Heritage

The Troubled ’20s  – Ferdinand Porsche and Daimler-Benz

By Karl Ludvigsen
Images Courtesy Daimler Archives
 
Ferdinand Porsche was chief engineer of Daimler-Benz during the most turbulent period in company history, when the Stuttgart and Mannheim firms merged in the wake of galloping inflation in Germany. He created both cars and controversy.
 
When Paul Daimler left to join Horch in mid-1922, the famed Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft found itself without a chief engineer. Production Chief Richard Lang was doing his best to streamline operations at the factory in Untertürkheim, but its cupboard of future products was all but bare. Managing Director Ernst Berge asked a neutral third party, Paul Eberspächer of the eponymous components firm, to sift the candidates with technical know-how and make a recommendation.

Eberspächer argued that only an experienced man in the top echelon of his field could provide the products that DMG urgently needed. Ferdinand Porsche was such a man, he said. At that time, Porsche was falling out with his board members at Austro-Daimler, where he was managing director and a restless creator of exciting new models. Porsche would be costly, Eberspächer told the Daimler supervisory board, but he’d be worth it. The company decided to engage Porsche.

His five-year contract as board member and technical director took effect at the end of April 1923; Porsche’s first official board-meeting presence would be on May 4. Nevertheless, Porsche was already ensconced in Stuttgart’s Hotel Marquardt and hard at work in February. He soon arranged for other members of his Austro-Daimler team to join him, including his trusted design engineer, Otto Köhler, and the head of his vehicle running-in department, Alfred Neubauer.

There was no shortage of work. In fact, Porsche found himself amidst final preparations for the campaign to race at Indianapolis in 1923. Running as high as third and finishing eighth- and 11th-place in the Indy 500, the twin-carburetor cars proved their toughness, but not their ability to hold a supercharged state of tune. After Porsche’s revisions, the Mercedes model scored a fine victory in the Targa Florio April 27, 1924, for which the cars are celebrated.



Christian Werner triumphant for Mercedes-Benz at the 1924 Targa Florio


Porsche followed up with the design and construction of an ambitious 2.0-liter straight-eight Grand Prix car for 1924. Though the design never achieved its potential in GP form, two cars were converted with the addition of a vestigial rear seat into sports cars for the German Grand Prix July 11, 1926, staged on Berlin’s fast Avus track. Rudolf Caracciola, who would become one of the brightest stars in Daimler’s later-named Mercedes firmament, won the 243-mile race. It was a fitting celebration following the creation of the Daimler-Benz Aktiengesellschaft a fortnight before.

With the alliance that began in 1924, June 29, 1926, saw the formation of the Daimler Benz Aktiengesellschaft (DBAG) from the merger of Daimler with one of its major marketplace rivals, Benz & Cie of Mannheim. As with many similar mergers in the automobile business, the alliance created uneasy and conflicting technical relationships. Porsche continued in charge of Untertürkheim’s products while Benz’s Hans Nibel retained that authority at Mannheim.

In Untertürkheim, Porsche headed a new Central Design Office in which advanced design work was conducted on all the group’s new products, as well as research and testing. Although Porsche was the company’s principal spokesman and authority on design matters, both he and Nibel were members of the company’s management board after the 1926 merger.

Porsche could point to progress since his arrival in Stuttgart. In his first year, DMG vehicle production rose slightly to 1,469 cars and trucks in 1923 and increased to 1,876 in 1924. By 1925, Daimler’s production was at a record level of 2,287 and in 1926, the year of the final merger, it was at 3,714 vehicles, with more than 2,000 cars produced. In contrast, Benz produced only 592 automobiles in 1926.

When he joined Daimler in 1923, Porsche’s preferred strategy was to create a new 2.5-liter supercharged model that built on the success of Paul Daimler’s smaller-blown engines. In the board’s view, however, the more urgent task was replacement of a now-antiquated car, the 28/95, a 6-liter 6-cylinder that dated from 1913. Porsche had to drop his idea of a smaller four.

With the speed that was typical of Porsche, the first prototypes of the new models were ready early in 1924. Later that year, the motoring world was shown the first large supercharged production Mercedes cars. The 6-cylinder engines came in two sizes. The smaller six with 3,921cc was fitted to the Type 15/70/100, while the larger Type 24/100/140 had an ample 6,246cc, using the same bore and stroke as the 28/95 that it replaced. Both boldly bore such hallmarks of Ferdinand Porsche’s authorship as shaft-driven single-overhead cams and aluminum-alloy cylinder blocks. New, however, was a front-mounted supercharger that was engaged by full depression of the throttle.
As the new model’s designation indicated, its engine was factory rated at 100 brake horsepower without supercharging, and 140 brake horsepower supercharged. From 1926, it was even more powerful as the 24/110/160, better known as the K after its kurz – short – wheelbase. The K had sporting acceleration and a top speed of 95 mph that ranked it among the world’s fastest production cars – perhaps the fastest.

