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I can't realy speak from a North American perspective, but succesful racing cars of the mid 1930's (we are talking more of 'factory' cars here, not 'specials' like mine) would have been considerably shorter than anything Packard built during this time. Reducing the wheelbase from 135" to 120" will give my car about the same proportions (wheelbase:track ratio) as the mid 30's European cars such as the Alfas, Bugattis and ERAs, but the overall dimensions are still much larger.

In one of my early posts I had a photo of the 1935 Alfa Romeo GP car. It had a wheel base of approx 108" so was still much shorter and narrower than what I am building. Of course the European cars were generally smaller in engine capacity but ran to higher RPMs, made extensive use of lightweight materials such as aluminium and magnesium and were built much lighter. I hesitate to say it here, given that I don't want to insult any of the wonderful people on this web site, but the European marques of the era were generally the result of far more refined engineering. I am well aware of people such as Col. Vincent and Miller - but they were exceptions in their time and the cars that the USA produced (then and for many years afterwards) did not show their influence as much as they might have.

This is one of the chief reasons that the history of cars such as the one I am working on in countries such as Argentina interests me so much. Argentina had a large population of emigrants from Europe (particularly from Italy) and many of their top engineers and technicians had learnt their trade with companies such as Alfa Romeo, Bugatti, et al. Given that they had access to so much machinery from the USA, there must have been some very interesting adaptations made in the name of building a faster race car!

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To remain silent in a forum because talking could insult people? Even wonderful people? Matt!

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Drooooooolllllllllllllllll!

Rear engined 16 cylinder supercharged and as fast in a straight line as F1 cars are today. The Auto Unions were arguably the pinnacle of motor car development prior to WW2 - but they took an incredibly brave and talented driver to truly get the best performance from them.

Awesome pics! Can you give some background? Where? When? How fast? How much HP?

Guy, I would but don't want to hijack Snapey's thread any longer. To find the captains of the speed and their silver arrows google the heroes of my youth:

Manfred von Brauchitsch
Rudolf Caracciola
Ernst von Delius
Bernd Rosemeyer
Hermann Lang
Hans Stuck



or a couple of the heroes of Snapey's ongoing youth:

Tazio Nuvolari "the Flying Mantuan"
Achille Varzi "the born loser"
Luigi Fagioli "the Abruzzi robber"

and the later

Alberto Ascari "Ciccio"
Giuseppe Farina "Nino"
Juan Manuel Fangio El Chueco ("knock-kneed") or El Maestro ("The Master")



The car you asked for is a 1936 Auto Union 16 C(b/c), V16, 366.8 cu in, 1 or 2x Roots supercharger, 478-513 hp @ 5,000 rpm, 629 ft?lbf @ 2,500 rpm, front: crank semi-trailing arm, rear: Pendelachse with torsion bar suspension, 211 mph.

or the heroe of Mal's youth: Re Gistrar "the world cup"

[picture source: Bundesarchiv]

Quote:Gerd,

I would even include Auto Unions in the Registry, especially the one below!

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Ah yes Guscha - those are the men I am talking about. I had the honour of meeting Fangio when he was in Australia some years ago. It was a big deal for a young boy brought up on the tales of the great racing heroes and I still have the autograph he gave me.

With pictures like that feel free to hijack this thread any time!

And just so it is not such a hijack - it is interesting to note that after the success of the Auto Unions and after they ran in the USA a man named Lee Oldfield designed and built something very similar using a Marmon V16 and Cord FWD components. It was no beauty and did not qualify for the 1937 Indy race it was entered for but it sported inboard brakes and full independent suspension all round. The below is the only photo I have ever seen of it - this is one car I would dearly like to find in a chook shed somewhere. It is the sort of concept that with some tinkering could be made very fast and very loud indeed!

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As long as we have taken this detour I thought you might be interested in these photos. They are of three pre-war Auto Union models I purchased some years ago at the Monterey Historic Races. The pre-war Auto Union car were featured that year and there was a magnificent display of four or five of them. Including one streamliner styled one that had been behind the Iron Curtain since the war.

A vendor had these models and I bought one of each type that he had. The dual rear wheel car was prepared for hill climbs. The mid-engine car is a grand prix racer. The enclosed car is a speed record competitor, I believe.

One of these models would not be allowed to be sold in Germany.Can you guess which one?

Thanks for your interest, and enjoy.

(o{}o)

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Well, this week I was supposed to be heading to the UK for the Goodwood Revival Historic Races to pit crew for my brother who is driving the 1954 Kieft V8 GP car, but I am starting a new job and could not get away (bummer).

I did get to spend some time in the shed this weekend though and can also report that some of the incidental parts that I have bought from the US recently (gotta love eBay!) have arrived. These would include a couple of Stromberg 97 carbs which I will have to rebuild and a pair of new (but still quite proper looking) fog lights. Unfortunately one of the carbs arrived damaged - obviously dropped in transit and now has a cracked top lip on the inlet.

The twin 97s will sit nicely on an adaptor plate that I will make up for the inlet of the supercharger and should give ample juice for up to about 230hp.

So far as new work goes, I have now just about finished boxing in the front of the chassis to accept the now modified forged steel spring hangers. The forged ends of the original front cross tube have been grafted into these and will be joined with the original cross tube once the hangers are bolted in place and the tube cut to length.

No photos today unfortunately, but will post some with the next update in a couple of weeks. Next weekend is Father Day and the wife and I are going to drive to my parents place at Gundagai, about 4 hours toward Melbourne. There is a sprint meeting for historic and vintage cars to be held at the nearby Cootamundra Airfield on Saturday and then on Sunday it's the annual Cootamundra Swap Meet. Not quite as big as Hersheys (from what I hear) and I'll be lucky if there is anything there with Packard written on it, but a great way to spend Fathers Day with the old bloke, none the less.

Yours Hexagonally

Snapey

Just some photos of some of the recent work as previously described, plus a few of some recent purchases. Last weekend the wife and I spent two days with my folks for fathers day. Saturday was the Cootamundra Sprint Meeting - a 1/4 mile standing start event run by the Vintage Sporting Car Club at the Cootamundra Airport. Cootamundra is a smallish town (about 4500 people) about 4.5 hours drive west of Sydney. It's biggest claim to fame is that it was the birthplace of Sir Donald Bradman, the famous Australian cricketeer.

I have included some photos of our car (the red Amilcar Willys #21) and some of the others that were out to play on what was an absolutely glorious day of motoring sport.

On Sunday it was back to Cootamundra for the annual swap meet. I dare say it is not quite as big as Hershey - but it has it's share of characters and many interesting bits and pieces - although very little (read none) Packard and it is dominated by the two big makers in Australia, Holden and Ford. I did manage to pick up a nice set of headlamps for the Biposto, which I can use if nothing more appropriate turns up, for a resonable price. I was surprised when I got them home to find that as well as the coloured jewels there were two brass fittings that I assume act as 'blanks'? Each seems to have a wad of fabric or cord stuffed into it - would anyone know what this is? The man told me they were off a late 20's or early 30's Studebaker - would this be correct?

Also I have purchased a few Stromberg 97 carbs via eBay of late. The chrome one was used as a desk lamp for 20 odd years and my intension was to use it on the car, but now I've seen it I think I'll keep it as a lamp - at least for the time being...

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