15 replies to this topic

[ottomathe]

I am new to this forum and as I am one of the owners of the PROTOTYP museum Hamburg very interested in our main collection theme: Post war racing in Germany from 1946 to 1955. We have several important cars from this period in our museum and we are constantly searching for new informations and cars out of this time.

What I am especially looking for are so called EIGENBAU - homemade - cars based on VW/KDF or Porsche technic and that were raced in the Kleinstrennwagen F3, 1100 oer 1500 ccm class in Western/Eastern Germany, Switzerland and Austria. If anyone like to share some informations about those specials I would be very glad. Hope this will become an interesting topic.

Best
Thomas aka Otto Mathé

[uechtel]

Hello Thomas, nice to see you here! Last year I hat the chance for a visit at your museum and was very impressed by the collection. Yes, I like the individuality of the home built cars, too, but my speciality are of course BMW based conversions.

For your first post here, you are asking quite a very open question. For example disregarding a few Fiat derivates in the beginning of the 1100 cc class in Germany virtually all the rest of the field - in the East as well as in the West - was based on KdF/VW mechanics. So that alone makes a respectable number of cars and later of course the more advanced Porsche took this position with either new specials built upon the 356 platform or "upgrades" of the existing cars.

Also with so many left-overs from the war Kübelwagen mechanics were a common source for the self-builder "Kleinstrennwagen" class, and many parts found their way even into Formula 2 cars. So altogether I think your question refers to a hundred different cars or so, which might be a little much for a single thread...

And taking into mind what I have seen at my visit I am really not sure which information to post here for you, as I think for much of it you will already know more than me on it already. So a better way I think would be to specifiy your questions and threads a little bit more, perhaps to certain cars or persons, or perhaps even better base the discussion on a particular piece from your exhibition. With a photo for example it is always easier to give people an imagination of what the discussion is all about and to get them into the boat.

Also if you perhaps take a look around in the forum you will notice, that some of the cars were already subject here:

http://forums.autosp...w...1934&hl=eal
http://forums.autosp...amp;hl=delfosse
http://forums.autosp...w...6&hl=merkel
http://forums.autosp...w...7&hl=kuhnke
http://forums.autosp...w...&hl=neander
http://forums.autosp...w...&hl=neander
http://forums.autosp...w...&hl=neander


So I am looking forward to many interesting and fruitful discussions with you here.

Edited by uechtel, 03 July 2009 - 09:46.

[ottomathe]

Hello Thomas, nice to see you here! Last year I hat the chance for a visit at your museum and was very impressed by the collection. Yes, I like the individuality of the home built cars, too, but my speciality are of course BMW based conversions.

For your first post here, you are asking quite a very open question. For example disregarding a few Fiat derivates in the beginning of the 1100 cc class in Germany virtually all the rest of the field - in the East as well as in the West - was based on KdF/VW mechanics. So that alone makes a respectable number of cars and later of course the more advanced Porsche took this position with either new specials built upon the 356 platform or "upgrades" of the existing cars.

Also with so many left-overs from the war Kübelwagen mechanics were a common source for the self-builder "Kleinstrennwagen" class, and many parts found their way even into Formula 2 cars. So altogether I think your question refers to a hundred different cars or so, which might be a little much for a single thread...;)

And taking into mind what I have seen at my visit I am really not sure which information to post here for you, as I think for much of it you will already know more than me on it already. So a better way I think would be to specifiy your questions and threads a little bit more, perhaps to certain cars or persons, or perhaps even better base the discussion on a particular piece from your exhibition. With a photo for example it is always easier to give people an imagination of what the discussion is all about and to get them into the boat.

Also if you perhaps take a look around in the forum you will notice, that some of the cars were already subject here:

http://forums.autosp...w...1934&hl=eal
http://forums.autosp...amp;hl=delfosse
http://forums.autosp...w...6&hl=merkel
http://forums.autosp...w...7&hl=kuhnke
http://forums.autosp...w...&hl=neander
http://forums.autosp...w...&hl=neander
http://forums.autosp...w...&hl=neander


So I am looking forward to many interesting and fruitful discussions with you here.

