Auto Union Typ C, Silver

Ferdinand Porsche turned the Grand Prix car around. The Auto Union carried its supercharged V16 behind the driver and ahead of the rear axle, an arrangement Grand Prix racing would not see again until Cooper brought it back in the late 1950s. By the Typ C of 1936 and 1937 the engine had grown to 6.0 litres and as much as 520 hp, in a car that weighed around 825 kg. In 1936 Bernd Rosemeyer used it to win the Eifelrennen, the German, Swiss and Italian Grands Prix and the Coppa Acerbo, and took the European Championship and the German hill-climb championship in the same season.

This is the plain Typ C, in bare silver with no race number, the four rings on the nose and the long tail rising behind the cockpit. The engine cover lifts away entirely, as shown here, to expose the V16 and its wrapped pipework; behind the woven seat sits a slender steering wheel with a brown rim. The spoked wheels, each built from 75 parts, come off by their winged central nuts. CMC builds it at 1:18, from more than 1,000 parts.