Comments about this vehicle

Author	Message
Ralph ◊ 2007-11-20 22:33
Bravada ◊ 2007-11-20 22:41	Early 2400 perhaps - the Borgward equivalent of the Sachsenring P240 to me. For some reason, Borgward Group's lineup mirrored the IFA lineup to a large extent, anyone knows why?
Bravada ◊ 2007-11-20 22:44	very similar to this 1956 Hansa 2400 Pullmann: http://www.oskarpfeffer.de/bild4.jpg Page with description: http://www.oskarpfeffer.de/ego.htm (see bottom of page)
DynaMike ◊ 2007-11-20 23:03	1.388 of these 6-cylinder Borgward 2400 were built between 1953 and 1958... -- Last edit: 2007-11-20 23:26:44
Bravada ◊ 2007-11-20 23:06	Do you know anything about the Sachsenring link? http://www.home.no/migreg/Bilder/Sachsenring.JPG
DynaMike ◊ 2007-11-20 23:25	No. In fact I don't think there was a link. Sachsenring was a continuation of the Horch, so pre-war Auto-Union. Seen this way, there was a link between Sachsenring/Horch/Trabant/Wartbrg and DKW/Audi, like there was a (clearer) link between EMW and BMW. Borgward/Hansa/Lloyd/Goliath was concentrated around the city of Bremen. There were no links to the part of Germany that became GDR after the war.
Bravada ◊ 2007-11-20 23:28	The link is certainly not an obvious one, but if you look at the post-war IFA and Bogrward lineups, you can see many similarities -> Wartburg and Isabella (see the coupes/sportscars), Trabant and Lloyd, P240 and the 2400 etc. Borgward even called their last large car "P100", which is in line with IFA model naming!
DynaMike ◊ 2007-11-20 23:46	Also in those days all cars looked alike Compare IFA F8 to DKW F8: it's the same car. IFA F9 is almost the same as the DKW 3=6/Auto-Union 1000. All have 2- or 3-cylinder two-stroke engines and front wheel drive (other 'branches' of this tree: Saab, FSM Syrena, Zwickau, Trabant and Wartburg). AThere is no link between the Borgward group and Auto-Union, and after the war there were no links between East and West Germany (only at the very end of Trabant and Wartburg, wenn they got Volkswagen engines. Similarities were (if not historic) just coincidence even when names were sometimes rather close. In Holand many people mixed up the names Wartburg and Borgward... 'P' in Borgward P100 or Zwickau P70, well, why not? Maybe it stands for PKW (Personenkraftwagen = passengers car)?
Bravada ◊ 2007-11-20 23:56	IFA F8 and DKW F8 ARE the same car, that's something else. There are far more similarities to me between IFA and Borgward Group than it would come natural given historic circumstances... I see we both probably know the same about the issue, I was hoping to find out some secret link that perhaps exists (industrial espionage?)
Gag Halfrunt ◊ 2007-11-21 00:21	Perhaps a communist engineer at Borgward was copying blueprints and giving them to East German intelligence.
Bravada ◊ 2007-11-21 00:24	Given the well-known qualities of Borgward cars, I believe it might have been that East German intelligence sabotages Borgward by sending them their blueprints...
Gag Halfrunt ◊ 2007-11-21 00:32
Ingo ◊ 2007-11-21 13:54	Gag Halfrunt wrote Perhaps a communist engineer at Borgward was copying blueprints and giving them to East German intelligence. Spionage in the other direction has founded the West German DKW-production. The factory with all production-lines was located in Zschopau, now in the Soviet-Zone. Some smaller manufacturers, which belonged to the Auto Union, too, were in that area, too. A plenty of Auto Union-, DKW- and Horch-engineers and workers were refugeed from the Red Army and later from the Communists (like millions of Germans). A few of them went back illegally to their former job to pick up all blueprints, many tools and also old colleagues. Herewhith the production in the Western Zones could have started. Before that time in Ingolstadt, where the actual Audi-factory exists, was a barrack-areal of the Wehrmacht. In Düsseldorf (where the Transporter and the motorcycles were produced) was nothing, too. By the way: in the former DKW-factory in Düsseldorf Mercedes Benz now produces the Sprinter.
