DKW F 102

With the DKW F 102 Auto Union presented in August 1963 before the last model under the name DKW. He was also the last newly developed West German production car with two-stroke engine.

General

The F 102 was initially available as a two-door, from January 1965, as a four-door sedan from March 1964. While the design of its predecessor, Auto Union 1000, mainly originated in the late 1930s, was the F 102 is a newly designed vehicle with a unibody construction and - according to contemporary tastes - with large glass areas and little chrome.

The vehicle has a front suspension double wishbone with torsion bar springs. The rear Torsionskurbelachse ( rigid axle ) depends on longitudinally mounted support levers ( longitudinal rods ), which are spring-loaded by a transverse torsion bar. If uneven compression to twist the axle beam and thus acts as a stabilizer. For cornering a Panhard rod serves.

Since the axis requires a relatively large space, the tank is housed behind that in the floor of the trunk, where behind the rear-seat backrest upright also the spare wheel has its place.

Like its predecessor, the F 102 was equipped with a three -cylinder two- stroke in-line engine. The two-stroke mixture was generated by the jointly developed with Bosch new " fresh oil Automatic", which the lubricant is admixed to gasoline automatically from a separate oil tank in the engine compartment, which should simplify the refueling and reduce oil consumption. The driver could refuel pure gasoline without added oil. Nevertheless, the two-stroke engine in the 1960s by many customers has been found to be out of date, so that the model did not produce the hoped-for sales and for the Auto Union brought severe economic problems.

The fresh oil mechanism caused problems: After cold winter nights, the oil in the reservoir was so thick that the lubrication of the engine was not assured, as with prolonged coasting ( downhill ), so that many engines were thus damage caused by piston seizure or - klemmer. Warranty and settlements loaded balance sheets and customer confidence. Moreover, the three-cylinder 400 cc per cylinder had reached the end of its development.

By March 1966 52.753 vehicles were produced, of which, however, only about 25,000 units were sold. The F 102 was - under Daimler -Benz - directed four-cylinder four-stroke engine and retouched front and rear end provided with a - as Audi F103 still successful.

Müller- Andernach - motor

By Dipl. -Ing. Müller in Andernach was supposedly developed from two three-cylinder DKW engine a V6 engine. This engine had 1280 cc and made 83 hp. He was not taken by DKW, but should have been available for some of the last F -102 customers from Bayreuth production. After purchasing a standard F -102 sedan, the engine was changed in Bayreuth. At 83 kg, the V6 engine was not much heavier than the standard R3 engine. A total of about 100 engines, which were installed after the takeover of DKW in individual cases in the DKW F12 or used as marine engines emerged.

Specifications

L2 = 2 -door sedan
L4 = 4-door sedan

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