Historic winners on the Audi stand

· More than 180,000 visitors expected from March 21 to 25 at the Techno Classica in Essen, the world’s largest classic car show

· “Hillclimbs” is Audi Tradition’s motto for its display of special-purpose competition cars from the company’s history

· In the limelight: the Audi Sport quattro S1 “Pikes Peak”

Ingolstadt – Winning cars from the hillclimb scene are the highlights of the Audi Tradition display at the Techno Classica, the world’s largest classic car show. Visitors will see successful competition cars from four generations, including the Auto Union Type C Silver Arrow (1936) and the Audi Type C Alpine Rally winner dating from 1919. A special highlight is the Audi Sport quattro S1 that legendary rally driver Walter Röhrl took up Pikes Peak 25 years ago in a series of drifts and won the event in a new record time.

History has ample space in Hall 7: the Audi Tradition stand has an area of 700 square metres, twice as large as in the previous year, and Audi Club International (ACI) is exhibiting privately owned vehicles in Hall 7.1, so that there are two attractive venues under the sign of the four rings at this year’s classic car show.

Audi Tradition’s oldest exhibit will be the Audi Type C Alpine Rally winner built in 1919. Developed by August Horch in 1912, and with a 35-hp engine, it is capable of reaching 80 km/h. The Audi Type C won the Austrian Alpine Rally three times in succession, from 1912 to 1914 – the toughest long-distance event in motorsport at that time. Another eye-catching exhibit is the Auto Union Type C Silver Arrow, the car that made driver Bernd Rosemeyer a legend. It was Germany’s most successful Grand Prix racing car in the 1936 season, and brought him the European Championship and German Hillclimb Championship.

The Audi Sport quattro S1 has a special place in this year’s display. With the “Monster”, as it was nicknamed, the brand with the four rings made hillclimb history at the most famous event of this kind in Colorado, USA. Rally star Walter Röhrl took the car up the 4,301-metre Pikes Peak hillclimb course in the record-breaking time of under eleven minutes.

 

The NSU 1300 TT competition car (1970) may be smaller, but this fast, agile compact car demonstrated its sporting character on many occasions from 1965 onward. In that season, racing driver Siegfried Spiess became German GT Hillclimb champion in all categories at the wheel of this small but great-hearted car. Between 1971 and 1974 the NSU TT and NSU TTS were the most successful German cars on the national hillclimb scene.

As well as further classic cars such as the DKW F11 (1963), the NSU Racing Spider (1964) and the Audi 80 GLE (1980), Audi Tradition will be exhibiting motorcycles from the history of the DKW and NSU brands, including a DKW UL 700 sidecar outfit (1936) and a DKW SS 250 (1935).

Visitors wishing to take home a special memento of this show could consider this year’s Audi Tradition limited-edition scale model. On this occasion the enthusiast is being offered a 1:43 scale Audi 225 Front Roadster with an orange paint finish, of which as always only 333 have been made.