Audi F103

Audi
Audi 60 L
F103
Production period:	1965-1972
Class :	Middle class
Body versions :	Limousine , station wagon
Engines:	Otto engine : 1.5–1.7 liters (40–66 kW)
Length:	4380 mm
Width:	1626 mm
Height:	1451 mm
Wheelbase :	2490 mm
Empty weight :	960-1065 kg
Previous model	DKW F 102
successor	Audi 80 B1

The Audi F103 was a sedan with a four-cylinder four - stroke engine and front-wheel drive . Auto Union GmbH , which was newly founded in West Germany at the end of 1949 , brought the first model with the traditional name of Audi onto the market in the summer of 1965 after the Second World War . The Audi Variant station wagon was also available from spring 1966 .

In the summer of 1972, the company, which had been trading as Audi NSU Auto Union AG since 1969, ended production of the F103. The successor was the newly developed Audi 80 .

Model history

General

The sales name was initially only Auto Union “Audi”, as it was initially the only vehicle of the new brand . Audi was absorbed by Auto Union during the global economic crisis, but the brand was no longer used after the Second World War. With this model, Audi was revived, but the DKW brand disappeared from the car market in 1966 with the end of production of the DKW F 102 . The DKW F 102 was the last passenger car built in West Germany with a two-stroke engine. The model was later called "Audi 72" when variants with other engines were added and the horsepower output was part of the model name. The Audi 60 with 55 hp has been rounded up a bit.

The F103 was a further development of the DKW F 102. Since the four-cylinder engine of the Audi was longer than the DKW three-cylinder, the front of the Audi was lengthened by 100 mm and the radiator was installed at an angle next to the engine on the left side. Instead of the round headlights in the chrome-plated grille of the F 102, the Audi had rectangular headlights in a slightly wider black grille.

The vehicle was presented to the public in Feldafing on September 9, 1965 .

Body and equipment

All models were offered as notchback sedans with two and four doors. With the exception of the Super 90 model , the Audi F103 was also available as a three-door station wagon . This was called - like the estate models from Volkswagen  - " Variant ".

The rear section initially almost corresponded to that of the F 102, but received rear lights that encompassed the rear ends of the fenders.

The Audi (72) and the Audi 60 were offered in both a simple and an upscale L version. The top-of-the-range Audi Super 90 differed from the other models in terms of the appearance of the standard chrome-plated trim strips on the wheel arches .

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  Audi (1965–1968)

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  Audi Variant (1966)

• 

  Audi 60 (1968-1969)

• 

  Audi 75 Variant (1968-1970)

• 

  Audi Super 90 (1966–1969)

Facelift

The Audi F 103 was only slightly changed in its seven-year construction period. In the summer of 1969 and model year 1970, all models were fitted with windshield wipers positioned next to one another instead of one above the other. In the summer of 1970, the fuel filler neck of the sedans was moved from the rear (below the right rear light) to the right rear side panel. As before with the Variant, it was now covered by a flap. By eliminating the filler neck at the rear, it was possible to change the shape of the tail lights, which were now taller and narrower. Furthermore, all models received the door handles of the Audi 100. From the front, the newer models can only be recognized by the changed Audi lettering on the right fender . In the interior there were side ventilation nozzles in the dashboard, new switch units and an instrument group in which the instruments were mounted closer together, mounted significantly higher, easier to read and looked more modern. The new dashboard always had a decorative film with a wood pattern. Before that, the dashboard was partly made of painted sheet metal.

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  Audi 60 (1970–1972)

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  Rear view

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  Side view of the four-door 1970–1972

• 

  Audi 60 and its predecessor DKW F102 (left)

Motors / technology

The F103 series was exclusively equipped with four-cylinder in - line engines, making it the first post-war series with a four-stroke engine . As an export model, only a few copies of the Super 90 were sold in the USA as a sedan and variant ("Station Wagon") from 1969 . The Audi 75 replaced both the "Audi" and the "Audi 80" at the end of 1968.

The engines of the F103 were also called "Audi medium pressure engines". Since they very high for that time compression ratio have the engines required premium gasoline with 98  octane (now Super Plus). The development of the engine was originally started at Mercedes with the internal code "Mexico". The goal was a multi-fuel engine for military purposes, which was not used as such and which Ludwig Kraus then adapted for the F102 after he had become Technical Director at Auto Union on October 8, 1963. The Audi four-stroke engines had an underneath (side) camshaft that was driven by a duplex roller chain and overhead valves operated by bumpers and rocker arms . The engine had Heron combustion chambers and helically wound inlet ducts, similar to engines with the MAN M process , which caused a strong turbulence in the mixture and thus enabled the very high compression ratio without the engine ringing . The original version of the engine had a compression ratio of 11.7: 1. The compression ratio was later reduced in order to achieve better running smoothness. The versions designed for regular gasoline were compressed 9: 1, which was also an unusually high value. Thanks to the high compression (which was reduced in later versions), the Audi engine was relatively economical for its time, but also ran a bit robust. The engine formed the basis for the later engine of the Audi 100 C1 . The medium-pressure engine was also the basis of the 2-liter engine used in the Audi 100 C2 , VW LT , Porsche 924 and AMC Gremlin . This version had a cylinder head with an overhead camshaft that was driven by a toothed belt. The cylinders were cast together (there were no cooling water channels between them) in order to allow a bore of 86.5 mm with the given cylinder spacing.

