Further to my previous post on the Auto Union D-Type, I see that Christie’s are now saying that they expect the D-Type to fetch in the region of $12,000,000. There is an inaccuracy in CNNMoney’s article on the car that I ought to correct, however.

It is not quite true to say that Auto Union are now known as Audi. Auto Union were exactly what their name states, an amalgamation of several German manufacturers, one of which was known as Audi. In the sixties, Auto Union was absorbed into Volkswagen but was allowed to disappear, apparently forever.

In the seventies, when VW decided that they needed a new marque to make luxury cars and to dissociate it from the company’s “beetle” image, someone obviously remembered that they held the rights to the Audi name and it was duly resurrected. It can hardly be said that Audis are the descendant of the D-Type, therefore - only the Audi name survived.

But I don’t suppose VAG will mind at all if their cars are associated in some way with the D-Type - it was a glorious beast, after all. Just take a look at this…

Christie’s are going to be auctioning one of the only two 1939 Auto Union D-Types in the world. It is expected to fetch the highest ever price for a car of any sort.

The D-Type was Auto Union’s response to Hitler’s demand that German cars be unbeatable in racing. I’m sure we all have seen photographs of the rear-engined monster, a car so ferociously difficult to drive that only the truly talented (and brave), like Nuvolari and Caracciola, could drive it.

But what a gorgeous monster it is! As I mentioned in a previous post, its looks were to influence the design of the Audi TT Coupe, a distant inheritor of the Auto Union legacy. Like the Mercedes offering of the time, the D-Type met the challenge of racing with oodles of power but at least the Auto Union engineers made the fight against Alfa Romeo a little fairer by choosing a configuration for the time that made the car almost a death trap!

So, if you have a few million to spare, remember to put your bid in early.