CENTAURE ◊ 2007-11-21 19:02	Les voitures du groupe BORGWARD étaient d'excellentes autos : BORGWARD Isabella TS, première familiale sportive de classe BORGWARD P100 à suspension pneumatique GOLIATH GP 700, première voiture traction avant à moteur transversal (9 ans avant la mini) GOLIATH GP 700E, première voiture à injection (en compagnie de la GUTBROD Superior) 2 ans avant la MERCEDES 300SL GOLIATH 11OO et son magnifique moteur flat four, régal d'équilibre et de souplesse BORGWARD champion du monde de F2 avec MOSS sur COOPER BORGWARD à moteur 1500 etc ...etc ... Les qualités techniques des BORGWARD et le soin apporté à leur fabrication ne sont pas à démontrer et n'ont rien à voir avec les production de l'Est, même si des éclairs de génie illuminaient parfois des marques comme TATRA
Bravada ◊ 2007-11-21 19:11	Now that's interesting, Ingo! Thanks for this insight - anything of similar interest concerning Borgward and the later IFA cars?
Ingo ◊ 2007-11-21 20:51	As I know -and the literature says- there was no connection between Borgward and GDR-companies. The Borgward-company was owned by one man, Carl F.W.Borgward (in Germany a personalized synonym for a "selfmade-man", a kind of a hero in the building-up-time after the war, like Josef Neckermann, Rudolf Miele, Max Grundig, Hans Glas), which at least also had "the last word" at the constructing and designing of his products. He had no relations to the GDR, the most other guys in his category also neither (except Otto Wolff von Amerongen, the post-war "eminiscence" from Krupp-steel). Surely, the GDR had always looked to West Germany, in every second until 1990 (even nowadays you can see this behaviour in East Germany). They had a common word in their official voacabulary (I know it a bit, I grew up, where you could watch GDR-TV): "Weltniveau", which means something like "world level" - "WESTniveau" would have been more correct. All time the GDR has tried to follow the West, also with copying of technical products, but they never had reached that target. Never, at no time and in no product. O.k., except gherkins and strawberry-yoghurt. Yes. Gherkins and strwaberry-yoghurts were the only products, in which the GDR was good and worth to remember.
Bravada ◊ 2007-11-21 21:06	I don't mean "official" relations, the parallels just seem suspicious - given that the launches of the supposedly similar products were almost contemporary it is hard to say which way it went, but there is a bit too much likeness to just dismiss that... Perhaps the IFA Fuehrung saw it fit to look to Borgward for an inspiration for a lineup of inexpensive people's cars or the other way around...
Gag Halfrunt ◊ 2007-11-21 21:15	In Good bye Lenin the hero has to find East German Spreewald gherkins to keep up the pretense that the GDR still exists. He ends up buying "Wessie" gherkins and pouring them into an old Spreewald jar.
Bravada ◊ 2007-11-21 21:16	Goodbye Lenin was a splendid movie... It also featured an anachronic Mazda 323P which prompted what I believe was my first comment here and the reason I registered...
Ingo ◊ 2007-11-21 21:32	@Bravada: the IFA-Führung (also the other directors of GDR-"VEB"'s) had not many possibilities to have own responsibility in their production. Everything, absolutely everything was directed in Berlin, at the government and the SED-party. They had nearly no chances to create own products. There were some new cars created in GDR-times - all by single persons, alone and hidden from Berlin. And when these constructors or their superiors have tried to let allow their creations by the ministery in Berlin, nearly every time this was denied. So the successor of the Trabant was ready in the early 70ies, also 1:5-models of Wartburg-successors were made - forbidden by the word of one man, Günter Mittag, the economical secretaty of the GDR (an uneducated and uncultured idiot like 99% of the higher GDR-leadership). He said one sentence "The Trabant is enough for our citizens", and all plans were made for the garbage. By the way: officially the GDR-leaders were using Volvo's or Citroen's, but Günter Mittag had also a Mercedes 450 SEL 6.9 in use. I've seen a short TV-shot of it. Definetely a 6.9 -- Last edit: 2007-11-21 21:34:14
Gag Halfrunt ◊ 2007-11-21 21:42	I was reading the other day that several Polish car projects were cancelled on orders from the USSR: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=16519403&postcount=297 And the Soviet government ordered Moskvitch to make the Aleko a copy of the Simca 1307: Quote The car originated as a front-wheel drive "proof of concept", based on foreign models. In the late 1970s Moskvitch bought about two dozen compact cars built by different manufacturers, and thoroughly tested them. French and Swedish cars were favored for their utility and reliability. The final decision was made by the Minister of Automobile Industry, who chose the French Simca 1307 as the best candidate for the Russian market. Engineers modified an existing Moskvitch engine for front-wheel drive layout and fitted the drivetrain into the Simca. After the tests were successfully completed, it was decided by the rights to copy the Simca 1307 bodyshell almost entirely, starting from the A-pillar. While this decision helped to cut the development costs, it came as an insult to engineers and designers, who had their own mock-ups of future car ready. The morale of the staff had been damaged, and Aleko never became a beloved project among Moskvitch engineers... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleko -- Last edit: 2007-11-21 21:42:48
