Classic Cars

This historic car was discovered in the German state of Saxony at the end of the 1990s, and purchased by Audi Tradition. Its history is exciting to recall: as was frequently the case in the 1920s, the customer (who must have been wealthy, since the car cost more than 16,000 Reichsmarks even then, as much as a small house) bought the Imperator as a chassis with engine. This ‘platform’ was delivered to a coachbuilder where the customer selected the bodywork of his choice or had it designed. In view of this, Peter Spillner had to conjure up something special. He explains his approach: “We looked at the original photographs in the Audi archives and decided to build an open touring car with a phaeton body.” The colour, too, was based on detective work: one of the headlights still bore traces of the original paint, which is best described somewhere between olive green and brown. Spillner, who is 35 years of age, and his colleagues visited several museums in their quest for detail authenticity. He recalls: “We studied cars of a comparable age, because all the manufacturers at that time had the same outside suppliers.”

Audi introduced the Imperator at the end of the 1920s as the successor to the innovative Audi Type M six-cylinder model, but it was not destined to be a great success. The eight-cylinder Imperator appeared right in the middle of a period of economic difficulty for the then Audi Werke, which culminated in a takeover by the founder of DKW, Jörgen Skafte Rasmussen, though the situation deteriorated still further as the world economic crisis broke out. Only 145 Audi Imperators were built. Ralf Hornung, who is responsible at Audi Tradition for the purchase and restoration of historic vehicles, explains: “The Imperator was an excellent car, but it reached the market at the wrong time.” According to the oldtimer specialist this particular car, the last remaining anywhere in the world, had a long series of owners and probably only survived for a very special reason. “We suspect that it there was a plan for it to be used by a fire brigade. They tend to treat their vehicles very well. The luxury car was certainly in passable condition when it was purchased by Audi. Spillner: “The original engine was still a runner.”

article source : http://www.cartype.com/pages/3265/audi_imperator__1929