The DKW Typ P was the first

motor car A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as t ...

made by

DKW DKW (''Dampf-Kraft-Wagen'', en, "steam-powered car", also ''Deutsche Kinder-Wagen'' en, "German children's car". ''Das-Kleine-Wunder'', en, "the little wonder" or ''Des-Knaben-Wunsch'', en, "the boy's wish"- from when the company built to ...

. It was a light-weight design with a

unit body A vehicle frame, also historically known as its ''chassis'', is the main supporting structure of a motor vehicle to which all other components are attached, comparable to the skeleton of an organism. Until the 1930s, virtually every car had a ...

made of wood Posthumus, Cyril: The Story of Veteran & Vintage Cars, pp. 120, 122–123 and imitation leather.

Oswald Oswald may refer to: People * Oswald (given name), including a list of people with the name *Oswald (surname), including a list of people with the name Fictional characters *Oswald the Reeve, who tells a tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's ''The Canterbu ...

, p 86 It was powered by a

two stroke A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this power cycle being completed in one revolution of t ...

inline twin engine.

Origins

The first Type P was ready on 7 May 1928. The model was developed by Rudolf Slaby, the former owner of the

Spandau Spandau () is the westernmost of the 12 boroughs () of Berlin, situated at the confluence of the Havel and Spree rivers and extending along the western bank of the Havel. It is the smallest borough by population, but the fourth largest by land ...

based automaker Slaby-Beringer which DKW had purchased in 1924. Oswald, Werner: Deutsche Autos 1920-1945, volume 2, p. 85

The Typ P Roadster / Cabriolet 1928 - 1929

The original Typ P was made from 1928 to 1929 and was available as a convertible or a roadster. The engine produced and the car was referred to as the DKW P15 as a result. Power was transmitted via a three speed manual gear box to the rear wheels. Even at this stage the mechanically operated foot brake worked on all four wheels: the handbrake operated on the front leftside wheel and on the rear rightside wheel.

The Typ PS 600-Sport 1929 - 1931

A reduced wheelbase sports roadster derivative, the PS 600, with an engine producing , was made from December 1929 till 1931. The contrast between the relatively long bonnet/hood and the small two cylinder engine hiding underneath it was excessive, but the car was visually appealing, being sportingly proportioned with a tapered "boat-deck" rear reminiscent of the racing cars of the time.

, pp 86, 88 & 90

Commercial

The car drew criticism. Experts remarked on its primitive look and the "uncultivated" noise from the two-stroke engine. The "two-stroke" fuel mixture of gasoline/petrol with oil was expensive, and the Type P used a lot of it. It had a prodigious appetite for

spark plugs A spark plug (sometimes, in British English, a sparking plug, and, colloquially, a plug) is a device for delivering electric current from an ignition system to the combustion chamber of a spark-ignition engine to ignite the compressed fuel/air ...

. A relatively short operating life was anticipated also on account of the poor quality of the synthetic leather that coated the timber body frame: it rotted. Astonishingly, with approximately 2,000 produced, DKW's first car nevertheless found many customers. DKW was by this time Germany's leading motorbike producer: most buyers of the first DKW car were upgrading from motorbikes, and were accordingly already inured to the peculiarities of the two-stroke engine.

Succession

After production of the Typ P Roadster/Cabriolet came to an end, its place on the Spandau production line was taken by the Typ PS-600 Sport, while a class up the plant concentrated increasingly on the 980cc Typ 4=8. In terms of market positioning, the real successor of the original Typ P was the

DKW F1 The DKW F1 was a small car produced by DKW (part of the Auto Union) between 1931 and 1932. It was launched at the Berlin Motor Show in February 1931. Oswald, Werner: Deutsche Autos 1920-1945, volume 2, p. 94: ''"Innerhalb von 6 Wochen sollten nic ...

, the innovative front wheel drive model launched in February 1931 and produced 300 km (190 miles) to the south at the

Zwickau Zwickau (; is, with around 87,500 inhabitants (2020), the fourth-largest city of Saxony after Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz and it is the seat of the Zwickau District. The West Saxon city is situated in the valley of the Zwickau Mulde (German: ' ...

plant acquired in 1928 with the purchase of

Audi Audi AG () is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. As a subsidiary of its parent company, the Volkswagen Group, Audi produces vehicles in nine production facilities worldwide. Th ...

References

;Citations ;Sources * *{{cite book, last = Posthumus, first = Cyril, author-link = Cyril Posthumus, others = John Wood, illustrator, title = The Story of Veteran & Vintage Cars, orig-year = 1977, year = 1977, publisher = Hamlyn, location = Feltham, Middlesex, UK, isbn = 0-600-39155-8, chapter = The End of an Era, ref=Posthumus P First car made by manufacturer