DKW Monza

After the series of wins by the DKW 3=6 'Sonderklasse' in European touring car racing and rallying in 1954 and 1955, two racing drivers started to develop a sporty body for the successful model. Günther Ahrens and Albrecht W. Mantzel designed a record-breaking car on the basis of the 3=6, incorporating an extremely lightweight plastic body built at Dannenhauer & Stauss in Stuttgart, Germany. The complete vehicles were first built by Dannenhauer & Stauss in Stuttgart, then by Massholder in Heidelberg and lastly by the company Robert Schenk in Stuttgart. Fritz Wenk had to discontinue his Monza production in 1958 after the new Auto Union 1000 Sp was launched in 1957 and Auto Union refused to provide additional new chassis for his production of the Monza. In December 1956, a team consisting of two Germans and two Swiss spent alternating times driving a DKW Monza around the race track at Monza, Italy. With an average speed of 140 km/h (87 mph), the team of drivers set five international records. The glass-fiber reinforced polyester coupe body had a smaller aerodynamic resistance due to its rounded frontal area and low profile. This made it much faster than the standard DKW.