Historical milestone
The DKW Front celebrates its 85th anniversary.
23 February, 2016
The need for affordable motoring solutions and technical innovation came together with great success in the 1930s when DKW unveiled its newest creation at the 1931 Berlin Motor Show.
Called the DKW Front F1, this diminutive vehicle boasted a transversely mounted 600cc two-cylinder, two-stroke engine producing a princely 15 horsepower or just over 11kW. What really set the Front F1 apart though was the fact that it was front-wheel drive – the first time that front-wheel drive was used in volume production on a car, but which of course went on to tremendous success in the car industry internationally.
So successful was the DKW Front F1’s combination of affordable performance and front-wheel drive that DKW became the second most successful brand in Germany in terms of vehicle registrations just two months after going on sale.
Various versions of the Front went on sale, and the F1 was soon the Auto Union’s top-selling model. By the time production ceased in 1942 about 270,000 had left the Audi assembly lines.
Subsequent models like the Front Reichsklasse Type F7 (famously pictured with 30 men demonstrating its strong construction) and the Front F8 continued to use the front-wheel drive configuration, and received an increase in displacement to 700cc and a power increase to 20 horsepower (14.9kW).
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