I first got involved with Auto Union Silver Arrows when I had to make a framework to hold the tail section more securely on the D-Type that was then owned by Neil Corner. The car was running with a Hewland gearbox at the time, which was subsequently changed for the real thing a few years later. The job had to be done in a bit of a hurry, as I recall, due to the imminent departure of the car to Monaco for the Historic race (sometime in the mid eighties). The next job I had to do on Silver Arrows was to install the engine and complete the build, (the first half of which had been done by another 'old car fixer' at C&G), of a Mercedes 154 also owned by Neil Corner. In my opinion the W154 had a lot more finesse in all aspects of its construction than the Auto Unions I have subsequently built, although the engine was in the wrong place! Both these cars are now under different ownership, the details of which I am not entirely sure.
Paul Karassik and his wife Barbara shot me into the position of Auto Union builder when they turned up from Russia with enough bits to build the better part of two D-Types. In two years, we at C&G, managed to sort out, repair, refurbish and reassemble most of the components that we were presented with. The main bits that we had to replace were made of 'perishable stuff' i.e. rubber and leather. The brake pipes that run through the chassis initially gave me a bit of a tough time getting them out, as the devious sods who built the cars originally had devised a method of clamping the pipes down within the chassis tubes, I have found a way of putting the new pipes in with clamps and I'm pretty sure that's how it was done originally!
The chassis for the single stage blower car had to be replaced, as in years gone by some enterprising Russian had converted the original into a farm trailer (probably far more useful to him than a racing car). This provided me the opportunity to make my first AU chassis utilising all the bits I could salvage from the 'trailer'.
While this was going on the V12 units were stripped down by our engine shop and rebuilt to a standard that is common at C&G 'as good as if not better than new'. I had very little to do with the engines bar fit them and make sure everything was correctly installed on the chassis to allow them to run perfectly. The gearboxes on these two cars are both of different configuration. The one on the 38 car is similar to all the rest that are in use by Audi, but the 39 car box was (according to my research) one of the latest type used by AU and features short carden shaft oiler pipes, constant mesh on first gear (resulting in a different gear shift gate pattern) and a larger oil capacity.
During the construction of the two cars I think the only bit I really got wrong was the way the gearshift rod was connected to the cockpit g'change gate, something I was later able to correct when the mountainclimb car came in a year or two later and I was able to copy. The bodies were built by Rod Jolley and his bunch of merry men, as none came with the bits we had, the dimensions were taken from the ex Neil Corner car which although at that time was in storage, was accessible to us.
As the cars began to take shape Paul and Barbara got more and more anxious to see them completed (understandable, but at times a bit of a pain). As testament to the original construction of the cars, all the suspension that we had, would at a pinch have worked with no more than a good squirt of oil and a spanner check (would have looked awful though!).
The cars were initially tried and tested at West Malling airfield, and from there after a thorough check over were taken to Germany where they were wheeled out at the Nurburgring to run side by side for the first time in over fifty years. There were many reports and articles printed about the event and it was probably that publicity that prompted Audi to get involved in the the next stage of what has become my 'specialist subject'
