Staunau

Karl-Heinz Staunau was an entrepreneur from Hamburg who had enjoyed some success as a manufacturer of commercial machines for ice cream and bakery businesses during the years following the war. With the help of a former aircraft engineer, Staunau developed a small two-door four-seater fastback bodied car in just a few months. The design combined a crude but modern looking body with the front-wheel drive running gear from a DKW and an engine from Ilo, a major manufacturer of motor-bike engines. The resulting 389 cc two-cylinder two-stroke powered Staunau Type K 400 used a three speed manual transmission and was spectacularly underdeveloped and underpowered, but very competitively priced. By the time the end came, the company had manufactured 64 of the Type K 400s and 16 Type K 750s. When inevitable bankruptcy ensued, Karl-Heinz Staunau purchased a flight to South America and disappeared from view. Distinguished automobile historian David Burgess-Wise describes the Staunau as "probably one of the worst small cars ever made after World War II."