Founded by Jörge-Skafte Rasmussen, DKW built its first two-stroke motorcycles in 1919, and, after building SB and DEW electrics, used a similar wood-framed chassis-less construction on its first petrol-powered DKW two-stroke cars at their Berlin-Spandau works in 1928. The first cars had 584cc twin-cylinder engines, followed in 1930 by water-cooled V4 models with two-stroke engines which had 780cc and later 992cc engines. The first front-wheel-drive two-stroke 490cc and 584cc two-cylinder models left the works in 1931. Up to 1939 DKW produced two-stroke cars in 684cc and V4 1047cc versions. They were good, but not always very economical. In 1928 Rasmussen bought engine production equipment from Rickenbacker in the USA and afterwards produced big six- and eight-cylinder engines for Audi and other firms. In 1932 DKW became part of the Auto Union Group, consisting of DKW, Audi, Horch and Wanderer. After 1945, all these works became nationalized, as they were geographically in an area which became the DDR. New Auto Union factories in West Germany at Ingolstadt and Düsseldorf came into being in 1949 and built fwd DKW cars with 684cc twin-cylinders and soon after three-cylinders of 896cc. They were again two-stroke cars with water-cooling and vertical cylinders in line. They developed 23 bhp and 34 bhp, while later three-cylinder versions developed 38 bhp and also 40bhp. The Auto Union DKW "1000" of 1957 got a new three-cylinder 980cc engine which had 44 bhp, afterwards 50 bhp at 4500 rpm, while the "Special" was supplied with 55 hp motors. They were two-stroke cars with fairly thirsty engines. The trend led to four-stroke engines and to the first "New" Audi. Mercedes (Daimler-Benz) bought the works in 1958 and sold it to VW in 1965, by which time Mercedes had developed the first engine for the Audi. The last two-stroke DKW was produced in February 1966. ©VEA
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