was stationary and industrial engines. These ranged from small, air-cooled single cylinder two-stroke engines to eight cylinder four-stroke engines, air-cooled and water-cooled, for use in cars, tractors, mowers, draisons, boats, water-pumps, fire-hoses, sprayers, electrical generators, in two-stroke, four-stroke and diesel format.


The stationary motor division of DKW was actually at the forefront of engine development, trialing every possible format. In 1931 they presented a four-cylinder inline water-cooled two-stroke motor, designated the RVW. The engine came in 1000cc and 1200cc capacity, with the 1200cc version generating 29 PS. Sales however proved to be very disappointing and only 100 engines were built, serial numbers 299001 to 299100. The engine was still being advertised in the 1933 brochure above.

DKW four-cylinder in-line engine, Type "R", 1200cc water-cooled.

Given the small production numbers, survivors are few. A complete example is held in a German museum collection (see postcard at the top of the post). A second example was discovered by Roland Servais in a Belgian scrap yard. Serial number 299035 was largely intact but some parts were missing.




Roland restored the motor and mounted it on a steel chassis and connected it to a French dynamo built by "Ateliers de Constructions Electriques de Lyon et Dauphiné" around 1925. You can see the engine in action in the video below:

Roland has decided it's time to pass the engine to a new custodian, so if you are interested in purchasing this extremely rare piece of DKW history, you can contact him here: rolandser@gmail.com
The engine is located in Belgium. Roland has other stationary motors too.

So why did DKW abandon development of the four-cylinder two-stoke? This is an interesting question, given that in a few years time DKW would come to recognize that the 600cc and 700cc twin-cylinder had reached its developmental limits and would begin scrambling to develop a new engine for their automotive range. They would, of course, settle on the 900cc triple, which in its initial configuration generated approximately 26 PS. In the RVW engine they had a motor that could generate at least 29 PS. It cannot be that this format engine wasn't suitable for an automobile engine because a remarkably similar engine was powering a range of Czechoslovak cars at roughly the same time - and this is where the story becomes intriguing.

Zbrojovka Brno was a Czech armaments manufacturer that branched out into automobiles in the mid-1920s. After developing their own series of two-stroke budget cars, in 1932 they sought to enter a licensing partnership with DKW. Two engineers were dispatched to Zwickau to work on the project, but DKW's licensing fees were too high for Zbrojovka and they walked away from the deals. The engineers however had learned enough from their time in Zwickau to design their own car from scratch in a period of only 9 months. This would be the Zbrojovka Z-4 ("Strong Four"), which went on sale in January 1933. The Z-4 was powered by a four-cylinder water-cooled two-stroke motor of 908cc, generating 16 PS. Later series were upgraded to 980cc capacity. The engine is strikingly similar to the DKW RVW, so it seems entirely possible to me that Zbrojovka's engineers had inspected the RVW engine in detail, or purchased one and reverse engineered it. Of course, this is only speculation but it's a plausible theory. Zbrojovka also used twin-cylinder two-stroke engines, derived from DKW technology.

Zbrojovka weren't the only Czech concern to seek a licensing agreement with DKW at this time. Jawa would enter into a licensed arrangement to manufacture the DKW F2 in 1934. DKW two-stroke motor technology would go on to power both their automobile and motorcycle range well into the 1990s.

Jawa car history: https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2021/02/jawa-700.html 
Zbrojovka Z-6 brochure: https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2019/10/1935-zbrojovka-z-6.html

Happy New Year and Welcome to 2024

Hello and welcome to 2024. First up I'll say my grand plans for 2023 did not come to fruition. I had planned to complete the restoration of my 1953 DKW F89P, a project I've been working on for some five years now. Family commitments diverted me from that outcome. In July 2023 my mother-in-law passed away at the age of 94 (five months shy of her 95th). She had, as they say, a good innings. The last two years were spent in a care home, something she adamantly fought to avoid, but unfortunately she was simply too frail and too dependent on care to live at home. My wife and I took her out of the home every Sunday for drives and excursions, but towards the end even that became impossible as she lost the ability to communicate and needed constant help to perform even the simplest tasts. When she passed away in July it seemed we would have time to ourselves on the weekend, but no.....

My aunty, my father's sister, had been living alone since 2006 when her husband died. It was a loss that she never really recovered from and over the years we noticed a decline in her mental wellbeing. She became convinced that members of her family were breaking into her house and moving items around to torment her. These thoughts grew to become obsessions and ultimately delusions. She locked herself off from the family and became a recluse. Although she would not let anyone visit her or come into her house, she did maintain contact with some of us by phone where she would elaborate the torments being waged upon her by unnamed dark forces in allegiance with members of her extended family.

