Already a subscriber?Audi is the latest company to turn back time. In this case it’s not with a retro design or a modern re-creation of a much-loved classic. Instead, Audi has filled in a blank in its history by producing an Auto Union Type 52.
Several years ago, Audi contracted British restorers Crosthwaite & Gardiner, responsible for restoring several Audi museum cars, to realise a driveable version of the Type 52 concept. The result was presented at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed in the UK.If the Type 52’s four-door format most resembles today’s high-powered sports sedans, the central driving position brings to mind the radical seating arrangement of the 1991 McLaren F1 coupe.
The latter gained prominent air-scoops and other changes. They may have been necessary for technical reasons, but they diluted the pure lines that designer Marcello Gandini gave to the Countach prototype. A more common way of playing with time involves so-called continuation cars. In the mid 20-teens Jaguar built a small batch of new 1960s E-Types at the legendary Browns Lane site in Coventry. The model chosen was the rare and highly sought-after aluminium-bodied “Special GT E-Type”, better known simply as the Lightweight. The six were quickly snapped up, despite not passing safety or emissions tests required for new cars, and therefore not being road-registrable.