Before the Auto für Jedermann (“car for everyone”), there was the “Motorrad für Jedermann” (“motorcycle for everyone”). In 1921, the German motorcycle manufacturer, Zündapp, designed a simple and reliable motorcycle, the Z22.
Initially engaged in the manufacture of weapons and detonators, they shifted their focus to building economy motorcycles towards the end of the war in 1919. The Z22 was a simple, lightweight and inexpensive motorcycle. It had a tubular frame with spring suspension and could achieve an impressive 65 km/h. By 1938, they had produced around 200,000 machines with displacements ranging from 200cc to 800cc.
In 1931, Zündapp commissioned Ferdinand Porsche to build a people’s car or Volks-Wagen. Porsche and his newly founded company were pivotal in revolutionary design and engineering developments in the automotive industry. He started work on a streamlined 2 door sedan called the Type 12.
The type 12 featured rounded styling and was heavily influenced by designs typified by the Schlörwagen, Tatra V570 and Chrysler Airflow.
Oddly enough, Toyota’s first car, the model AA was influenced by the Chrysler Airflow.
Ferdinand Porsche was inclined towards a flat-four air-cooled boxer engine for the Type 12, but on Zündapp’s insistence, it featured a water-cooled five-cylinder radial engine (they initially wanted to put one of their 1.2 L motorcycle engines inside the Type 12). This was a reason of fall out between Porsche and Zündapp and development of the Type 12 ended there.
The Porsche firm received a contract (designated as Project 7), for a series of small displacement cars for Wanderer. Of these, a single prototype for an aerodynamic coupe was produced.
It should be noted that Porsche had often consulted with Hans Ledwinka; designer for the Czech firm Tatra, and somewhat tellingly, aerodynamics were prominent in contemporary Tatra designs.
Ferdinand Porsche kept the Wanderer prototype for his personal use, and the shape of the streamlined tail section was applied directly to the small car project. This rounded back would become a signature feature of all the subsequent prototypes of his career.
Two years prior, Ferdinand Porsche left Mercedes Benz after the board rejected his ideas of lightweight, streamlined cars. These were developments on initial raw sketches of a Beetle like auto by Béla Barényi of Daimler-Benz AG – something that was to be of particular relevance almost twenty years later. So it’s understandable why Porsche felt so strongly about his concepts. ( Béla Barényi was credited with developing the idea of the crumple zone, the non-deformable passenger cell, collapsible steering column, and safer detachable hardtops).
From 1931 to 1939, Hans Nibel and Max Wagner built a rear-engined, streamlined vehicle for Daimler-Benz AG which was in many ways very similar to the Czechoslovakian Tatra. A handful of prototype 120H ( H for Heckmotor or rear mounted motor) were built in 1932 to test the concept.
The 120H performed reasonably well and Mercedes-Benz made a decision to develop the concept into a production car.
The 130H production model introduced in 1934 was larger than its predecessor and consequently was fitted with a bigger engine. The new engine changed the car’s centre of gravity, giving it poor handling.
After the 130H demonstrated poor rear end stability during testing, Mercedes-Benz engineers were forced to find a way to reduce the car’s tendency to yaw. Reducing the tyre pressure in the rear tyres was found to be one way of improving the handling and purchasers were given very specific instructions in their user manuals.
This was the first fully-developed mass-produced rear-engine car both in brand history and indeed in the entire history of the automobile – a tradition that now spanned almost half a century.
It was perhaps to be anticipated that although the concept underwent continual refinements over the years, finally reaching maturity in the shape of the Mercedes-Benz 170 H of 1936, ultimately the rear-engine car never really caught on.
These cars failed to become popular with buyers largely due to complaints of inside noise levels. Likewise, the car’s weight distribution and handling issues spelt an early end to its production run.
Working independently on the idea of building a small car for the price of a motorcycle, was Joseph Ganz, a Jewish Engineer from Hungary. Lacking the finances for building a prototype, he resorted to publishing articles on progressive car design in magazines such as Klein-Motor-Sport later called Motor-Kritik, to better reflect their critical stand against heavy, unsafe and old fashioned cars and the promotion of innovative designs.
In 1929, Ganz began contacting German motorcycle manufacturers to collaborate on a prototype for a small people’s car. A company in Nürnberg called Ardie responded and this resulted in an initial prototype, the Ardie-Ganz in September of 1930 and a second one in May 1931, nicknamed the Maikäfer.
When Zündapp caught wind of the Ardie-Ganz and the Maikäfer, the company turned to Ferdinand Porsche to develop a similar car which resulted in the Type 12 that I mentioned at the beginning of this story.
