nsu - reinhard freiherr von koenig-fachsenfeld

One driving force behind the record-breaking ambitions that were hatched in Neckarsulm, was Wilhelm Herz; an experienced motorcycle racing rider who had already worked for NSU for a number of years and celebrated many successes with the brand. In 1948, he finally persuaded NSU’s chief engineers to support his plans to set a record with a design by aerodynamics pioneer, Reinhard Freiherr von Koenig-Fachsenfeld. Due to its unique shape and unusual length, Fachsenfeld’s vehicle was nicknamed the ‘record cigar’ at NSU. Its promising design was tested extensively, but the company stalled the record-breaking plans when Herz was involved in an accident. Since no other NSU racer wanted to ride the record cigar, Dr. Walter Froede, then head of NSU’s development department, stopped the project. But the plans were not completely shelved; for now the company’s multi-track approach and other aerodynamic concepts paid off in other areas – in April 1951, NSU bikes participated in speed record runs on the Munich–Ingolstadt autobahn. Herz rode a 500cc NSU supercharged bike with a unique fairing whose distinctive pointy snout is clearly reminiscent of the sea creature that inspired the aerodynamics engineers originally. Herz rode the Dolphin I to a top speed of 290 km/h (180 mph) for a world record! The year 1951 proved impressive for NSU, with the brand setting eight new world speed records.

It was that same year that graphic designer Gustav Adolf Baumm contacted the company. Baumm introduced his own record-setting vehicle project, which went far beyond Fachsenfeld’s concept, and had the rider lying on his back, allowing for a body height of just 75 centimeters. Using a repurposed ironing board, Baumm convinced head of development Froede of the controllability of his design and received financial and technical support from NSU. After successfully presenting his first motorcycle, sometimes called the ‘Baumm deckchair’ or ‘flying lawn chair’, in 1952, NSU awarded Baumm a contract, and he developed the Baumm I and Baumm II, which achieved excellent drag coefficients, with NSU’s research department. The ‘lawn chairs’, failed to fulfill many of the most common requirements, lacking in comfort and wholly unsuited for relaxing in the yard as they were. But they did break records, which is why they were called ‘flying lawn chairs’. In 1954, Baumm broke eleven world records in the 50 to 175cc classes, both as a designer and rider.

While the Baumm ‘flying lawn chair’ was primarly designed for setting speed records, NSU used other streamlined concepts in racing. In 1954, the company won every race it entered, with the NSU Rennmax Dolphin, in the 250cc class, achieving double, triple, and even quadruple victories. The same year, at the Solitude race near Stuttgart, the full fairing known as the Blue Whale was used for the first time. Compared to the Rennmax with the Dolphin fairing, the Blue Whale fairing made for even higher speeds. In the very first race, riders Werner Haas and Rupert Hollaus took first and second place, respectively. In 1954, Haas won the World Championship and the German Championship in the 250cc class on a Blue Whale. In the 350cc class, Hermann Paul Müller earned NSU the title of German champion on a modified Rennmax Blue Whale with 288cc of displacement.

In the summer of 1956, NSU doubled down on its record-setting streak. The famous Bonneville Salt Flats were the ideal stage; one of Utah’s most iconic natural landmarks, the dried-up salt lake is the perfect place for speed runs. A track which spanned 22 meters wide (24 yd) was created for the record-setting runs. H. P. Müller set several speed records on a Baumm II and reached a speed of242 km/h (150 mph) on a 125cc NSU Rennfox. That same year, Wilhelm Herz rode a Baumm IV and Dolphin III. The fully faired Dolphin III, with its distinctive tail fin, had a special mission; Herz wanted to ride it faster than anyone had ever ridden a motorcycle before and despite the less than ideal conditions, and a number of adversities that required in-the-field changes to be made to the Dolphin III, Herz set out to break the record on August 4. Gerd Stieler von Heydekampf, NSU’s General Manager, and Technical Director Viktor Frankenberger had accompanied the team, and a radio station was reporting on the ground from Utah. The effort paid off – Herz reached a top speed of 339 km/h (211 mph) on the bike, setting a new world record and impressively demonstrating Neckarsulm’s expertise in motorcycle construction and aerodynamics.

‘Windschnittig’: New aerodynamics exhibition at the Audi museum mobile

Top speed performance (and top fuel consumption) are only two aspects of the complex subject of aerodynamics. In its current exhibition titled ‘Windschnittig’ (German for ‘streamlined’), Audi Tradition invites everyone interested in technology on a journey through the history of aerodynamics. The new special exhibition at the Audi museum mobile in Ingolstadt, which will be on display until June 9, 2024, presents the basic aerodynamic concepts of the period up to 1945, and introduces the pioneers of aerodynamics research. Edmund Rumpler, Paul Jaray, and the aforementioned Reinhard Freiherr von Koenig-Fachsenfeld are names that no student of aerodynamics can ignore. In the early 20th century, these three engineers began to adapt the body shapes of automobiles to match the flow of air. Visitors to the ‘Windschnittig’ exhibition can look forward to more than a dozen large exhibits, including vehicles that are as rare as they are unique. The second part of the exhibition bears the title ‘Form vollendet’ (German for ‘perfect form’). It tells the story of aerodynamics after the Second World War and is currently on display at the August Horch Museum in Zwickau. It is coming to the Audi museum mobile in July 2024.

from:

https://audiclubna.org/record-breaking-aerodynamics-in-flying-lawn-chairs-blue-whales-and-dolphins-from-nsu/

paul jaray

Paul Jaray (March 1889 – 22 September 1974) was a Vienna-born engineer, designer, and a pioneer of automotive streamlining.