Dear uechtel,

thanks for your reply and you are right. But what about reducing it to the cars in the 1100 class that were using VW parts. My intention is to find a timeline of the cars starting with the VW type 60 K 10, built for Berlin Rome race to the first Porsche Spyder. From 1946 to 1948 there was no own Porsche product that can be compared with this car.Even the 356 was mor a sports than a race car which could be one of the reasons that Porsche allowed Glöckler and Renngemeinschaft Berlin for example to use their name for their race cars. All those cars lead to the 550 spyder. I try to find as much of those cars as possible. there are quite a lot that are already known and documented: Petermax Müller, Kuhnke VLK, Glöckler, Trenkel, Mathe Fetzenflieger, Huber Austria, Heini Walter cars, Sauter cars, Fegers, Dübbers, Vollmer. But what about the others? What I will do is to make scans of unidentified cars and post them here.
My other wish is of course to find remaining cars that can be borrowed or bought for the exhibition. So any help is welcome.

Thanks Thomas

PS: of course I am also interested in BMW based cars. If I can help with any pics concerning those please let me know.

[fbarrett]

Thomas:

Years ago I wrote a history of the Gloeckler Porsches, and I have kept fair track of the known survivors (only two or three that I know of) since. I'm away from home right now, but in a few days I will either post the history or e-mail it to you. The two-part article appeared in the August and September 1983 issues of Porsche Panorama, the magazine of the Porsche Club of America (see www.pca.org, and you may be able to access the index of the magazine, though you may need to be a member). I was told that Gloeckler "lifted" the article from the magazine and published it as a booklet. I take it that you have already read the chapter on these cars in Karl Ludvigsen's Porsche, Excellence Was Expected.

Frank
fbarrett@aol.com

[David McKinney]

There's a Glöckler coupé at Goodwood this weekend - entered by Herbert Wysard and driven by Desiré Wilson

[dretceterini]

Thomas:

Years ago I wrote a history of the Gloeckler Porsches, and I have kept fair track of the known survivors (only two or three that I know of) since. I'm away from home right now, but in a few days I will either post the history or e-mail it to you. The two-part article appeared in the August and September 1983 issues of Porsche Panorama, the magazine of the Porsche Club of America (see www.pca.org, and you may be able to access the index of the magazine, though you may need to be a member). I was told that Gloeckler "lifted" the article from the magazine and published it as a booklet. I take it that you have already read the chapter on these cars in Karl Ludvigsen's Porsche, Excellence Was Expected.

Frank
fbarrett@aol.com

Wasn't there a total of 7 Glocklers built?

[uechtel]

thanks for your reply and you are right. But what about reducing it to the cars in the 1100 class that were using VW parts. My intention is to find a timeline of the cars starting with the VW type 60 K 10, built for Berlin Rome race to the first Porsche Spyder. From 1946 to 1948 there was no own Porsche product that can be compared with this car.Even the 356 was mor a sports than a race car which could be one of the reasons that Porsche allowed Glöckler and Renngemeinschaft Berlin for example to use their name for their race cars. All those cars lead to the 550 spyder. I try to find as much of those cars as possible. there are quite a lot that are already known and documented: Petermax Müller, Kuhnke VLK, Glöckler, Trenkel, Mathe Fetzenflieger, Huber Austria, Heini Walter cars, Sauter cars, Fegers, Dübbers, Vollmer. But what about the others? What I will do is to make scans of unidentified cars and post them here.
My other wish is of course to find remaining cars that can be borrowed or bought for the exhibition. So any help is welcome.

Agreed, this sounds like a reasonable definition for this thread.

Sorry for my ignorance, but wasn´t the Berlin-Rome car the Type 64?

Anyway, for the first candidate as successor to it I found a Volkswagen entry for the Karlsruhe race in 1946, placed by an Otto Held from Geislingen. No idea, what it looked like and how much this was modified, but obviously he is the one who preceded all the others in converting the KdF/VW into a competition car, which would soon become so common for the 1100 cc class.

PS: of course I am also interested in BMW based cars. If I can help with any pics concerning those please let me know.

Thanks for the offer, I am sure there are many treasures in your collection.

[ottomathe]

Agreed, this sounds like a reasonable definition for this thread.

Sorry for my ignorance, but wasn´t the Berlin-Rome car the Type 64?

Anyway, for the first candidate as successor to it I found a Volkswagen entry for the Karlsruhe race in 1946, placed by an Otto Held from Geislingen. No idea, what it looked like and how much this was modified, but obviously he is the one who preceded all the others in converting the KdF/VW into a competition car, which would soon become so common for the 1100 cc class.



