Auction preview of car built for Hitler 'to prove superiority' of Third Reich

(26 Jan 2007)
AP Television
New York - 25 January, 2007
1. Wide exterior of Audi showroom
2. Wide of men unveiling German Auto Union D-Type racing car
3. Pan of car
4. Pan from people outside window to car
5. Pan from engine to front of car
6. SOUNDBITE: (German) Thomas Erdmann, Historian, AUDI-AG:
++NON-VERBATIM TRANSLATION++
"The Auto Union car was a high-tech product developed in the 1930s. This was a time when the development of racing cars had reached a very specific stage technically speaking. The car raced in international competitions with Maserati, Bugatti, with Alfa Romeo and with Mercedes-Benz."
7. Photographers taking photos of car
8. Various of car
9. SOUNDBITE: (English) Rupert Banner, Director of Christie's International Motor Cars:
"You've got harnessed in a three-litre V-12 twin-stage super-charged engine there, independently strung chassis, your 485-brake horsepower and over 185 miles-per-hour performance... 70 years ago."
10. Various of car
AUDI Company, courtesy of Christie's
Date and location unknown
11. Various black and white still photographs of racing car on race track
12. Screen showing various black and white video images of racing cars
STORYLINE:
A car expected to fetch a record-breaking 15 (m) million US dollars at auction was unveiled in New York City on Thursday.
The German Auto Union D-Type racing car is one of only five Auto Union racers left in the world and the last one in private hands.
"The Auto Union car was a high-tech product developed in the 1930s. This was a time when the development of racing cars had reached a very specific stage, technically speaking," Audi historian Thomas Erdmann told AP Television on Thursday.
"The car raced in international competitions with Maserati, Bugatti, with Alfa Romeo and with Mercedes-Benz," Erdmann added.
The silver racer, dubbed along with its main Mercedes-Benz competitor a "Silver Arrow" by the press at the time, won a number of Grand Prix across Europe in its day.
The car evolved from a 1933 racer designed by Ferdinand Porsche.
Often called "Hitler's race car" because it developed out of a car the Adolf Hitler government commissioned Porsche to design in 1933, it became a world record-breaker during Hitler's "Third Reich" dictatorship.
The car was full of innovations: a V-16 4.5-litre engine placed ahead of the rear transaxle, a tube frame, an aluminium body weighing 99 pounds (44.9 kilograms), and the petrol tank located between the cockpit and the engine.
The driver sat in the centre of the car, in front of the engine.
The petrol tank was in the centre so that weight gain or loss as petrol was being used did not unduly impact handling.
The car unveiled on Thursday in New York won the 1939 French Grand Prix.
Of 20 Auto Union D-Types made, only two remain as many were destroyed during World War II or in the chaos that followed.
This one survived and was taken to Russia and disassembled and studied where an American collector discovered the parts, waiting to be crushed.
The parts were sent from Russia to England and the body was recreated and restored.
"You've got harnessed in a three-litre V-12 twin-stage super-charged engine there, independently strung chassis, a 485-brake horsepower and over 185 miles per hour performance... 70 years ago," Rupert Banner, Director of Christie's International Motor Cars, said.
The racer was in New York for two days of viewing before returning to Europe. It will be auctioned in Paris in February.

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