At the 1939 Motor Show in Berlin, Horch exhibited its 930 S and gave visitors a glimpse of how the future of the automobile was likely to look. This streamlined car was designed according to the very latest aerodynamic research findings, based both on the company’s own wind-tunnel tests and on patents held by the pioneering aerodynamic engineer Paul Jaray.
At the rear, there are clear similarities with the DKW F 9, but the 930 S has many other striking design details as well: there are for instance no B-posts, so that access to the rear seats is convenient and unobstructed. A hot-water heating system with outlets for the windows and footwells was a standard feature of this model, which even had a fold-out handbasin with hot and cold running water accessible from outside the car.
Just six months after the Berlin Motor Show, Horch had to suspend all car manufacturing activities. And as if that wasn’t enough, the defeat of Germany had a severe impact on the former managers of the Horch brand, since when the eastern portion of Germany became a satellite state of the Soviet Union, the Horch factory and its inventory went with it.
Before the start of World War II, the specialists at Horch had only made two 930 S cars in all. One of them was displayed at the show in Berlin, and the other belonged to motorsports icon Tazio Nuvolari. The saddest thing is that both cars disappeared without leaving a trace. To this day, nobody knows where or when they disappeared. However, when the Soviets got their hands on the inventory that had been in the factories, Russian engineers used stolen drawings to assemble several Horch 930 S cars between 1947 and 1948. Two of them went to high-ranking bureaucrats, while the fate of the others raises many questions, even today.
Only two Horch 930 S cars have survived to this day: one is back in the hands of Audi, while the other belongs to the August Horch Museum in Zwickau, Germany.
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