DKW F 102

DKW
DKW F 102
F 102
Production period:	1964-1966
Class :	Lower middle class
Body versions :	limousine
Engines:	Otto engine : 1.2 liters (44 kW)
Length:	4280 mm
Width:	1618 mm
Height:	1459 mm
Wheelbase :	2480 mm
Empty weight :	910-945 kg
Previous model	Auto Union 1000
successor	Audi F103

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

Model history

General

Rear view

The F 102 was initially available as a two-door sedan from March 1964 and also as a four-door sedan from January 1965. While the design of its predecessor, the Auto Union 1000 , essentially came from the late 1930s, the F 102 was a newly designed vehicle with a self-supporting body and - in keeping with contemporary taste - with large glass surfaces and little chrome. The new price of the two-door sedan was DM 7,200.

The vehicle has a front suspension on double wishbones with torsion bar springs . The rear torsion crank axle (rigid axle) hangs on longitudinally installed support levers (trailing arms), which are sprung from a transverse torsion bar. If the compression is uneven, the axle beam twists and acts as a stabilizer . A Panhard rod is used for lateral guidance .

Since the axle takes up a lot of space, the tank is housed behind it in the floor of the trunk, where the spare wheel is also located behind the rear seat back.

Last DKW with a two-stroke engine

Like its predecessors, the F 102 was equipped with a three - cylinder two-stroke in - line engine. The two-stroke mixture was generated by the new “ fresh oil system ” developed jointly with Bosch , which automatically mixes the lubricant with the gasoline from a separate oil tank in the engine compartment, which should simplify refueling and reduce oil consumption. The driver could fill up with pure gasoline with no added oil. While the Junior was at times still the most successful small car in West Germany, just a few years later many customers found the two-stroke engine to be out of date, so that the F 102 did not achieve the sales figures it had hoped for and caused Auto Union serious economic problems.

The causes of this quite abrupt loss of image included problems with the automatic fresh oil system: After cold winter nights, the oil in the reservoir was so viscous that the engine could not be lubricated, as was the case with prolonged coasting (downhill driving), so that many engines were damaged by piston seizures or -kemmer got. With the fully synthetic motor oils with a high viscosity index available today , the problems in the cold could possibly be avoided, but such oils were not yet available in the 1960s. Guarantee and goodwill services put a strain on the balance sheet and customer confidence. Another problem, especially of the F 102 type, was the fact that the three-cylinder with 400 cm³ displacement per cylinder had reached the end of its development potential and even larger two-stroke engines were not established in the automotive industry. Attempts with a two-stroke V6 engine failed. The era of two-stroke engines in West German automobile construction ended with the F 102 ( the two-stroke engine was only available in the DKW Munga off-road vehicle until December 1968).

By March 1966, 52,753 vehicles were produced, of which only about 25,000 could be sold. The F 102 - under Daimler-Benz direction with an in-line four - cylinder four - stroke engine and retouched front and rear sections - was still successful as the Audi F103 . With the end of production of the DKW F 102, which was officially sold as Auto Union , the DKW brand disappeared from the car market. In return, the successor Audi F103 was used to revive the Audi brand that existed in what was then Auto Union before the Second World War .

After a few months of production, DKW resorted to a method that was as simple as it was successful in order to reduce the gasoline consumption that was quite high in everyday operation. Halfway through spring kinematics, the accelerator pedal was subjected to a significantly increased resistance to give the driver a better feeling for the power he was demanding from the engine. Such an accelerator pedal with a pressure point was later also used in the Trabant 601 , the fuel consumption of which was also (too) high in relation to the engine output due to the two-stroke cycle.

Müller-Andernach engine

The engineer Hans Müller in Andernach (1902–1968) developed a six-cylinder V-two-stroke engine in the early 1960s, which, according to his own description, worked like two three-cylinder engines on a common crankshaft and was initially planned as a boat engine with different displacement sizes up to 1.6 liters . As a car engine, it had a displacement of 1288 cc with a bore of 62.5 mm and a stroke of 70 mm. The power was specified with 80 hp (59 kW) at 3800 rpm; the maximum torque was 15.4 mkp or 150 Nm. For test drives with the six-cylinder engine built by Heinkel, the F 102 was converted to radial tires of size 165–14; consumption was 9.5 liters of regular gasoline per 100 kilometers. However, the engine was not taken into series production. It was then planned that the Bayreuth Motor Company, founded in 1966, would build it independently of Auto Union to replace the three-cylinder engine, but this turned out to be uneconomical. Probably only a few demonstration cars were made. At 83 kg, the V6 engine was hardly heavier than the standard R3 engine. The extra power of around 20 hp compared to the three-cylinder engine was barely noticeable at top speed. A total of around 100 engines were built, which after the takeover of DKW were also installed in the DKW F12 or used as boat engines in individual cases .

Technical specifications

DKW F 102 (right) and its successor Audi F103 (from 1969, large taillights)

DKW F 102 in the museum mobile in Ingolstadt

Type	F 102	F 102 (V6)
Construction period	1964-1966	1966
Superstructures	L2, L4
engine	3 cyl. Row, 2-stroke	6 cyl. V, 2-stroke
Valves	without
Bore × stroke	81 mm × 76 mm	62.5 mm × 70 mm
Displacement	1175 cc	1288 cc
Power kW (PS)	44 (60)	59 (80)
at speed (1 / min)	4500	3800
Torque (Nm)	103	142
at speed (1 / min)	2250	3400
compression	7.25-7.5: 1	9.5: 1
consumption	11 l / 100 km	8.6-11.2 l / 100 km
transmission	4-speed with steering wheel gearshift
Top speed	135 km / h	> 140 km / h
Empty weight	910-945 kg
Perm. total weight	1335-1350 kg
Electrics	6 volts
length	4280 mm
width	1618 mm
height	1459 mm
wheelbase	2480 mm
Front / rear track	1330 mm / 1326 mm
Turning circle	11.4 m
wheel size	6.00-13 "	165-14

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

literature

• Werner Oswald: German Cars 1945–1990. Volume 4, 1st edition, Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-613-02131-5 .

Web links

Commons : DKW F102  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

• Private website about DKW cars, here about the F 102
• 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 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DKW F 102
2. ↑ Siegfried Rauch / Frank Rönicke: 2 bars - 4 wheels . 1st edition, Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2016, ISBN 978-3-613-03862-2 , pp. 90-95.
3. ↑ Only a few test or demonstration cars were built; The DKW F 102 with the six-cylinder engine did not go into series production.