Welcome to the latest newsletter.  In this edition we have part three of the Germany tour, an anniversary for the air bag, and our usual line up of articles for you.

Hope you enjoy it. Thanks John and Sandra Green.
 

Germany tour part 3...

Our next appointment was in Stuttgart on Monday, so we headed off from Berlin taking the back roads to a small town deep in the heart of the old Eastern Germany called  Leipzig. To really see the German country side you need to get off the Autobahns and onto the back roads. It was a great drive along tree lined roads with small villages many of which looked like they were stuck in a time warp. Our ultimate goal was however the city of Zwickau and the Horch Museum.

The Museum is named after August Horch who was one of Germany's pioneer car manufacturers founding August Horch & Cie. on November 14, 1899 in Cologne.  Before setting up business on his own he worked for Carl Benz in Mannheim for three years as Head of Automobile Production.  Initially  Horch produced 5 hp and 10 hp twin-cylinder cars.  In 1902, he moved to Reichenbach and designed in 1903 a 20 hp four-cylinder car with shaft drive.  A 22 hp version appeared in 1904, after Horch had again moved production, this time to a new factory at Zwickau in Saxony.  Over the next few years an ever increasing range of models with engine capacities from 1588cc to 8440cc were produced.   Horch cars were very successful in sporting events, soon became very popular and production continued to rise.  In 1909, August Horch left the works at Zwickau, and George Paulmann took over the design of Horch cars all of which were exhibited by the Zwickau-factory at the 1921 Berlin Show.  August Horch had left to start another automotive manufacturing company called AUDI.  This was the second company to have been set up by August Horch and commenced operations under the name Audi Automobilwerke GmbH, in Zwickau, on April 25, 1910.

By the mid 1920's the Horch name were producing an amazing range of models including a 3132cc double over head cam straight-eight, which was later increased to 3950cc which produced 80 hp at 3200 rpm.  In the early 1930s they released a side valve 6021cc V12 Horch with a 120hp engine and ZF-Aphon four-speed gearbox.  Most Horch cars belonged to the luxury class and often had exclusive bodywork by Gläser, Neuss, Armbruster and other leading coachbuilders. 1933 saw the introduction of new side valve V8 models of 3004cc, 3227cc, 3517cc and 3823cc. So there is no doubt that Horch was an industry leader in his day.

In 1932, Audiwerke, Horchwerke and Zschopauer Motorenwerke - DKW merged to form Auto Union AG.  A purchase and leasing agreement was concluded at the same time with Wanderer, for the takeover of its Automobile Division. The new company's head offices were in Chemnitz which was to ultimately wind up in Western Germany..

This meant that Horch was responsible for building from 1933 to 1939 the famous rear-engine, Dr Ferdinand Porsche designed, Auto Union Grand Prix racing cars. Horch continued to build high-class, beautiful cars until the war.  Following the second world war Germany was divided and the name Horch became defunct.  In 1946 there was an attempted rebirth of a Horch in East Germany, at Zwickau, but the name Horch belonged to the now West German Auto Union. The East Germans had to drop it and call the new company "Sachsenring" instead who went on to produce the famous (or infamous) Trabant!  The name of Horch is still waiting for a rebirth in Germany (much like the recent Maybach rebirth).

The museum itself is very new and is a very interesting time warp as it contains many cars that us westerns have never seen. Obviously there was an automotive industry in Eastern Germany and I am sure that everybody has heard about the Trabant but there is a lot more to see than just Trabants. There is a wonderful display of pre war models from DKW, Wanderer, Auto Union, Audi and of course Horch. There is also an excellent selection of various Trabant prototypes and other models manufactured by various Russian companies. Also of interest was a video if the "Duraplast" process used to make the Phenolic resin panels (kind of like fibreglass) that was to be used on most Sachsenring models from 1955 onwards. No problems with rust on these panels! There were over 3 million Trabants made which is an interesting fact when compared to the 1.2 million Morris Minors made!

Of particular interest was a rotary engined Trabant developed in the late 60's. It was a single chamber design with a capacity of 497cc producing 63 BHP. The car had a top speed of 91MPH with fuel consumption of between 24-40MPG (depending on driving style).  Like many other rotaries on the era it never saw serious production.

Departing the Museum at 4.30pm we decided to make a run for Stuttgart some 400odd kilometres away.  And at 8.15pm we arrived and that included a decent stop for dinner! You have got to love those German Autobahns (you do the maths).  Sunday was spent looking around Stuttgart and getting our bearings for the next day which was a visit to the Mercedes-Benz classic Centre in Fellbach (an outer suburb of Stuttgart). But all that will have to wait for the next newsletter.

Joke of the month.

Year 1981
1. Prince Charles got married
2. Liverpool crowned Champions of Europe
3. Australia lost the Ashes
4. Pope Died
 
Year 2005
1. Prince Charles got married (again !!!)
2. Liverpool crowned Champions of Europe
3. Australia lost the Ashes
4. Pope Died

 
In future, if Charles decides to remarry, please warn the pope, bet on
Liverpool & don't bother watching the cricket.
 
 

Air bags 25th birthday.

Yes, passenger safety air bags are 25 year old!  Here is a recent press release from Daimler Chrysler:

It is now 25 years since the first production car to be fitted with an airbag, an S-Class Saloon, rolled off the production line at Mercedes Benz in Sindelfingen – the culmination of over 13 years of development work and the beginning of a new era in vehicle safety. According to accident research, the airbag has saved over 14,200 human lives in the USA to date; in Germany, meanwhile, the airbag has prevented over 2,500 fatal injuries to car occupants since 1990. Mercedes-Benz offered the airbag long before any other car manufacturer and has so far equipped more than twelve million vehicles with this safety innovation. It has been fitted as standard in all passenger cars displaying the Mercedes star since October 1992. In recent years, Mercedes engineers have continued to develop airbag technology, for example by introducing side airbags and systems that adapt in line with the severity of the accident. Airbags are also set to become an integral part of the PRE-SAFE® anticipatory occupant protection system, equipped with new, anticipatory sensors which will enable them to deploy in advance of a possible accident so as to reduce the forces exerted on the car occupants both before and during any impact. For the same reasons, the airbags of the future will also take into account individual parameters such as the body size, sex and age of the occupants.

The airbag is very much a part of Mercedes history. Like the crumple zone, safety steering system, seat belt tensioner, anti-lock braking system and other Mercedes inventions, it is a testament to the pioneering role played by the Stuttgart-based manufacturer in the field of passenger car safety.

The development of the airbag began in 1967 and required pioneering achievements in numerous fields. Although the idea for an air cushion of this kind had been around since the early fifties, engineers had been unable to come up with a solution to transform the vision into reality. However, the Mercedes team had made great progress with a discriminating sensor system and a gas generator capable of deploying the airbag in just 30 milliseconds. They also developed the tear-resistant airbag fabric, improved the airbag's inflation characteristics and finally made it possible to house the entire system in the impact-absorbing boss of a steering wheel.

After more than 250 vehicle crash tests, 2,500 sled tests and over seven million kilometres of trials in test cars, the airbag was finally ready for production in December 1980 when it celebrated its world premiere together with another innovation, the seat belt tensioner, in the Mercedes-Benz S-Class. As early as 1991, some 28 percent of all Mercedes passenger cars were equipped with a driver's airbag. And it has been fitted as standard in all cars displaying the Mercedes star since October 1992.

Text/Photos: DaimlerChrysler