The Zündapp prototype Type 12 was followed by the Porsche Type 32, designed in 1933 for a small motorcycle manufacturer, NSU Motorenwerke AG. The Type 32 was similar in design to the Type 12, but had a flat four boxer engine as preferred by Ferdinand Porsche. The project was abandoned at the prototype stage with NSU’s exit from car manufacturing.
With so many notable designers experimenting with rear-engined budget cars, DKW (Dampf-Kraft-Wagen), the now defunct German motorcycle and car marque, had no choice but to initiate a rear-engined car project of its own. Design duties were assigned to Hermann Ahrens of Horsch (part of Auto-Union, the predecessor of Audi). He designed the streamlined bodywork that was manufactured by the DKW karroseriewerkes at Spandau.
Its long, curved roofline and sharply curved bonnet was once again, very similar to the Tatra V570- prototype being constructed in the greatest of secrecy in Czechoslovakia.
The body was constructed of wood with plywood panelling covered with leatherette for weather proofing. The chassis was adapted from a DKW F2 Meisterklasse as was its 600cc two-cylinder water-cooled two-stroke engine.
In February 1933, Standard Fahrzeugfabrik of Berlin built the Standard Superior model based on the many patents of Josef Ganz. It featured a tubular chassis, a mid-mounted engine, and independent wheel suspension with swing axles at the rear.
Adolf Hitler expressed interest in the design of the Standard Superior, and its low selling price of 1,590 Reichsmark. Unfortunately, under the new anti-semitic government of Nazi Germany, Joseph Ganz was a target of the state and was arrested by the Gestapo on falsified charges levied by the Auto industry (owing in part to his publications in Motor-Kritik). He fled the country after his release in June 1934.
The leader of Nazi Germany wished for a cheap, simple car to be mass-produced for the new road network of his country. He contracted Ferdinand Porsche to design and build an economy car that cost 1000 Reichsmark. Both Hitler and Porsche were influenced by Tatra automobiles. Hitler was a keen automotive enthusiast and had ridden in Tatras during his political tours of Czechoslovakia. He had also dined numerous times with Hans Ledwinka, Tatra’s chief design engineer, and after one of those dinners had remarked to Porsche “This is the car for my roads” or as some accounts go “the kind of car I want for my highways”.
There was no doubt that the VW Beetle bore a strong resemblance to the Tatra V570 with its advanced, streamlined, aerodynamic body and tear dropped rear. The positioning of the engine at the rear was in line with keeping the drag coefficient as low as possible. Even the two cylinder, 854 cc, air-cooled boxer with a power rating of 18 HP at 3500 RPM was consistent with Porsche’s plans for his new car. Hans Ledwinka believed that a rear mounted engine would bring with it several big advantages in regards to reducing the efficiency loss, and curbing the noise and vibrations of an FR layout.
Absence of a driveshaft meant there would be a flat floor without the need for a central floor tunnel. This meant the passenger’s seating position would be lower and well forward of the rear axle, which would lead to a lower centre of gravity, more favourable inter-axle weight distribution, and lower overall height. This would give the car better handling, less body roll and more road grip.
Mounting the engine in the rear would also mean a shorter front section making a longer tail possible, which was consistent with the laws of aerodynamics. Also, an isolated engine would not disturb the passengers and noise would not permeate the cabin when driving at a speed of over 50 km/h.
Air-cooling would be simpler and more effective than water cooling systems of the time, at coping with the extremes of temperatures during the depths of winter and height of summer in Central-Europe.
There were many other ideas for a small people’s car floating around at the time. One was the Adler Type 10 or Autobahn Adler produced by Adlerwerke. It had a 2.5 litre, 6 cylinder, inline engine mated to a 4-speed manual synchromesh. Power was delivered to the rear wheels with the radiator, engine and gearbox placed at the front.
Another people’s car project at the time was led by an Austrian automobile manufacturer, Steyr. They released the Steyr 50, a small car that was dubbed the “Äustrian People’s Car”. It was designed by Director of Engineering, Karl Jenschke, the same man who moved to Adler the following year to work on the Autobahn 2.5 L. Ferdinand Porsche and Hans Ledwinka had influenced Steyr Automobiles as they had worked at the company in the 1920’s.
There was also an economy car that stirred some interest from 1924 – 1928. It was the 2/10 PS built by Hanomag, a producer of steam locomotives, tractors, trucks and military vehicles in Hanover. It was often called the “Kommissbrot” due to its resemblance to the inexpensive, flat sided loaf of rye bread used by the military. The 2/10 PS had a low friction 500cc, one-cylinder water cooled engine at the rear, with an extremely frugal efficiency of 4 litres per 100 kilometers. It was chain driven with no differential.
