Auto Union Typ 650 Sokol

I took this photograph on a visit to the Donington Park Museum in October 1989.

The car was at displayed as an Auto Union E-Type that was designed in 1939 to challenge the Mercedes Benz W165 1½ litre voiturette that had won the 1939 Tripoli Grand Prix, but the completion of which had been halted by the outbreak of the Second World War. Tom Wheatcroft was said to have acquired it as a chassis with engine, and a body was designed and built to show how the car would probably have looked had it been completed in 1940. Audi later acquired the car and it was taken back to Donington Park with several other vehicles - including a 1937 Auto Union C-Type and 1938 D-Type - to take part in a display and track demonstrations at the VSCC's Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting in May 2001.

The Auto Union factory ended up in East Germany after the war and all the racing cars and equipment were removed to Russia. There are suggestions that this car is of post-war East German or Russian manufacture, possibly with the help of pre-war Auto Union design technology, but Audi seemed to be sure enough of its Auto Union origins to have included it in the display at Donington Park in 2001, though I can't find any mention of it in the commemorative 'The Return of Auto Union' brochure or the programme of the event.