Ingo ◊ 2007-11-21 21:57	The ZAZ Sapohorhez was a copy of the NSU Prinz, not a licensed production. But just an optical copy, the technic was different. So the front axle was similar to the VW Beetle. After the Wall felt down, the Sapohorhez (in the GDR the cheapest and most unpopular car) was absolutely worthless, worse than the Trabant, so everwhere in 1990/91/92 you could pick up them for free. Some friends in my NSU-club have done so - just to dismount one into pieces, just to see, how much it has in common with the original NSU. -- Last edit: 2007-11-21 21:59:17
Bravada ◊ 2007-11-21 22:10	Did you know the Zaporoshetz had two oil tanks, with one used to fuel the... oil-burning heater! Anyhoo, they were cute little chufters, pretty tough actually. The Volga and the stillborn Warszawa 210 were in a large part designed after contemporary Ford Falcons, just like the preceding GAZ Pobeda and Polish twin Warszawa were in a large part modelled after pre-war Mercuries (and the in-between GAZ M21, with no Polish equivalent, was also in many ways similar to contemporary Fords). BTW, while Warszawa 210's technique was reportedly used by GAZ engineers for the new GAZ-24 Volga, its styling bears an uncanny resemblance to the later Wartburg 353, a huge disappointment in the styling department after the rather appealing 311-313 (take that, you mischevious spying East Germans!) The story behind aborted Polish prototypes is also a tad more complicated - COMECON governments had a pretty good grasp of the actual situation of their economies, even if on a rather basic, macroeconomic level, so they had to secure the influx of foreign capital to sustain consumption as well as economize on investment to the extreme. So the evil Mercedes-driving guy might have been right that "this is enough", but not because of his sheer mischeviousness, but the fact that he knew retooling Sachsenring could cost him much more than his 6.9...
Ingo ◊ 2007-11-21 22:26	You're right. In the COMECON there were regulations, which country had to built which vehicle (or other industrial products). So in the GDR the productions of buses were stopped, because the whole country had buy "Ikarus"-buses from Hungaria. To create big, representative cars was forbidden, also cabriolets (too "bourgeouis", an if a cabrio, than in the 50ies it had to be a Skoda Felicia), also the production of bigger motorbikes wasn't allowed any more. 250 ccm was the limit for the GDR-industry. The whole plane- and aviation-industry of the GDR (resp.which was left over of it in the Soviet Zonme after 1945) stopped, too. -- Last edit: 2007-11-21 22:26:52
Bravada ◊ 2007-11-21 22:32	I am not talking about the international COMECON arrangements here, but internal economic affairs. A more modern Syrena, Trabant or Wartburg would've been perfectly alright with COMECON as an entity, but the ran down "moon economies" simply couldn't afford the effort. Oh BTW, how about the Sachsenring Repraesentant? A cabrio, mind you -- Last edit: 2007-11-21 22:34:09
Ingo ◊ 2007-11-21 22:40	@Bravada: in the GDR the regulation of "Valuta", the foreign (means Western) capital was our of function since the end of the 70ies. The legendary order of the 10000 VW Golf, 5000 Citroen GS, 5000 Mazda 323 and 2000 Volvo 244 in 1978/79 was the most obvious symptom of it. It was the beginning of the end of the GDR. At least the total breakdown in 1989/90 was caused by economical reasons, not mainly by missing human rights. It's annother hobby from me. I have several books about it. Very interesting to read, how desparately the GDR has tried to get Western money (outlines: "KoKo" and Mr. Schalck-Golodkowski). They sold the premium products of their economy to the West, artefacts (often stolen in museums or from the -very very few after 1945 left over private collectors), and so on. Even historic cobble-pavement was digged out and sold. And, as I wrote before in annother thread, the selling of political prisoners was a very big deal, which has brought the GDR some millions of D-Mark. In fact, political prisoners belonged to the most populat export-goods of the GDR. See here: /movie_908423-Die-Frau-vom-Checkpoint-Charlie.html A true story. Surely, in the GDR all this was top secret, but as a West German (if you have been interested), you could know all that.
