{"id":9681,"date":"2012-04-01T18:13:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-01T18:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ooooiykyk.com\/audiarchives\/?p=9681"},"modified":"2026-09-01T18:58:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T18:58:22","slug":"audi-front-uw-jaray-replica-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ooooiykyk.com\/audiarchives\/2012\/04\/01\/audi-front-uw-jaray-replica-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Audi Front UW Jaray Replica (2012)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Model:<\/strong> Audi Front UW Jaray Replica
Year:<\/strong> 2012<\/a>
Date:<\/strong> April 1, 2012
Type:<\/strong> Historical reconstruction \/ promotional vehicle
Original Vehicle:<\/strong> Audi Front UW Jaray<\/a> \u2013 1934
Base Vehicle:<\/strong> Audi Front UW<\/a>
Design:<\/strong> Based on Paul Jaray<\/a>‘s original streamlined body
Created For:<\/strong> Audi UK<\/a>
Purpose:<\/strong> Audi A5 advertising campaign
Advertising Campaign:<\/strong> The Swan<\/a>
Agency:<\/strong> BBH London<\/a>
Production Company:<\/strong> Park Pictures
Director:<\/strong> Joachim Back
Registration:<\/strong> LU 3956, replicating the original car
Color:<\/strong> Grey
Status:<\/strong> Extant
Current\/Recent Collection:<\/strong> August Horch Museum<\/a>, Zwickau, Germany<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BACKGROUND<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 2012, a reconstruction of the 1934 Audi Front UW Jaray was created for Audi UK in connection with an advertising campaign for the updated Audi A5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original 1934 Front UW Jaray Stromlinienwagen<\/a> concept had been created around an Audi Front chassis acquired by Paul Jaray’s AG f\u00fcr Verkehrspatente at the end of 1933. Jaray designed a radically streamlined two-seat body that was constructed by Huber & Br\u00fchwiler of Lucerne and introduced at the Geneva Motor Show on March 16, 1934.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original car remained in use for many years, eventually becoming Jaray’s personal automobile in 1939. During this second phase of its existence, the Audi Front UW Jaray<\/a> was repeatedly modified and repainted before being destroyed following a carburetor fire, reportedly during the 1950s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the original no longer extant, the 2012 reconstruction recreated the distinctive Jaray design for a very different purpose: connecting Audi’s early aerodynamic history with the contemporary Audi A5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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AUDI UK RECONSTRUCTION<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The 2012 Front UW Jaray differs in provenance from several of Audi’s better-known historical reconstruction projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Audi Tradition has undertaken or supported carefully researched recreations of lost vehicles from Audi and Auto Union history, including Auto Union racing cars reconstructed with specialists such as Crosthwaite & Gardiner. Available evidence instead associates the Front UW Jaray reconstruction specifically with Audi UK and its 2012 A5 advertising campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The August Horch Museum subsequently identified the vehicle as a reconstruction produced by Audi United Kingdom in 2012. Contemporary photographs taken at the NEC Classic Motor Show in Birmingham in November of that year similarly describe the car as a replica built for Audi’s then-recent A5 television advertising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No documentation presently identified establishes the workshop or company responsible for physically constructing the replica. Likewise, the degree of involvement, if any, by Audi Tradition in researching or specifying the reconstruction has not been established.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That distinction is potentially significant when evaluating the car as a historical reconstruction. Its original purpose was advertising rather than museum interpretation or the reconstruction of a lost Audi specifically for a historical collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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DESIGN<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The reconstruction captures the essential architecture of Jaray’s 1934 Front UW<\/a>: a broad lower body incorporating the wheels, narrow passenger compartment, curved windshield, tapering rear body and prominent vertical tail fin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is finished in grey and carries the LU 3956 registration associated with the original automobile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its detailing, however, is unusually restrained. The body has smooth uninterrupted sides, simple full wheel covers and a clean rectangular radiator opening. It lacks the prominent bright side molding and exposed radiator-cap treatment visible in photographs of the original during later stages of its life when it shifted to become Paul Jaray’s personal car from 1939<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This gives the reconstruction an exceptionally pure appearance that emphasizes the aerodynamic geometry of Jaray’s design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Period photographs establish that the original Front UW changed considerably during its working life. Images show different paint treatments, wheel covers and exterior details, while historical accounts state that the vehicle was repeatedly modified and repainted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Period images also show the original with both more conventional chrome hubcaps and smooth full wheel covers. The latter treatment is consistent with the aerodynamic intent of the vehicle and appears frequently in later illustrations and representations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No period photograph presently identified, however, shows the original Front UW in precisely the combination of details represented by the 2012 reconstruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The replica should therefore not necessarily be interpreted as a recreation of one specifically documented historical configuration. It may instead represent a particularly clean interpretation assembled from historically documented elements of the original Front UW.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether that appearance was based on archival evidence that has not been publicly documented or reflected aesthetic decisions made for the advertising campaign remains unknown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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