The transition to four-stroke engines marked the end of the DKW marque for passenger cars.

From 1956 to 1967, DKW cars were made in Brazil by the local company Vemag ( Veículos e Máquinas Agrícolas S. A .).

Wartburg, a GDR manufacturer of larger saloons, also used a DKW engine: a water-cooled 3 cylinder two-stroke unit, also found in later Saab cars until the late sixties.

* 1931 introduced DKW small cars

Malzoni was a keen auto racer and began building his own competition cars based around a DKW straight-3 two-stroke engine with a light, fiberglass-skinned bodyshell.

The aim was to design a car that would compete with small German cars like Opel Kadett, DKW and Adler.

They also purchased a number of cars to study, including a DKW, a Hanomag, an Opel Kadett and a Volkswagen.

Panhard of France, DKW of Germany and Saab of Sweden offered exclusively front-wheel-drive cars, starting with the 1948 Saab 92.

Early cars using the FF layout include the 1929 Cord L-29, 1931 DKW F1, the 1948 Citroën 2CV, 1949 Saab 92 and the 1959 Mini.

It wasn't until the 1955 change to 360 cc as the upper limit for two-strokes as well as four-strokes that the class really began taking off, with cars from Suzuki Suzulight ( front-wheel drive based on the German Lloyd with a DKW type engine ) and then Subaru 360, finally able to fill people's need for basic transportation without being too severely compromised.

This time the cars and vans were three-wheelers powered by DKW engines driving the single front wheel.

The first successful transverse-engine cars were the two-cylinder DKW " Front " series of cars, which first appeared in 1931.

DKW engines were used by Saab as a model for the Saab two-stroke used in their new Saab 92 automobile manufacturing venture, in 1947.

An assembly plant was licenced in Ireland between 1952 and c. 1964 and roughly 4, 000 DKW vehicles were assembled ranging from saloons, vans, motorbikes to commercial combine harvesters.

About 100 V6 engines were built for testing purposes and 13 DKW F102 as well as some Mungas were fitted with the V6 engine in the 1960s.

DKW vehicles were also made in Argentina from 1960 through 1969 by IASF S. A. ( Industria Automotriz Santa Fe Sociedad Anónima ) in the city of Sauce Viejo, Santa Fe.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Saab 93, Saab 95, Saab 96, and certain DKW automobiles were powered by inline-three-cylinder, two-stroke engines.

The first engine and gearbox came from a DKW vehicle, but they were later replaced with an engine and gearbox designed by Gunnar Ljungström.

Also, some DKW Munga, a Jeep like vehicle used in the German army were retrofitted with this Ford V4, to replace its standard two-stroke engine.

Others manufacturers, including the big names of Vauxhall, Jaguar, Austin and Auto-Union DKW were also represented on the street in the first decades of the last century.

However, in the 1950s the larger sedan deliveries were replaced by vans like the Volkswagen Type 2, the DKW van and the first-generation Ford Transit.

Both companies from Zwickau ( Horch and Audi ) were unified in 1932 with DKW and Wanderer to Saxony's Auto Union corporation.

Due to widespread poverty in postwar Germany, only small DKW vehicles were produced.

This made DKW the most winning car brand in the European rally league for several years during the fifties.

The Trabant's air cooled two cylinder ( later 600cc ) two-stroke engine was derived from a pre-war DKW design, with minor alterations being made throughout the car's production run.

Also in Britain, Norton Motorcycles developed a Wankel rotary engine for motorcycles, based on the Sachs air-cooled Wankel that powered the DKW / Hercules W-2000 motorcycle, which was included in their Commander and F1 ; Suzuki also made a production motorcycle with a Wankel engine, the RE-5, where they used ferrotic alloy apex seals and an NSU rotor in a successful attempt to prolong the engine's life.

In 1931 the DKW F1 from Germany made its debut.

The company produced a two stroke 125cc motorcycle based on a pre-World War II DKW RT 125 design made in Minsk in the former Soviet Union ( now Belarus ).

The RT 125 is a German two-stroke motorcycle made by DKW in Zschopau in the 1930s, IFA and MZ in the 1950s and early 1960s, and DKW in Ingolstadt in the 1950s and 1960s.

In East Germany the machine was made at the original DKW factory by IFA, which later became MZ and Japan also produced copies.

The DKW Schnellaster, manufactured from 1949 to 1962 was a small monospace ( or one-box ) design featuring its front wheels set forward of the passenger cabin, a short, sloping aerodynamic hood, front-wheel drive, transverse engine, flat load floor throughout with flexible seating and cargo accommodations – the key design ingredients that describe the modern minivan configuration popularized in such notable examples as the Renault Espace and Chrysler Voyager / Caravan minivans.

This had a complete powered rear wheel which was simply substituted for the bicycle rear wheel, which originated from a design by two DKW engineers in Germany.

* 1932 The Auto Union was founded, created from Audi, Horch, Wanderer and DKW.

The design of the engine was still derived from the original DKW design, apparent from the concentric kick start and gear lever arrangement.

Due to heavy competition, mainly from Opel, DKW and Adler, the Ford Köln was not a success.

While not the first production front wheel drive car – Alvis built the 1928 FWD in the UK, Cord produced the L29 from 1929 to 1932 in the United States and DKW the F1 in 1931 in Germany – it was the world's first front-wheel drive steel monocoque production car.

In 1938, after the German government discovered that RS Stokvis en Zonen, the Dutch importer of DKW motorcycles, had Jewish directors, they forced DKW was to remove their franchise from the company.

In 1928, the company was acquired by Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen, owner of DKW ( from the German Dampfkraftwagen, or steam engine vehicle ) who had bought the remains of the US automobile manufacturer Rickenbacker in the same year.

Rasmussen acquired a majority interest in Audi in 1928, which four years later became Auto Union with the merger of DKW, Audi, and others.

* 1928 DKW takes over the Audi factory at Zwickau

The last version of the Auto Union Combi / Pick-up ( DKW F1000 L ) launched in 1969, survives a few months and is bought out by IME which continued production until 1979.