Thanks for the offer, I am sure there are many treasures in your collection.

This car is a good one to start with. I have never heard anything about Otto Held. Any infos on him would be helpful. The Berlin Rome car was developed as Type 64 more or less as a private pleasure for porsche. but porsche had problems in financing the car and in receiving parts from VW for a "private project". That and the reason that it should be clearly, even by the number, identified as a type 60 version lead to the reason why it was bearing two descriptions: 64 or 60 K 10.

I also appreciate informations about the Glöcklers of course.

[ottomathe]

There's a Glöckler coupé at Goodwood this weekend - entered by Herbert Wysard and driven by Desiré Wilson

Not looking in my lists I know of 4 Glöckler Cars still exsitisting:

1. the Glöckler "Spyder", still in the families hand.
2. The Glöckler Liege Rome Liege Coupe, back from US to Germany
3. The Glöckler recently bought by Wysard (not a real coupe, its only a hardtop)
4. The Glöckler Spyder built for Trenkel, still surviving in a barn in Germany.

[uechtel]

Next in my list is already Petermax Müller, who put an entry for the Hokenheim race in 1947, but from the photos it seems, that he did not take the start. Indeed I wonder whether he and his first special appeared anywhere before the Hamburg race, where he was joined on the grid by Kuhnke´s VLK.

[uechtel]

Over the winter of 1947/48 it seems that a lot of people were quite busy, as for the season opener at Hockenheim the entry list was a lot bigger:

Petermax Müller / Velpke / Volkswagen-Eigenbau
Kurt Kuhnke / Braunschweig / VLK
Rudolf Ringel / Wolfsburg / Volkswagen-Eigenbau
Gottfried Vollmer / Kettwig / V. Spezial
Jürgen Hennig / Braunschweig / VW-VLK
Dr. Eugen Kauertz / Düsseldorf / Eigenbau
Huschke von Hanstein / Calenberg / V. W.
Stefan Marton / Wolfsburg / V. W.
Rolf Faulhaber / Hannover / V.W. Eigenbau

(always using the model name as listed in the programme)

Now let´s talk through the list one by one:

Interesting to see Hennig´s car entered as VW-VLK, which suggests a connection to Kuhnke of course, and indeed the cars look quite similar. On the other hand why is Kuhnke´s car a "VLK" and Hennig´s a "VW-VLK"?

Another interesting man is Gottfried Vollmer, who was quite successful with his car in the following season, in particular when he brought an open wheel variation for the more twisted circuits. As far as I know this effort was completely independent from Kuhnke and Müller.

Müller himself has built a new car in the meantime, and another new one for Faulhaber, while von Hanstein used another Coupe of unknown origin. Hanstein later drove the first PM Müller car, but this coupe from early seaon 1948 not have any similarity to that.

Of Ringel, Kauertz and Marton I know nothing.

[ottomathe]

Over the winter of 1947/48 it seems that a lot of people were quite busy, as for the season opener at Hockenheim the entry list was a lot bigger:

Petermax Müller / Velpke / Volkswagen-Eigenbau
Kurt Kuhnke / Braunschweig / VLK
Rudolf Ringel / Wolfsburg / Volkswagen-Eigenbau
Gottfried Vollmer / Kettwig / V. Spezial
Jürgen Hennig / Braunschweig / VW-VLK
Dr. Eugen Kauertz / Düsseldorf / Eigenbau
Huschke von Hanstein / Calenberg / V. W.
Stefan Marton / Wolfsburg / V. W.
Rolf Faulhaber / Hannover / V.W. Eigenbau

(always using the model name as listed in the programme)

Now let´s talk through the list one by one:

Interesting to see Hennig´s car entered as VW-VLK, which suggests a connection to Kuhnke of course, and indeed the cars look quite similar. On the other hand why is Kuhnke´s car a "VLK" and Hennig´s a "VW-VLK"?

Another interesting man is Gottfried Vollmer, who was quite successful with his car in the following season, in particular when he brought an open wheel variation for the more twisted circuits. As far as I know this effort was completely independent from Kuhnke and Müller.