Unfortunately, it lacked the handling and braking to match. “To say that the road-holding and cornering when driven at high speeds left much to be desired would be a gross understatement,” wrote racing historian David Scott-Moncrieff.  “In fact, this K model was always known as the ‘Death Trap.’ In spite of these faults, it was a very pleasant, fast touring car.”

In Stuttgart, the company was well aware of the model’s shortcomings. A long-time member of the Benz supervisory board was Bank Director Carl Jahr. At a meeting July 6, 1925, Jahr quizzed Porsche about problems with the new big-car range, which included bending frames, engine-mount problems, stiff springs, boiling in New York traffic, difficult carburetor adjustment and connecting rods failing at the driveshaft when the blower was engaged too often and too long. Porsche responded with chapter and verse on the rectification measures being implemented for existing and future cars.

Porsche’s initiatives continued to draw crossfire from the former Benz technical cadre. K. B. Hopfinger wrote of the former Benz directors then on the Daimler Benz board: “Although on account of the financial status of their former company they were ‘junior’ partners, they did not fail to oppose any suggested scheme which was originated by former directors of the Daimler board.”

Early in 1927, Porsche’s new Model S kept the same wheelbase and track as the K but was radically lower. With its engine size upped to 6,789cc, the Model S engine produced 180 horsepower with its compressor engaged. With higher compression ratios and benzol-based fuel, the racing versions prepared by the factory produced up to 220 horsepower.

For 1928, displacement on the model S engine went up to 7,069cc. In this form – with much improved internals – the six was fitted to Daimler Benz cars bearing the immortal SS designation. The true Mercedes-Benz SS model was designed to offer more interior room and accommodate the best custom bodywork of the era, including the impressive efforts of the company’s own coachbuilders at Sindelfingen. A short-wheelbase version of the S became the famous SSK, a series of which were delegated for racing during the winter of 1928 to 1929. These were the last of this great line to be designed under Porsche’s direction.

Following board approval in April of 1927, the new side-valve 4.6-liter Nürburg eight was launched at the Berlin Motor Show late in 1928. Porsche worked hard to extract the 80 horsepower that he felt the model needed. Early detection of faults in the Mannheim-built Nürburg was aided by a pre-production series of 50 cars, some of which were loaned to dealers and branches for experience and evaluation.

At the opposite end of Porsche’s spectrum were new small cars to provide the volume models that Paul Daimler had balked at designing. Two new 6-cylinder models, created for Mannheim manufacture, were launched in 1926, replacing earlier Benz fours. Built to a price to compete at the market’s mid-level, both had prosaic-looking side-valve engines. Originally conceived as a 2.5-liter model and upscaled during development, the 2,968cc Type 12/55 was introduced in 1926. In improved form, it was relaunched as the 3,130cc Type 300, which with its successor the 320 became a popular model. A few more than 3,700 were produced through 1929.

The other new six was the Type 8/38, displacing 1,988cc. Shown at the Berlin show in 1926, the 8/38 went into production with remarkable speed: 1,425 were manufactured before the end of that year and in 1927, 4,788 were produced – a new record by far for Daimler-Benz. That was the good news. The bad news was that the 8/38, rushed to market, was riddled with bugs. Porsche and his team made haste to exterminate them but the experience was traumatic for Daimler-Benz and its hard-pressed dealers, who were unused to coping with so many cars or problems.

Nevertheless, Porsche received a rare pat on the back from Jahr in December 1926. “In design no fewer than nine different types have been created for the various factories,” said the banker, including trucks as well; “for the most part they’ve already been validated and found to be good. No particular explanation is needed for the work that’s been involved in that.”

Porsche initiated work in 1926 on a new small car. As the first new design of the merged company, it was designated as the W01, “W” standing for Wagen. In 1928, a series of 28 prototypes were built for sale “at advantageous prices” to close friends of the company who were required to submit regular reports and to refuse sales of their cars to third parties. Sales Chief Wilhelm Kissel communicated their favorable reports to the board June 28, 1928, saying that “the tests with this 2.6-liter model have given gratifying results.”

Provisional plans were established for production of the promising new W01 at a rate of 1,000 cars each month, an order of great magnitude – more than the company had ever undertaken – and a sign of its confidence in Porsche’s design. But the board wasn’t unanimously in favor of the launch of such a minuscule vehicle. Though Kissel stressed that his dealers needed such a model to protect the lower end of their range, Jahr questioned whether it would be sensible to chase the products and prices of volume producers such as Opel, which would give DBAG more scope to lower its costs.