Years went by until she suddenly went quiet. My brother, a policeman, swung by her house one evening to do a health check and, recieving no answer, he broke in and found her collapsed in the bathtub, delirious. She was taken to hospital and not expected to survive, but she was a tough old bird and proved everyone wrong, recovered and eventually made her way home. While she was in hospital we cleaned up her house, which had become a hoarders paradise, with mountains of shopping bags full of rubbish and junk filling the kitchen, dining room and lounge. It was a mess.

Despite the family's concerns about her ability to care for herself at home, she was allowed to return home and live on her own, immediately reverting to her hoarding, mess and reclusion. So we entered the cycle where she would lock herself away, have a fall, go back to hospital, be released back to her home, fall again six months later, and so on. The length of time between crises got shorter and shorter until the hospital finally intervened and had the courts declared her unfit to manage her own affairs. She was placed under the administration of my brother (I was overseas at the time of the hearing) and was placed in a care home. In terms of her physical health, this was a good outcome. She has never been healthier in the last decade, but in terms of her mental health, this is terrible. Losing control of her affairs only exacerbated her fears of persecution, plunging her into the depths of a complete psychological breakdown. She has only tentative connection with the real world now.

"Nor the years condemn"

This ongoing saga has played havoc with the rest of the family. My brother and I have been adamant in our view that we should do everything we can to make her remaining time as pleasant and comfortable as possible and this includes keeping her house intact, as she has been terrified "someone" will sell her house out from under her, as well as preserving her possessions and making her new accommodation as 'homely' as possible. Other family members see this as a ridiculous waste of time, given her parlous mental state and want to simply toss her stuff in a skip bin. There is also SO MUCH stuff in her house - she was a hoarder and has never thrown out any piece of mail or reciept since she moved into the house in 1968. It has been a lot of work, but I still consider it as a rewarding exercise. Almost daily my wife and I have picked through box after box of papers and objects and sorting them out. A lot of it is junk and goes straight into the bin, but there are also the gems of a life long lived in there. Today we found a small box of love letters written to my aunty by my uncle in the late 1950s when they were courting. They are so heartfelt they bring tears to your eyes. We found her school reports starting with her first year of school in 1945, along with old photos of our grandparents and great-grand parents that have been hidden away for decades. So much history.....


Anyway, last year it was all about Family and 2024 will continue in the same vein. Crises like this make one think about your own mortality and the legacy you leave behind. We ourselves have collections of books, records, vintage clothing and - in my case especially - tons of automobilia. We need to sort through that in the event something happens to us.


Speaking of which - late last year I received another large tranche of East German motoring magazines. I will need to scan these and post them on my GDR Motoring blog (here: https://gdrfahrzeuge.blogspot.com/2023/06/welcome-to-gdr-motoring-magazine-archive.html). I'll be translating selected articles over the coming year. You can expect them to be published here in due course.

In a similar vein, I made contact with a Czech/German scholar late last year who has done extensive research on the Ringhoffer family of Prague. The Ringhoffer's owned the Tatrawerkes, the famous streamlined car maker from Czechoslovakia in the 1930s and 40s. The Ringhoffers, being behind the scenes somewhat, rarely feature in the story of Tatra and their legendary cars, but from this research I am learning that they had far greater influence than one may have realised. I'll be following through this research in my Tatra blog (here: https://tatrat600.blogspot.com/2023/02/tatras-self-licking-icecream-cone.html).

The F89P Restoration
I need to pick that up again and dedicate some time to the car. I am counting on assistance from my friend Malcolm Barnes to help with the rewiring. Fortunately Malcolm is an electrical engineer (retired) and has just rewired his 1938 DKW F7. I have been helping him out with his F7 restoration recently, which has now been completed. Here is a picture of the car as purchased in South Africa in 1975.

And here it is after a complete rebuild. The body was derelict and unsalvageable, so the car has a reproduction wooden body built by my friend Winfried Kuhl, one of his last constructions before he retired.

I may have mentioned in one of my earlier restoration posts that I had lost my car's original carburetor after I took it off the car for cleaning. I know it will show up as soon as the restoration is finished. That is always the way. In addition to the carburetor, I also lost the mounting for the carburetor to the engine and the mounting for the air filter. I managed to purchase another carburetor mount, leaving me with just the rubber piece that bridged the gap between the carb mouth and the air filter to find. I have many boxes of rubber fittings, but despite long searches I could not find it anywhere - until this week. When rummaging through a box of parts in the boot of my F94 the F89P air filter rubber "appeared". What??!! Why was this in the F94? Regardless, it's now back on the F89P where it will not get lost again!


Sometimes you must rejoice the little wins.

