CarBrandLogos archive · DKW · 1964

DKWF102

The last DKW, and the car that accidentally restarted Audi.

Photo: MartinHansV · Public domain

The story

A defining chapter in DKW history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the DKW F102, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

By the early 1960s DKW was selling two-stroke cars into a market that no longer wanted them. The F102 was a serious effort to fix that with everything except the engine: a modern monocoque body in two- and four-door form, all-synchromesh four-speed gearbox, front-wheel drive, disc brakes at the front and a comfortable, well-finished cabin — a substantial step up from the Auto Union 1000 it replaced.

DKW-Audi · Matthias v.d. Elbe · CC BY-SA 3.0

Design and engineering

The engine, though, remained a 1,175 cc two-stroke triple, and by 1963 that was commercial poison. Customers who had accepted smoke, oil mixing and the smell of a two-stroke in 1950 had stopped accepting it. Only 53,053 were built at Ingolstadt in three years, and the losses were severe enough to contribute to Daimler-Benz's decision to sell Auto Union to Volkswagen.

DKW F 102 · Lothar Spurzem · CC BY-SA 2.0 de

In production

What happened next is the important part. Volkswagen inherited the F102's body and, with it, a four-stroke engine Daimler-Benz engineers had developed — the high-compression 'Mitteldruck' unit. Fitted into a lightly restyled F102 with a longer nose, it became the F103, launched in 1965 under a name Auto Union had not used on a car since before the war: Audi. The DKW badge was retired, and the company that carried on at Ingolstadt built its entire modern identity on the shell of its last failure.

DKW-F102 Rear · Luc106 · Public domain

At a glance