Management-board meetings in October and November 1928 seethed with debate over the merits of raising banking credit to the 10 million marks needed to put the W01 into production. Both Jahr and Daimler-Benz veteran Max Sailer were tough on Porsche, implying that they couldn’t have confidence in the W01’s design in view of the 8/38’s travails. Shrugging aside their scathing criticisms, Porsche continued his defense of this new 2.6-liter model, which was announced at the end of 1928 as the Stuttgart 260.

At that board meeting November 15, Porsche defended his engineering colleagues who in the recent past, he claimed, had developed 14 new types, not including experimental engines. They were overloaded by too many tasks, he said. Effort was still being wasted, Porsche believed, by maintaining separate body-design and materials-testing operations at Mannheim and Untertürkheim.

When the board met December 17, it was to discuss negotiations with Porsche “on account of his departure.” Directors had already identified his successor as none other than his Benz rival, Hans Nibel. In the immediate future, Benz engineers would take control. The board announced its decision at once without extending Porsche the usual courtesy of waiting until he publicized his own future plans. This hurtful separation was only resolved after litigation by Porsche’s son-in-law Anton Piëch.

At age 53, this was Ferdinand Porsche’s first career setback, and it was a big one. He had accepted the technical helm of Daimler-Benz at a time of phenomenal turbulence in the company and its host nation. Porsche dealt with the challenges of merging the proud engineering teams of two former competitors to the best of his ability. Coping with the company’s huge range of models – produced at dispersed locations and exported throughout the world – tested Porsche’s capacity for organization and oversight beyond its previous limits. Even beyond that, he was heading the engineering of trucks, diesels, aero engines and even prototype tanks.

From a utilization of only 30 percent in 1926, Daimler-Benz’s productive capacity rose to 60 percent in 1927 and remained at 58 percent in 1928. Cars manufacture was 7,908 in 1927, 6,275 in 1928, and 10,014 in 1929 – all with models from Porsche’s drawing boards. It was not a record to be dismissed. Daimler-Benz would live for years on models designed by Porsche. And in the mid-1930s, Porsche and Daimler-Benz would kiss and make up and start working together again.
 
Porsche before Daimler
 
Born in Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic) in 1875, Ferdinand Porsche began designing vehicles for the Jakob Lohner & Co. of Vienna, Austria, in 1898. While at Lohner, Porsche designed the advanced Lohner-Porsche chassis, which featured electric drive powered from on-board batteries.

Austro-Daimler appointed Porsche as its chief designer in 1906, and he rose to become managing director in 1916. In the years that followed, Porsche wanted the Austrian company to start producing small cars, but his colleagues insisted that the company continue building the existing much larger prestige models. This disagreement became so strong that at the end of 1922, Porsche resigned to search for new employment. It was in the weeks that followed that he once again got into contact with the Daimler company in Stuttgart, which is where this feature story began. He was only 47 years old.       

Graham Robson
 
Porsche after Daimler

No sooner than he parted company with Daimler-Benz in 1928, the Austrian manufacturer Steyr approached Porsche, appointing him technical chief in 1929 with a seat on the board. At the time, Steyr was the largest manufacturer of automobiles in Austria.

Encouraged by his company colleagues, Porsche began developing several new models. However, after only a year, the worldwide Depression began to affect the business; when the company faced financial collapse, Porsche was out of a job.

The independent Porsche Bureau was then established in Stuttgart in 1931, and soon produced a number of outstanding models, including the original VW Beetle (the KdF-Wagen), and the fearsome mid-engined Auto Union P-Wagen Grand Prix car. In the late 1930s, Porsche then designed a DB603-engined land-speed record contender for Daimler-Benz, but this was never completed.

Always obeying directives received from the Nazi government during WWII, the Porsche Bureau not only developed VW Beetle-based military vehicles, the Kübelwagen and Schwimmwagen, but was also involved in the design of several massive tanks.

After the war, and with his health already deteriorating, Porsche was hired to survey the progress of the Renault 4CV project, but was eventually imprisoned on a variety of charges for his alleged collaboration with the German military authorities. Thereafter, Porsche was not physically able to return to his design career and died in January 1951. He was 75 years of age.       
Graham Robson
 


Ferdinand Porsche with engineeer and race car driver Max Sailer and test engineer Fritz Nallinger oversaw Mercedes-Benz racing efforts in the late 1920s.
 


Perhaps the high point of Porsche’s contributions to Daimler-Benz, the 7-liter Model S engine used in the Mercedes-Benz SSK.
 


The chassis of the formidable 1928-1929 SSK race car.

The 1929 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring with four Mercedes-Benz SSKs competing.

At the other end of the spectrum, the 1928 5-25  competed at mid-market level.



The Type 8/38 went into production in 1926 with incredible speed but was plagued with problems.