Paul Jaray came from one of the oldest Prague-born Jewish families of scholars and artists called the Jeitteles, later his family moving to the Hungarian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Jaray, of Hungarian-Jewish descent, was born in Vienna. Jaray studied at Maschinenbauschule in Vienna and worked at the Prague Technical University as an assistant to Professor Rudolf Dörfl.

Later he became the chief design engineer for the aircraft building firm Flugzeugbau Friedrichshafen, designing seaplanes. From 1914 Jaray worked at Luftschiffbau Zeppelin, located in the same town, concentrating on streamlining airships. Jaray designed the airship LZ 120 Bodensee on which airships such as the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin, the LZ 129 Hindenburg and the LZ-130 were later based. Further experiments in LZ's wind tunnel led to his establishment of streamlining principles for car designs. In 1923 he moved permanently to Switzerland, opening an office in Brunnen.

In 1923 Jaray founded the Stromlinien Karosserie Gesellschaft, which presented numerous designs for streamlined car body work. It issued licences to major vehicle manufacturers including Tatra Works in Kopřivnice, Czechoslovakia. Tatra was the only manufacturer that used Jaray's streamlining principles purchasing his licences for their car production. Jaray designed car bodies for other manufacturers starting with the 1922 Ley and followed on with designs for Chrysler, Mercedes-Benz, Maybach, Apollo, Dixi, Audi, Adler, Jawa, Ford, Steyr and others.

His own 1934 car was built on an Audi 2-litre Front chassis with a body by Huber and Brühwiler of Lucerne. Jaray also designed the body for the streamlined Auto Union Typ B Lucca Rennlimousine in 1934. Jaray was also interested in radio and television technology. In 1941 he worked for Farner AG in Grenchen on nosewheel undercarriage design. In 1944 he set up as an independent engineer working on wind-driven power station. He was the author of a large number of technical patents relating to streamlining, air compressors for railway, and devices for handling gases in silencers. Later he lectured at the Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), Zürich, which now holds Paul Jaray's archive.

Jaray died in 1974 in St. Gallen impoverished and forgotten by the automobile industry.

The exhibition focuses on the biography of the Vienna-born inventor Paul Jaray (1889-1974), who came from one of Prague's oldest Jewish families of scholars: his role in the development of the Silver Arrows (Silberpfeile) and the Volkswagen was largely purged from engineering/design history and public consciousness through the propaganda policies of the Nazi regime. For the first time, the research for this exhibition provides documentary evidence of the connections between economic interests, competition in early modernist automobile design, and systemic racism under German fascism. Another focal point is the previously unexplored influence that Jaray's rigorous designs had on avant-garde art.

Yet in 1974 he died anonymously and in poverty in Switzerland, while the town where he lived, St. Gallen on Lake Constance, did not even publish an obituary. None of his neighbors knew who he was, nor that his scientific breakthroughs would spawn an artificial mode of product design around the world, counter to his intentions and without his consent. The circumstances behind his eventual anonymity require explanation. This is of particular importance, since he was an extremely productive inventor who developed fundamental innovations that are still omnipresent in common technical products today––without his authorship having ever been recognized or respected.

His scientific research on fluid mechanics for landbased vehicles was exploited by the fascist Nazi regime in Germany, primarily for the massive propaganda exercises of the grand automobile spectacles. The most important components of this were the record-breaking racing cars, the so-called Silver Arrows (Silberpfeile), especially those of the Auto-Union, and the concept of the “Kraft-durch-Freude” Volkswagen, later called the Beetle. For all of these vehicles, the body designs optimized to reduce drag can be traced back to Jaray’s discoveries and patents.

Since the Nazi political regime in Germany could not bear to credit a Jew for developing these futuristic car bodies associated with nationalistic mythologizing, Jaray’s name was purged from public consciousness, and largely from the history of engineering as well. At the same time, many automobile manufacturers took advantage of the political implementation of systemic, institutionalized racism, by ignoring his patent rights and assuming control of his inventions without acknowledging him. Jaray’s rationally and mathematically derived forms were on the one hand rejected by popular taste, and on the other, ignored the automakers’ need for a recognizable brand identity. Despite this, due to the increasing focus on aerodynamics these proliferated, and took on a generic, commonplace character.

One of the most beautiful and logical body forms among these, which still seems like a utopian vision, is that of the fully-enclosed Auto-Union Type-B of 1935, the so-called “racing sedan” (Rennlimousine). It was only used once for a successful attempt at breaking the record, on the Firenze-Mare freeway near Lucca, on February 15th, 1935, which is why it is also called the “Lucca Car.” Driven by Hans Stuck, it was the first automobile to reach a speed of almost 300 km/h on a normal road, thus setting two world records.

peter brock and design and fabrication

 

You might think that I'm posting this because of the VW bus. I was really interested to hear all of Pete Brock's discussion of design and fabrication. There is so much history here.