Audi Tradition commissioned a recreation of 1935 record breaker. Original car hit nearly 203 mph on Italian public road in period. New 520-hp V16 evocation will run at this year’s Festival of Speed. Audi has just revived one of its craziest pre-war machines from the days when it was locked in a speed battle with Mercedes’ Silver Arrows, and there were no spoilsport speed limiters to get in the way. It’s called Lucca, named after a town in Italy close to the site where a specially clothed version of Auto Union’s Type A racer achieved an incredible 203 mph (327 kmh), toppling the 197mph (317 kmh) record set previously by Rudolf Caracciola in a Benz several months earlier. Related: Audi’s 1995 TTS Concept Finally Exists, And Audi Had Nothing To Do With It Those are still big numbers today – a 2026 Porsche 911 Turbo S tops out at 200 mph (322 kmh) – but back in 1935, when the average car struggled to hit 50 mph (80 kmh), they must have seemed mind-blowing, and so would the 338 hp (343 PS) output of the massive 5.0-liter, 16-cylinder engine. No one knows what happened to the original car, but we do know that many Auto Union competition vehicles disappeared behind the Iron Curtain into communist Russia during the war, never to be seen again. So it fell to UK classic motorsport specialists Crossthwaite and Gardiner to recreate Lucca from scratch, just as they’d done before on other projects like the Type 52 for Audi Tradition, the heritage division of the German carmaker. And this wasn’t a case of scanning some old blueprints into modern CAD software and pressing GO. C&G had some documents from Audi’s vaults, but relied heavily on a series of original photographs during the three-year build process. The result is spectacular, even by modern hypercar standards. The body looks sculpted by the wind itself, with covered wheels, a smooth canopy, and a tail that tapers into a sharp point. Most road car designs didn’t really fully embrace aerodynamic science until the 1980s, but every fraction of a Cd counted when you were on a mission to take a speed record in the 1930s. Although the finished car is very close to the original, the build does incorporate a few subtle changes using parts and design ideas adapted from later Auto Unions. There’s an improved ventilation system to prevent the body from getting too hot, something Auto Union’s engineers introduced at the AVUS race in Berlin in May 1935, for example, and an upgraded engine to 6.0-liters and 513 hp (520 PS) for improved reliability. That’s a great excuse we can all feed our significant others the next time they ask why we’re blowing $3,000 on a hybrid turbo or some throttle bodies. In theory, then, the 960 kg (2,116 lbs) Lucca should be faster than ever, though Audi has no plans to find out. But it will be putting the silver one-off through its paces at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed in July. Audi
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