Audi’s latest car isn’t that new at all.
The Auto Union Lucca is a V16-engined recreation of a 200mph-plus record-breaker that’s been lost since WW2.
The reborn Lucca – or Rennlimousine, as it was also known – will be seen in action for the first time at Goodwood Festival of Speed, in the UK, from July 9-12, 2026.
On February 15, 1935, German ace Hans Stuck piloted the original car to a top speed of 326.975kph (203.17mph) on a stretch of autostrada near Lucca, the Italian city in Tuscany that lent the Auto Union its name.
And this incredible, striking-looking machine has been recreated using historical documents and photographs from Audi’s archive.
The original Auto Union Lucca was one of the first cars to break the 200mph barrier
Ingolstadt’s heritage department commissioned British firm Crosthwaite & Gardiner, based in East Sussex, to build the replica.
The revived streamliner has been tested in Audi’s wind tunnel, where it achieved a drag coefficient of 0.43Cd.
Almost a century ago, in the 1930s, the Lucca was one of the first race cars developed in a wind tunnel: engineers worked in the Berlin-Adlershof Aeronautical Research Institute’s facility to create the dramatic shape.