Bravada ◊ 2007-11-21 22:45	I have a sort of economics background myself, I'd love to find out once how the socialist economies really worked... though of course the anecdotal evidence is more than well-known, and it was similar in every "valuta-hungry" (in a twist of linguistics, "foreign currency" is "waluta" in Polish too) COMECON country. There are horrid stories of how Tschautschesku marred Romanians with consumption restraints in his utopic attempt to pay off all debt, but Poland did have a bit of an upper hand with the initially strong exports of Polski Fiats.
Ingo ◊ 2007-11-21 22:45	Bravada wrote Oh BTW, how about the Sachsenring Repraesentant? A cabrio, mind you It looks a bit like a Wartburg with the elephantisis-disease, but it's a cabrio, you're right - but also a prototype, which never went in production. Exactly this I meant. A prototype, a single try.
Ingo ◊ 2007-11-21 22:46	I have to correct myself. The export of political prisoners was not "popular", it was "lucrative".
Bravada ◊ 2007-11-21 22:47	Five built, mass production never intended - based on the old P240 chassis, revived for the occassion by VEB Sachsenring. Styling was intended to mirror the 353.
Ingo ◊ 2007-11-21 22:53	@Bravada: about the Romania in the 80ies, there was a Hungarian made satiric movie (made in the 80ies, as I remember!!). Do you know something about it? I've seen it once, a long time ago, then I've never heard anything again of it. I cannot remember the title. It was a really, really mean and nasty satire - but after December 1989 you could see, that it was very close to the reality. And an interesting view, how the Hungarians see their neighbour. -- Last edit: 2007-11-21 22:54:36
Bravada ◊ 2007-11-21 23:20	Never heard of it, sorry
Weasel1984 ◊ 2007-11-22 17:29	Gag Halfrunt wrote I was reading the other day that several Polish car projects were cancelled on orders from the USSR: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=16519403&postcount=297 To this subject fits also a new, late 50's FSO Warszawa with Ghia's body -> http://www.polskaprl.rejtravel.pl/mot/25.jpg Though it is not so simple that serial production of all of these cars depends only on Moscow's opinion (especially in case of prototypes from the 70's and 80's). Actually purchase of a licence and co-operation with big foregin concern (Fiat in this case) was simplier, cheaper and less risky way to modernisation of our automotive industry. -- Last edit: 2007-11-22 19:55:15
Ingo ◊ 2007-11-22 21:33	I'm just thinking about Polish car-factories or manufacturers. Were there some car-companies in the pre-war-time in Poland?
Weasel1984 ◊ 2007-11-22 22:08	I hope that my answer won't be too off topic. Yes they were. I don't remeber all of them now, the most important were in Warsaw - so has been completly destroyed during the war. - CWS, later became a part of PZinż: Produced in the 20's CWS cars. http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/CWS_T-1 In the 1930's (PZinż) they started a production of 'Polski Fiats' http://old.timer.pl/index_prawy.html, for the early 40's was planned introduction of a new luxury vehicle "Lux Sport" http://www.autohistories.com/pzinz/ - Lilpop, Rau i Loewenstein: Had a deal with GM for manufacture of Opels, Chevrolets, Buicks etc. They also produced buses under make Chevrolet, but designed in Poland. http://www.przegubowiec.com/bus/katalog/prewar/opis_38_chevrolet.htm Near Krakow was a small plant which made (but it was more something like a CKD) a Czech Pragas under the name Oświęcim-Praga. Actually this plant is somehow known by everyone (unfortunately) - nazist German invader used it as a part of its Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. Also a Citroens and Fords were build here in a similar way. Plus of course a production of trucks and buses: Ursus, PF, mentioned Chevy, and maybe the most interesting - the 'Polski Saurer' (later the buses of this make were heavy face-lifted by PZinż and known as Zawrat http://www.przegubowiec.com/bus/katalog/prewar/opis_36_zawrat.htm). -- Last edit: 2012-05-30 20:49:13
Ingo ◊ 2007-11-22 22:16	Very informative, many thanks! (Zywiec, o.k. for you?) -- Last edit: 2007-11-22 22:35:34
Weasel1984 ◊ 2007-11-22 22:50	You are welcome! -- Last edit: 2018-06-14 16:08:56
Ingo ◊ 2007-11-22 22:53	Oops, we must take care, Weasel to do nothing illegal or indecent! Drinking alcohol in public rooms. -- Last edit: 2007-11-22 22:54:17

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1953 Borgward Hansa 2400 Pullman

1953 Borgward Hansa 2400 Pullman in Wenn die Alpenrosen blüh'n, Movie, 1955

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