Hitler's Racing Car Set to Become the Most Expensive Car Ever Sold at Auction

How about if they auction off Hideki Tojo's favorite car?

OMG, his moustache looks like it was based upon that car... :p

Auto Union became Audi right? So that makes two German manufacturers (Mercedes and Audi) with strong links to the Nazis. What about BMW?

I think i saw a 1903 RR silverghost sold for $40 million at some auction show on TV .

Toyota motors was INTRODUCED in 1933. Even I know more than you!

And no, Toyotas were not RELIABLE in the 1930s! No car was! I am so tempted to call you names... I need a stress reliever.

That was a reply to JakeKann, not you. Sorry for the mistake.

Um...WHAT Toyota racing cars?

You lost me there.

Don't bother explaining, you're a fanboy living in a dreamworld. Toyota had no racing cars in the 1930s. That's a fact. Shut up with your Toyota this and Toyota that crap.

You are such an idiot! Hilarious!!!

so what is it expected to be auctioned at? any guesses?

Who the hell would want Hitler's car?

a hilter car fan...i guess

Well in order for this car to become the most expensive car sold in history it would have to sell for more then $17,000,000.00 thats right 17 million dollars!!! Thats what the 1931 Bugatti Type 41 Royale Sports Coupe was auctioned for by Christie's in paris back in June 2006.

...and the Autospies forums have reached a new low.

I LOve this car. It is perfect.

wow, your name indicates no bias at all :P

Okay guys some stats:

Oldest Japanese car compay:Datsun 1914.

Followed by Mitsubishi 1917 when they produced the model A.

Nissan 1933 but later merged with Datsun in the 70s/80s.

Youngest is Honda, started off in 1946 with bikes but in 1962 built its first car. Became successul, very successful in car building n 1972 with the civic.

The japanese have been around for a long time but did not concentrate on selling their products to the west. If they had, probably we won't have some of the very uniformed conversation that we see on this post.

By the way Daihatsu have been building engines since 1907...who knows maybe some of them ended up in the Merc and other Eureopean cars during that period.

Mitsubishi, Datsun and Daihatsu were longer in the business before even BMW.

I wanted to get this out but there was no place for me to start the conversation. Wished Agent 001 cold allow us to come up with topics on our own. Better still wished they could educate our readers and contributors more before they start of the Japanese car industries.

The D type is a racing legend.
And this topic has nothing to do with the japanese.

I took a picture of this car last summer when I was in Ingolstadt. It is beautiful. I really want to have it.

But there are many European brands which are pre-1900.

The DonII, informative post, but no mention of Toyota?

Wasn't that the issue in the first place?

Achtung!

Hitler actually commissioned the car to the right of the D type as well. It was Hitler's plan to develop two competitive German Grand Prix racing teams to completely dominate the sport and showcase German engineering to the world. Yes, that would be Mercedes Benz. Both Auto Union and MB received the same stipend amount from the German gov't to help launch the teams.

BMW has been a German arms supplier for almost 100 yrs. Starting with the device that kept the aircraft mounted machine guns from shooting off the propeller blades on WWI aircraft, (It oddly looks a lot like the symbol they use today on the cars) to the first successfully deployed jet aircraft engine, (ME109. Just about all manufacturers of just about anything in Germany in the 1930's came under the control of the Nazi party at that time.

You can't really hold that against them. They kissed ass to save ass just as anyone else would when forced to stare up the barrel of a gun. Porsche was one of the biggest Nazi's of all. How do you think he got the job of producing the people's car (VW)?

The car that is being auctioned off is not the one in the Ingolstadt museum. This one is privately owned. The one in the museum is the other one of only two in the world. Both cars and spare parts were seized by the Russians after WWII as spoils of war. (Auto Union was based in Chemnitz at the time, close to the Czech border, and consequently found itself in "Eastern Germany" after the war.) They were originally going to be dismantled and researched for the the technology but one frame was eventually found being used by a farmer as a wagon. I believe the Russians never got around to researching the cars with all that nuke work they chose to do instead.