In 1935 the question of who could build the fastest car on earth was not an engineering problem. It was a national prestige contest, a propaganda tool and a spectator sport all at once. Germany's two great manufacturers Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union swapped the record back and forth through the 1930s with an intensity that made Formula One's modern constructor battles look restrained.
On February 14 1934, a specially prepared Mercedes racer set a mile record at speed in Hungary at an average of 196.7 mph. Auto Union's engineers went back to their drawing boards.
What they produced became one of the most extraordinary objects visually ever to travel at speed on a public road. They took a 1934 Type A Grand Prix car, bored its 4.4 litre V16 engine out to 5.0 litres, added a supercharger, and enclosed the whole thing in a teardrop aluminium bodyshell that had been developed with the help of Berlin's Adlershof Aeronautical Research Institute a first in European racing car construction, as the contemporary press noted at the time. The cockpit was fully enclosed with a canopy. The rear tapered to a fin. The wheels were covered by smooth fairings.
They called it the Rennlimousine, the racing sedan.
On February 15 1935, with Hans Stuck at the wheel and thousands of Italian spectators lining the autostrada north of Pisa, the Rennlimousine completed two mile runs from a rolling start in opposite directions. The average speed: 199 mph. The measured peak: 203.2 mph, or 326.975 kilometres per hour. Auto Union immediately proclaimed it the fastest racing car in the world.
The record was set on a straight section of road near the Italian city of Lucca. And so the car took its name.
What happened to it
Auto Union continued developing the Lucca and a sister car almost identical through 1935 and 1936, fitting a larger 6.0-litre V16 the following season. Then the war came. Development ceased. The cars were lost destroyed, dispersed or simply never recovered from the chaos of the chaos after the war. Audi Tradition, which has spent decades assembling the historic Silver Arrow collection, found itself without a single car from the early prewar Grand Prix era.
That gap is now filled.
The project began more than three years ago. Audi Tradition commissioned Crosthwaite & Gardiner the same British specialists who recreated the Auto Union Type 52 prototype in 2024 to rebuild the Lucca from scratch using historical photographs, period race reports and whatever archival documentation remained. Every component was made by hand. The streamlined bodywork, with its enclosed cockpit canopy and tapered tail section, was described by Audi as particularly extremely labour intensive complex compound curves formed individually in metal over a wooden frame.
Project manager Timo Witt, who has run Audi Tradition's historic vehicle collection since 2015 and spent more than a decade as a motorsport engineer before that, confirmed the project was completed in early 2026. At the end of April, Audi tested the recreation in its wind tunnel. The drag coefficient came in at 0.43. That number sounds modest by modern standards, but for a car with exposed wheels built using 1935 aerodynamic thinking, it was genuinely remarkable a contemporary Mercedes-Benz saloon of the same era measured around 0.60.
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What is inside it
The original Lucca ran the Type A's enlarged 5.0-litre V16, producing around 340 to 370 horsepower depending on the tune. The recreation uses the larger 6.0 litre V16 from the later Type C racer, which was the unit Auto Union had already planned to fit before the war ended the programme. Audi quotes output at 520 PS, which equates to approximately 512 horsepower. The car weighs 960 kilograms.
Witt confirmed the engine modifications from the Avus configuration improved ventilation and revised cooling were incorporated into the recreation to manage thermal stress during modern demonstration runs. Without those changes, he said, the car would be under too much heat stress to run reliably at events.
The fuel is correct to the original prewar specification in spirit: a cocktail of methanol, premium unleaded petrol and toluene. Toluene is a highly flammable, highly toxic compound derived from benzene that was standard in Grand Prix fuel blends of the era. The fact that this car runs on it in 2026 is either thrilling or alarming depending on your relationship with chemistry.
The first public appearance
The Lucca made its static debut this week in Lucca, Italy returning to the city where it set the record more than 90 years ago. It was unveiled at the same site on the autostrada, now a piece of ordinary Italian road that presumably its regular users have no idea is historically significant.
Its first public appearance in motion will be at the Goodwood Festival of Speed on July 9 to 12 2026. It will run up the hill. A car with a 6.0 litre V16, 512 horsepower, 960 kilograms, and the aerodynamic profile of something that arrived from the future in 1935, going up Goodwood's famous climb.
The 2026 Porsche 911 Turbo S has a top speed of 200 mph. The Lucca, in its original form, hit 203. The new version has more power, less weight. Audi has confirmed it has no plans to find out exactly what it is now capable of.
That seems like a missed opportunity. But watching it run at Goodwood will do for a start.
Sources:
- Audi Media Center — Audi Tradition unveils Auto Union Lucca in Italy
- Carscoops — Audi's New V16 Supercar Was Designed 91 Years Before It Was Built
- Motor1 — Audi Has Recreated A 16-Cylinder Record Car
- Car Buzz — Audi Just Built A New 16-Cylinder Supercar That's Actually Very Old
- Robb Report — Audi Has Recreated A Record-Breaking Auto Union Lucca
- MSN via Road and Track — Audi Resurrects the Wild 1935 V16 Streamliner That Hit 203mph