Müller himself has built a new car in the meantime, and another new one for Faulhaber, while von Hanstein used another Coupe of unknown origin. Hanstein later drove the first PM Müller car, but this coupe from early seaon 1948 not have any similarity to that.

Of Ringel, Kauertz and Marton I know nothing.


Togethe with Walter Hampel from Wolfsburg Kuhnke has founded the small VLK (VollstromLeichtbauKonstruktion) firm. Hampel was the engineer and Kuhnke paid the money.
They built different car types. Even monoposti for the british staff of VW. there is no special reason why one is called VW VLK and another only VLK. Kuhnkes private car later becam Trenkels car. he cutted the roof off and added doors.

Yes Vollmers cars are qutite interesting. Vollmer just used the V Engines (Vogelsang) developed by Porsche and sold by petermax Müller.

Hanstein drove the last Petermax car later, the one with the PERTRIX adds on it.

Rudolf Ringel was the chief of the VW Versuchsabteilung. I dind´t realised before that he was racing. He was the one who was responsible for the small unofficial VW Rennabteilung which quickly cam to an end when Nordhoff joined VW.

I don´t know Kauertz and Marton either. Two more for the list of unidentified cars/drivers.

[uechtel]

They built different car types. Even monoposti for the british staff of VW. there is no special reason why one is called VW VLK and another only VLK. Kuhnkes private car later becam Trenkels car. he cutted the roof off and added doors.

So you think it´s not a typo and Kring´ss car is indeed one of the VLK workshop?

Hanstein drove the last Petermax car later, the one with the PERTRIX adds on it.

Ok, but before that he drove the original Müller car (the one from Hamburg 1947) and even before that, for the first number of races of the 1948 season he appeared in a car with quite large coupe bodywork:


By uechtel

Noww that looks very interesting, but I have no idea where thiss car is from neither what happened to it afterwards. Also in its styling I think it looks quite different to the PM Müller cars. Do you know anything about it?

[ottomathe]

So you think it´s not a typo and Kring´ss car is indeed one of the VLK workshop?


Ok, but before that he drove the original Müller car (the one from Hamburg 1947) and even before that, for the first number of races of the 1948 season he appeared in a car with quite large coupe bodywork:


By uechtel

Noww that looks very interesting, but I have no idea where thiss car is from neither what happened to it afterwards. Also in its styling I think it looks quite different to the PM Müller cars. Do you know anything about it?

I am not quite sure that the Krings car was looking similar to the one Kuhnke drove by himself, but it seems that it was built by the small vlk company.

Hanstein: Of course you are right, he drove both the first and the last. The first PM cars even had Kübelwagen taillights.

I have never seen the car in your picture before. Were did you find it? I was talking to an old engineer from Wolfsburg who later became famous with a prototype bodies company, Mr. Lorenz from Lorenz and Rankl, and he always told me that he has built a car for huschke similar to the type 64. This might be the car. very interesting.

[ottomathe]

So you think it´s not a typo and Kring´ss car is indeed one of the VLK workshop?


Ok, but before that he drove the original Müller car (the one from Hamburg 1947) and even before that, for the first number of races of the 1948 season he appeared in a car with quite large coupe bodywork:


By uechtel

Noww that looks very interesting, but I have no idea where thiss car is from neither what happened to it afterwards. Also in its styling I think it looks quite different to the PM Müller cars. Do you know anything about it?

Sorry I mixed something up. I dont know who built the car from Eugen Krings. This was the ultra flat car. Krings was from Düsseldorf. I was refering to the other VLK driver from Wolfsburg because that would make sense cause Hampel was working for Ringel at VW.

[uechtel]

I have never seen the car in your picture before. Were did you find it?

The picture is an extract from the Karlsruhe grid, and I think he drove it also at Köln.

I was talking to an old engineer from Wolfsburg who later became famous with a prototype bodies company, Mr. Lorenz from Lorenz and Rankl, and he always told me that he has built a car for huschke similar to the type 64. This might be the car. very interesting.

That sounds at least like a trace.

Sorry I mixed something up. I dont know who built the car from Eugen Krings. This was the ultra flat car. Krings was from Düsseldorf. I was refering to the other VLK driver from Wolfsburg because that would make sense cause Hampel was working for Ringel at VW.

Sorry, I was the one who was confused. I mixed Krings with Hennig.

Kauertz I think we can remove from the list again. His car was a DKW.