[Owen]

Quite a modern looking Audi car!

Galleries - Time to Burn? - Top Gear

Auto Union Streamliner

Built to cleave the air at never-before-witnessed road speeds, the Auto Union Streamliner is a thing of beauty. But this is a form of visual seduction with a killer twist: on January 28 1938, the car was ripped apart as it barrel-rolled off the Frankfurt-Darmstadt autobahn at 270mph, taking one of Germany's great racing heroes, Bernd Rosemeyer, to the grave with it.

Grand Prix Hall of Fame - Bernd Rosemeyer - Biography

At the end of the season Mercedes feeling that their reputation was taking a beating by the upstart Auto Union team and its brash driver decided to undertake an attempt to regain the land speed record from Auto Union. The attempt would take place on the Frankfurt-Darmstadt-Heidelberg autobahn.
Rosemeyer in describing his record setting run stated that "... at about 240 mph the joints in the concrete road surface are felt like blows, setting up a corresponding resonance through the car, but this disappears at a greater speed. Passing under bridges the driver receives a terrific blow to the chest, because the car is pushing air aside, which is trapped by the bridge. When you go under a bridge, for a split second the engine noise completely disappears and then returns like a thunderclap when you are through....

....Traveling at over 270 mph a crosswind caught his car and caused the Auto Union to somersault flinging Rosemeyer to his death.

I liked this bit of anti-Nazism at the German Grand Prix...

As they mounted the victors rostrum they were congratulated by the ranking Nazi, Adolf Huhnlein. Caracciola was presented with a large trophy depicting the Goddess of Speed. Showing his disdain for bureaucrats in general and National Socialism in particular he placed a lighted cigarette between the statues lips while Huhnlein's back was turned. Alerted by the crowds burst of laughter Huhnlein turned back only to see Rosemeyer's feigned innocence.