Ferdinand Porsche knew there was no dearth of ideas and concepts for his project. Under Adolph Hitler’s leadership, the car was ordered to be capable of transporting two adults and three children at 100 km/h. It would be fuel efficient and have simple parts that could be quickly and inexpensively replaced when worn out. It had to be air cooled, so nothing could freeze (because not everyone could afford a heated garage) and would cost about the price of a small motorcycle. The intention was that the ordinary German could buy the car by putting aside five Reichsmarks a week.
Porsche and his design team took until 1938 to finalize the design, and said of the Tatra influence “sometimes I looked over his shoulder and sometimes he looked over mine”.
The Porsche Type 60 manufactured in 1936 was the model ultimately used for the Beetle concept. It had a four-cylinder boxer engine in the rear, torsion bar suspension based on a Porsche patent, and the familiar Beetle shape.
In 1935/36, Porsche built various Volkswagen prototypes with different engine concepts. These cars had aluminum bodies mounted over traditional wooden frameworks. In 1936 steel bodies mounted over all-steel floor pans were used, powered by a 984cc, 22bhp engine that could reach a top speed of around 65 mph. Test car No.3 (V3) was found to be the most suitable and was used for the first comprehensive road test (for example, in the Black Forest).
The general concept for the V3 prototype, with slightly modified details, was accepted by Porsche as the basis for the series-production version of the Volkswagen. The V3 wrote the first chapter of a success story that didn’t begin until ten years after its debut : the story of the Volkswagen Beetle.
A batch of 30 W30 development models was produced for Porsche by Daimler-Benz and underwent 2,900,000 km of further testing in 1937. The Daimler-Benz built cars were tested at an SS barracks near Stuttgart and driven in shifts by 200 soldiers until the cars failed and any potential problem areas were corrected.
The W30 prototype, differed slightly in design by having strengthening lines pressed into the roof – almost certainly to strengthen the body after using thinner metal in order to cut down costs.
A further batch of VW38 and VW39 pre-production models were built between 1938 and 1939. All cars had the distinctive round shape and the air-cooled, rear-mounted engine, but were introduced with split rear windows. Both the split window and the dash were retained on production Type 1s until 1953.
The coachbuilder company Reutter, based in Stuttgart made a full-size wooden mock-up of the car and the shape of the Beetle that was to remain mostly unchanged until 1967 was now in place.
On 26 May, 1938, Hitler laid the cornerstone for a factory to manufacture the car he named Kraft durch Freude-Wagen (“Strength Through Joy Car”, usually abbreviated to KdF-Wagen) and “Gesellschaft zur Vorbereitung des Deutschen Volkswagens mbH” or “Gezuvor” for short (the “Company for Preparation of Deutsche Volkswagen Ltd”) was established. The model village of Stadt des KdF-Wagens was created near Fallersleben in Lower Saxony for the benefit of the workers at the newly built factory.
The factory produced only a handful of cars when the war broke out at the start of 1939.
Porsche developed further variants of the Volkswagen parallel to the “KdF-Wagen” which were however intended for military use. Production was geared towards the type 82 Kübelwagen “bucket car” and the amphibious Type 166 Schwimmwagen, and a handful of other variants. . The Schwimmwagen had a 4 cylinder, boxer air-cooled engine with a power output of 25 HP. Maximum speed on land was 80 km/h and on water 10 km/h. It was four-wheel drive.
The factory produced another wartime vehicle: the Kommandeurwagen; a Beetle body mounted on a 4WD Kübelwagen chassis. The Kommandeurwagen had widened fenders to accommodate its Kronprinz all-terrain tires.
The first civilian cars weren’t built until Spring 1945. After the war, the British had charge of the region where the VW factory was located, and commissioned an order of 20,000 vehicles. Somehow, after the most horrific war in history, the modest Wagen fur das Volk was still alive. By March 1946, the factory was producing 1,000 cars a month in Army Khaki, under the name Volkswagen Type I, but it was more commonly known as the Beetle.
The Volkswagen Beetle democratized the use of privately-owned automobiles in Germany. It brought mobility to Germany in line with the slogan “Small is Beautiful,” and countered the U.S. trend toward gigantic street cruisers made in Detroit.
Volkswagen rescued a popular automobile style from the pre-war years and brought it into the modern era. The convertible version of the Beetle established a class of compact, open top four-seaters that were extremely economical when it came to maintenance costs.
Volkswagen ensured the survival of the convertible body style – even in times when safety standards made the car an endangered species – and set the stage for the modern convertible trend.
By 2002, over 21 million Type I’s had been produced. VW announced the end of production in June 2003, and the final original Type I VW Beetle rolled off the production line at Puebla, Mexico, on 30 July 2003, 65 years after its original launch.
—xxx— End of Part I —xxx—
The Porsche 911 Story https://aerospacedynamics.wordpress.com/2018/10/24/porsche-911/
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