CarBrandLogos archive · Audi · 1965

AudiF103 (Audi 72)

The car that brought back a name unused since 1940.

Photo: Charles01 · CC BY-SA 3.0

The story

A defining chapter in Audi history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Audi F103 (Audi 72), then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Volkswagen bought Auto Union from Daimler-Benz in the mid-1960s mostly for its factory: Ingolstadt was capacity in which to build more Beetles. What it also acquired was a company in trouble, whose DKW F102 was failing because buyers had stopped wanting smoky two-stroke engines.

1966 Audi 2T Limousine Heck · Kroelleboelle · CC BY-SA 3.0

Design and engineering

The fix came with Ludwig Kraus, an engineer who moved across from Daimler-Benz bringing a four-stroke design with him, a high-compression medium-pressure four that could be dropped into the F102's engine bay. The reworked car got a flatter nose, a revised grille and a new badge. Rather than persist with DKW, the company revived the Audi name, dormant since 1940, and later gave the variants numbers according to their horsepower: 60, 72, 80, 90 and Super 90.

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

In production

The layout it settled on has outlived everything else about it. The engine sits longitudinally, ahead of the front axle, driving the front wheels, which is still how a great many Audis are arranged sixty years later. Just under 417,000 were built at Ingolstadt to July 1972, the great majority saloons, with a small run of estates. The Audi 80 replaced it, by which time Audi was a car maker again rather than a spare pair of hands for Wolfsburg.

Audi 75L 1971 · OldPhil · CC BY-SA 4.0

At a glance

The facts that define it.

Units built

416,853

Engine

1.5–1.8&nbsp

Body

2- or 4-door saloon

Technical specification

The F103 (Audi 72), in detail.

Production: September 1965 – July 1972 ; 416,853 built of which:; Saloon: 386,361 ; Variant (estate): 27,492
Class: Compact executive car (D)
Body style: 2- or 4-door saloon; 3-door estate
Layout: Longitudinal front engine, front-wheel drive
Engine: 1.5–1.8 L Mercedes-Benz M118 I4
Transmission: 4-speed manual
Assembly: West Germany: Ingolstadt
Manufacturer: Auto Union GmbH,; Audi NSU Auto Union AG (1969–1972)