In the first series of the larger Audi 100 (1968–1977) the same engine was used with increased displacement in versions up to 115 hp. With the first Audi 80 , the newly designed EA827 engine (EA = "development order") with overhead camshaft was introduced in 1972 , which was later also used in almost all new front-wheel drive Volkswagen models.

Like its predecessor DKW F102, the Audi F103 - together with NSU Ro 80 , VW K 70 and some Citroën cars of the time - had "internal" disc brakes between the gearbox and drive shafts . As standard there was a four-speed gearbox with steering wheel shift , from 1969 a middle shift could alternatively be ordered at an additional cost . An automatic transmission was not offered in this series.

The front wheels were individually suspended on double wishbones , at the rear there was a rigid torsion crank axle , guided along the suspension levers and a Panhard bar, and torsion bars with telescopic shock absorbers at the front and rear .

Model variants

• Audi (72), September 1965 - December 1968, Variant May 1966 - August 1966
• Audi 60 and Audi 60 Variant, February 1968 - July 1972
• Audi 75 and Audi 75 Variant, December 1968 - July 1972
• Audi 80 and Audi 80 Variant, September 1966 - December 1968
• Audi Super 90, December 1966 - August 1971, Variant (Station Wagon, only for USA), 1969–1971

Technical specifications

Audi F103	Audi 60 (two- or four-door sedan, three-door variant)	Audi 72 (two- or four-door sedan, three-door variant)	Audi 75 (two- or four-door sedan, three-door variant)	Audi 80 (two- or four-door sedan, three-door variant)	Audi Super 90 (two or four-door sedan)
Years of production	1968-1972	1965-1968	1968-1972	1966-1968	1966-1972
Quantity (except variant):	216,988	122,579			49,794
Engine:	water-cooled four-cylinder four-stroke in-line engine , longitudinally installed inclined by 40 ° to the right, five bearings crankshaft , pressure lubrication below camshaft via Duplex - timing chain driven, bumpers , rocker arm
Bore × stroke:	80 x 74.4 mm	80 x 84.4 mm			81.5 x 84.4 mm
Displacement:	1496 cc	1695 cc			1761 cc
Output kW (PS) at 1 / min:	40 kW (55 PS) 1 4750	53 kW (72 PS) 5000	55 kW (75 PS) 5000	59 kW (80 PS) 5000	66 kW (90 PS) 5200
Torque Nm at 1 / min:	113 2600	127 2000	127 3000	132 3000	147 3000
Compression:	9.1: 1	11.2: 1 2	9.1: 1	11.2: 1 2	10.6: 1
Acceleration 0 - 100 km / h:	18.0 s 16.2 s (export)	14.8 s	14.5 s	14.0 s 14.5 s (combi)	12.2 s
Top speed:	138 km / h 144 km / h (export)	148 km / h	150 km / h	152 km / h	163 km / h
Mixture formation:	Solex - downdraft carburetor				Solex downdraft register carburetor
Electrical system:	12 volts, three-phase alternator 35 amps (490 watts)
Transmission, drive	Fully synchronized four-speed manual transmission behind the front axle, steering wheel gearshift (from October 1969 a. W. middle gearshift), front-wheel drive
Front suspension:	double triangular wishbones, lengthwise torsion bar springs (torsion bars), anti-roll bar , telescopic shock absorbers
rear ::	Torsion crank axle (rigid axle on support levers with transverse torsion bar), Panhard bar , telescopic shock absorber
Brakes:	front: internal discs (Ø 280 mm), rear: drums (Ø 200 mm)
Body:	self-supporting, sheet steel, tank capacity 53 liters (from September 1968: 55 l)
Empty mass:	960-1065 kg
Track width front / rear:	1343 mm / 1327 mm
Wheelbase:	2490 mm
Dimensions:	Length: 4380 mm, width: 1626 mm, height: 1451 mm
Steering:	Rack and pinion steering
Turning circle:	10.9 m

¹ Audi / Audi 60 export model: 48 kW (65 hp) at 5000 rpm
² from September 1967: 9.1: 1

literature

• Christian Steiger, Thomas Wirth: Audi 1965–1975, The decisive years. Heel Verlag, Königswinter 2004, ISBN 3-89365-445-3 .
• Christof Vieweg: When Daimler gave Audi jump start. on: sueddeutsche.de , April 12, 2015.

Web links

Commons : Audi F103  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Good overview of the development from DKW 102 to Audi 60
• A "Super 90" at a classic car rally ( Memento from February 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
• Bruno von Rotz: Audi or DKW F 103 - sheer driving pleasure in the first modern Audi (vehicle reports) - double-declutching. In: Zwischengas.com. February 9, 2016, accessed January 8, 2018 . 

annotation

1. ↑ In an advertisement, Auto Union explained the term “medium-pressure engine” as follows: “This is an engine that has a higher compression than a conventional gasoline engine, but lower than a diesel engine. Which is therefore as lively as a gasoline engine and has learned a lot from the diesel engine in terms of economy. ”The advertising text left open how the expression“ medium-pressure engine ”, which is otherwise commonly used in connection with Lanz glow-head engines, came about .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ September 9, 1965 - 52 years ago today. braunschweiger-zeitung.de from September 8, 2017, accessed on September 11, 2017.
2. ↑ The Mercedes man who saved Audi and VW. In: oldtimermarkt. 7/2013