AUDI BRINGS BACK THE WILD V16 AUTO UNION LUCCA THAT HIT 203 MPH IN 1935

Audi Has Brought Back a Machine From Motorsport’s Wildest Era

Modern performance cars are often defined by software, batteries, driver aids, and efficiency targets.

The Auto Union Lucca comes from a very different world.

Audi Tradition has recreated the 1935 Auto Union Lucca, a streamlined V16-powered speed-record car that once pushed beyond 200 mph on a public-road-style autostrada course near Lucca, Italy. Also known as the Rennlimousine, or “racing sedan,” the car was built during an era when speed records were industrial prestige weapons and manufacturers treated aerodynamics as the next frontier of racing dominance. Audi says the recreated car will make its first dynamic public appearance at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in July.

It is not a new production model. It is not an electric concept. It is a hand-built reconstruction of a machine that belonged to one of the most intense technical rivalries in European motorsport.

That is what makes it fascinating.

The Lucca Was Built to Beat Mercedes

The Lucca’s story begins with Auto Union’s battle against Mercedes-Benz in the 1930s.

Auto Union was the company behind the four-ring badge that later became Audi’s identity. In that period, it was locked in a prestige fight with Mercedes, using Grand Prix racing and record attempts to prove technical superiority. When Mercedes posted major speed figures in 1934, Auto Union responded by developing a more aerodynamic record car based on its Type A Grand Prix machine.

The result was unlike a conventional race car.

The Lucca wore a narrow, slippery body with covered rear wheels, aerodynamic discs on the front wheels, a tiny cockpit canopy, and bodywork shaped to reduce drag at extreme speeds. It looked more like an aircraft fuselage on wheels than a traditional racing machine.

That was the point. At 200 mph, power alone was not enough. The air had become the enemy.

Hans Stuck Took It Beyond 200 MPH

On February 15, 1935, Hans Stuck drove the Auto Union Lucca on a straight section of autostrada near Lucca, Italy.

The result was extraordinary for the time. Audi says the car achieved an average of 320.267 km/h over the flying-start mile, equal to about 199 mph, and recorded a top speed of 326.975 km/h, or just over 203 mph.

Those numbers still sound serious today. In 1935, they were almost surreal.

The Lucca was not running on a modern closed proving ground with today’s safety standards. It was operating in the pre-war record-chasing world, where drivers, engineers, and manufacturers accepted levels of risk that now seem almost impossible to justify.

That is part of the car’s strange power. It is beautiful, technical, and frightening all at once.

The Original Used a 16-Cylinder Grand Prix Engine

The original Lucca was powered by a 16-cylinder engine derived from Auto Union’s Grand Prix program.

The engine was enlarged to around 5.0 liters for the record run, producing roughly 369 horsepower according to period-based reporting, with the car weighing just over 2,000 pounds. The machine measured about 180 inches long, only 47 inches tall, and less than 67 inches wide.

Those dimensions explain the drama.

This was a low, narrow, lightweight record car with a huge engine mounted in a chassis derived from one of the most advanced racing programs of the era. The shape was not decorative. Every surface existed to help the car slice through the air and keep Auto Union ahead in the speed-record contest.

The modern recreation follows that same spirit, but Audi has made some changes for durability and operation.

The Recreated Car Uses a Bigger V16

Audi’s recreated Lucca is not a casual museum mock-up.

The car was hand-built by Crosthwaite & Gardiner, the historic race car specialists that also worked on Audi’s recreated Auto Union Type 52. The Lucca project took more than three years and was based on historical documents and photographs.

The revived car uses a 6.0-liter V16 from the Auto Union Type C rather than the original 5.0-liter configuration. Audi says the recreated version produces 512 horsepower and weighs 2,116 pounds. It has also received improved ventilation and durability changes, making it better suited to demonstration running than a fragile static display.

That balance matters. Audi is not simply preserving the shape of the Lucca. It wants the car to move, run, and make noise in front of spectators.

Aerodynamics Were the Real Breakthrough

The Lucca’s most important legacy may not be the engine.

It may be the bodywork.

Audi says wind-tunnel work on the recreated car produced a drag coefficient of 0.43. That figure is not impressive by modern road-car standards, but for a 1930s record machine with exposed front wheels, it underlines how seriously Auto Union had pursued aerodynamic efficiency.

In the 1930s, this was still a developing science in motorsport. Engineers were learning that air resistance could decide races and records as much as horsepower could. The Lucca’s enclosed tail, smooth surfaces, narrow cockpit, and wheel treatments were all part of that understanding.

The car looked radical because it had to. Its shape was a response to physics, not styling fashion.

It Also Went Racing at Avus

The Lucca was not only a speed-record machine.

A second Rennlimousine was displayed at the Berlin motor show around the same time as the Lucca record attempt, and the streamlined cars later appeared at the Avus race in Berlin. Avus was a strange and dangerous venue, built around two long straights with tight turns at either end. In theory, it suited a streamlined machine designed for extreme speed.

In practice, the Rennlimousines struggled with mechanical problems.

One car suffered a tire failure, while another retired with damage to a coolant line after challenging Mercedes. The failures show the limits of the concept. The same features that made the car extraordinary in a straight-line record attempt did not automatically make it reliable or adaptable in race conditions.

That tension is part of the story. The Lucca was a brilliant answer to one problem, but not a universal solution.

Why Audi Rebuilt It Now

Audi says it did not previously have early Auto Union racing or record-attempt cars from this period in its historic collection, making the Lucca recreation part of a broader effort to preserve and show that missing chapter.

That historical gap matters because Auto Union’s 1930s cars are central to Audi’s racing identity.

The four-ring badge is often associated with quattro rally cars, Le Mans prototypes, touring cars, and now the brand’s Formula 1 ambitions. But before all of that, Auto Union built some of the most daring racing machines of the pre-war period.

The Lucca connects modern Audi to that earlier tradition of engineering risk.

Goodwood Is the Right Stage for It

The rebuilt Lucca is set to run at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, which is exactly the kind of event where this car makes sense.

Goodwood is not only about lap times. It is about seeing historically important machines move under their own power. A static display can show the Lucca’s shape, but it cannot explain the sound of a V16, the scale of the car, or the strangeness of watching a 1930s streamliner climb a modern hill course.

That dynamic appearance will be the real test of the recreation.

Not because the car needs to prove it can still set records, but because a machine like this was never meant to sit silently under lights. It was built to move quickly and dramatically.

The Lucca Still Feels Extreme Nearly a Century Later

The Auto Union Lucca remains shocking because it does not feel quaint.

Many pre-war cars look fragile or charming from a modern perspective. The Lucca looks purposeful. Its narrow body, enclosed rear, aircraft-like cockpit, exposed wheels, and huge engine still communicate danger and ambition.

That is why Audi’s recreation matters beyond nostalgia.

It reminds modern readers that the race toward speed did not begin with carbon fiber, turbo hybrids, active aerodynamics, or battery technology. In the 1930s, engineers were already wrestling with the same basic questions: how to reduce drag, how to manage power, how to make a machine stable at impossible speeds, and how much risk a driver could accept.

The Lucca was one answer.

It was not subtle. It was not safe by modern standards. It was not practical. But it was a clear expression of a moment when carmakers believed speed itself could define technological leadership.

Nearly 90 years later, Audi has brought that moment back to life.

2026-05-08T09:21:21Z