Audi Tradition has finished a modern recreation of one of Auto Union’s strangest racing cars from the pre-war years. The project carries the name Lucca and traces back to a land-speed machine from 1935, built during the fierce rivalry between Auto Union and Mercedes’ Silver Arrows era.
Back then, speed records looked different. Public roads still hosted top-speed attempts, and regulations were far looser than anything seen today. Near the Italian town of Lucca, a streamlined Auto Union Type A reached 203 mph, or 327 kmh. Earlier in the same period, Rudolf Caracciola had recorded 197 mph, equal to 317 kmh, in a Benz.
Those numbers still sound serious now. A modern Porsche 911 Turbo S from 2026 reaches 200 mph, or 322 km/h. In 1935, when many ordinary cars struggled to touch 50 mph, or 80 km/h, such performance must have felt unreal.
The original car used a 5.0-liter sixteen-cylinder engine producing 338 hp, listed as 343 PS. Audi says the original racer disappeared during the war years, alongside many Auto Union competition machines believed to have ended up behind the Iron Curtain in communist Russia.
So Audi Tradition asked UK motorsport specialists Crossthwaite and Gardiner to recreate the lost car from scratch. The company had already worked with Audi on projects, including the Type 52.
The rebuild took three years. Some material came from Audi archives, though the team relied heavily on historic photographs throughout the process. This was not a simple CAD exercise assembled from complete factory plans. Not even close.
Visually, the Lucca still looks unusual today. The body sits low and narrow, the wheels hide beneath flowing panels, and the tail stretches into a pointed rear section shaped for aerodynamic efficiency. Designers chased airflow advantages long before road-car manufacturers started speaking endlessly about drag coefficients.
Audi did not leave the recreation untouched. The finished machine includes several engineering revisions borrowed from later Auto Union developments. A revised ventilation setup addresses overheating concerns linked to the AVUS race in Berlin during May 1935.
There is also more engine capacity than before. The recreated V16 grows from 5.0 liters to 6.0 liters and now delivers 513 hp, or 520 PS, with reliability named as the priority behind the increase. Weight stands at 960 kg, or 2,116 lbs.
Audi has no plans to push the silver one-off toward a fresh speed record. Even so, the company intends to run the Lucca publicly at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in July.
Auto Union Lucca – Photo Gallery