1948 IFA F9 Replica Project - Part One. The Prologue

Starting with this post we will be discussing the project to reconstruct a 1948 IFA F9 pre-production car being undertaken by my DKW friend, Winfred Kuhl. Winfred has been a lifelong DKW enthusiast who operated DKW Karosserie in Germany, recreating prewar wooden DKW bodies for many years. Several years ago, he became interested in the 1940 DKW F9 and the idea of creating a replica began to bubble away in his mind. To build his replica he began searching for an early IFA F9 to use as a basis and that search led him to the discovery of the Estonian DKW F9 prototype. https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2017/06/a-second-dkw-f9-prototype-discovered.html
That car was eventually obtained by Audi Tradition historian, Ralf Friese. With two prototype DKW F9s now in existence, Winfred considered that his replica should be of the DKW F9’s next evolutionary step – the IFA F9, which first appeared in 1948. The story of the IFA F9’s challenging development is covered in detail here: https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-development-of-ifa-f9.html

This journey will be covered in many posts, but in order to start, we need to go back in time to 2011 in the German town of Nossen, in Saxony. Winfred takes up the story.

The Disposal of the workshop in Nossen

"Deep in his heart, Dieter Weigold was a communist. We know this from documents he left in his workshop showing he was a card-carrying member of a communist political party which had been banned in Germany in 1976. As we know, communism has a particular view about private property embraced by all its advocates – in case of emergency, private property can be declared as communal property.

Weigold’s particular emergency was the chronic lack of money in his pocket, so he decided not to pay the rent for his workshop in the town of Nossen, eastern Germany, in the hope that the owner of the building would agree to this decision in solidarity for the welfare of the DKW enthusiasts of the world...

The owner of the building felt differently however, and Weigold’s DKW workshop was closed by court order in May 2011 with the contents to be sold by public auction to clear his debts. As Weigold did not want any of his DKW friends to buy up his shop, he kept the matter secret and didn’t tell anyone about the auction, probably hoping to buy the contents back himself at a cheap price. His plan backfired however, as the lot was bought up by a speculator, who only wanted to make a quick buck on the deal.

Dieter Weigold called me in October 2011 and asked me to negotiate with the new owner as he realized the new owner was about to liquidate the workshop and dispose of its contents. Weigold wanted me to "at least save the collection of rare screws" for him [a German joke I think, ed.], so I did, and purchased the huge stockpile of parts from this workshop and promised the owner to have the building cleared out by 31 December 2011. So, the adventure began...

Sharp eyed enthusiasts will recognize the F89L Schnellaster above. It now has pride of place in the Audi Museum Mobile at Ingolstadt. The museum's extremely rare DKW F10 was purchased from Weigold in 2003. https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2017/06/audi-tradition-museum-ingolstadt.html

I first became interested in the F9 when I began clearing up Weigold’s immense collection of 3-cylinder-engines. The problem for me was that there was a mixture of western (DKW) and eastern (IFA) engines and I could not easily distinguish the difference. As I was only really interested in the DKW-engines, I asked some of the East German veteran friends I knew how to quickly spot the difference between them. The answer I received awoke my interest in the historical development of these engines. You can see the difference easily by looking at the three exhaust ports in the cylinder-block. If the ports are the same distance from each other, then it’s IFA. If the gaps between the ports are different, with the one gap smaller than the other, it’s DKW. Easy! I did not know that before and I immediately began to wonder when this change happened and how this related to the prototype engine? Did this change occur in Zwickau or in Ingolstadt?

This will be the topic of chapter 2 and I will show you pictures of a very early engine, you will see..."

'Framo Jens' and Winfried shifting the stockpile of F8 chassis.

Wheeling out an F8 chassis

An F7 chassis joins the stack

Assorted F93 bodies, an F8 body and an F7 chassis

On the left is a wooden F7 body, a very early F89P sunroof model and a F93 coupe.

The F93 bodies are popped on a trailer

The sad end. Weigold's DKW workshop, his life's work, stripped bare.
Winfried Kuhl

The IFA F9 Project Part Two - The Engine - https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2021/09/1948-ifa-f9-replica-project-part-two.html

The IFA F9 Project Part Three - The Chassis - https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2021/09/1948-ifa-f9-replica-project-part-three.html

The IFA F9 Project Part Four - The Body - https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2021/11/1948-ifa-f9-project-part-four-body.html

For more information about the difficult history of the IFA F9, check out my posts:
The development of the DKW F9 history: https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2017/07/1939-dkw-f9-prototype.html
The Estonian DKW F9: https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2017/06/a-second-dkw-f9-prototype-discovered.html
The Werner DKW F9: https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-werner-dkw-f9.html
The development of the IFA F9: https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-development-of-ifa-f9.html
The development of the DKW F89P: https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2017/06/dkw-f89p-new-meisterklasse.html