1963 Auto Union 1000 - Union 1000 Sp Coupé

One of only 5,004 coupés ever built

The Upper Bavarian take on the Thunderbird

Extensively restored 20 years ago

Well documented history

While Europe was still being rebuilt, automobiles across the Atlantic were growing to entirely new dimensions. Longer, wider, more powerful, with tailfins reaching ever higher and the brightwork gleaming ever brighter. In 1950s Germany, such extravagance was something one could at best dream of, even as the economic miracle was gathering pace and putting more and more people behind the wheel.

With the Thunderbird, Ford showed America what automotive desire was supposed to look like, and this did not go unnoticed in Ingolstadt. There, the newly founded Auto Union had successfully got back on its feet with DKW, front-wheel drive and two-stroke engines. Its passenger cars were initially built at the Düsseldorf plant, while motorcycles and commercial vehicles came from Ingolstadt. With the Auto Union 1000, presented in 1957, the four rings finally returned as the marque on a passenger car.

That same year, Auto Union unveiled the »1000 Sp« – Sp for Spezial – at the IAA, a sporting coupé that made little attempt to hide its American inspiration. Panoramic windscreen, chrome and tailfins unmistakably recalled the Thunderbird. It did not need a V8. Three cylinders would have to do. The two-seater entered production in 1958, with the bodies built by »Baur« in Stuttgart.

Beneath its American dress, however, much remained familiar. Up front sat a 981 cc three-cylinder two-stroke engine, sending 55 hp to the front wheels and propelling the stylish coupés and roadsters to around 140 km/h. By 1965, Baur had built 5,004 closed coupés and, from 1961 onwards, another 1,640 open roadsters.

This 1000 Sp Coupé was delivered to Karl Brod OHG, today’s Audi Zentrum Ingolstadt, in October 1963. After three quarters of a year as a demonstrator, it found its first private owner in July 1964, an Ingolstadt bank employee. The coupé remained registered in and around Ingolstadt until May 1975, when it was taken off the road.

The 1000 Sp would not be registered again until 2006. A substantial collection of photographs leaves little doubt that, before then, the handsome coupé had undergone a restoration that was quite literally fundamental. Starting from a solid basis, the body was removed from the frame before chassis and bodywork were stripped back and comprehensively restored. The engine is likewise documented in before-and-after photographs, while neither the rest of the mechanicals nor the interior was overlooked.

Three years after returning to the road, the 1000 Sp Coupé moved to Austria with its last keeper in 2009. Barely showing its age on the outside, the handsome little sports car will certainly require a few helping hands to awaken from a decade-long Sleeping Beauty slumber. The extent and quality of the earlier restoration, however, remain impressive to this day.