MD.JANA UND DIE ALTEN - Unterwegs im DKW Munga

Jana and Karl Seiler on the road in a DKW Munga In the current episode of our show MD.JANA AND THE OLD ONES, Jana is out and about with motoring journalist Karl Seiler. The two of them are having a blast in a sandpit in their DKW Munga. Incidentally, Munga isn't the feminine form of mongoose (an animal that supposedly hunts cobras in India), but rather a name simply derived from the initial letters of "multi-purpose all-terrain vehicle" with all-wheel drive. The car was produced by DKW, a brand of Auto Union. This company was formed in 1931 by the German brands Audi, DKW, Wanderer, and Horch. Long before Jana's time, then, and her co-driver Karl Seiler wasn't even born yet. However, Jana recognizes the Auto Union rings adorning the Munga's grille today as the Audi trademark. The Munga was developed as a utility vehicle for the then-young German Federal Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) following a tender by the Ministry of Defense, and production began in 1958. The Munga featured in our article, by the way, comes from the classic car collection of our protagonist, Karl Seiler. Its orange paint job stems from its initial use in disaster relief after its service with the army. Later, it was used at a small airfield in the Upper Palatinate region of Bavaria. The car is powered by a two-stroke engine. Young people like Jana are only familiar with this type of engine from mopeds or other small two-wheelers. However, two-stroke engines were state-of-the-art in East Germany (GDR). The Trabant, the most popular car in East Germany – primarily due to a lack of real alternatives – was also a two-stroke. It originated in Chemnitz, known as Karl-Marx-Stadt during the GDR era, the founding city of Auto Union. The car is powered by a two-stroke engine. Just for the sake of completeness, it should be mentioned that the name DKW stands for several amusing terms: Dampfkraftwagen (steam-powered car), Des Knaben Wunsch (The Boy's Wish), Das Kleine Wunder (The Little Wonder), and – our favorite – Das Kühl Wunder (The Cooling Wonder). The latter originated in the late 1920s, when the company also produced refrigerators. Further information about the car and all the stories surrounding it can be found at the following links: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DKW_Munga http://www.autobild.de/klassik/artike... http://www.audi.com/corporate/de/unte... https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_Union