The story
History
Josef Ganz was born in Budapest on 1 July 1898, the son of the journalist Hugo Markus Ganz. He moved to Frankfurt in 1916, served in the German navy in the First World War, and studied mechanical engineering in Vienna and Darmstadt, finishing in 1927.source 1source 2 His first sketches of a small car date from 1923: an engine in the middle, independent suspension with swing axles, and a streamlined body after Rumpler’s Tropfenwagen.source 1source 2 In 1927 he became editor of Klein-Motor-Sport, which he renamed Motor-Kritik in January 1929. He used it to attack heavy, unsafe cars and to call for a German “Volkswagen”, a people’s car, and the industry answered with lawsuits and an advertising boycott.source 1source 2
Josef Ganz in Motor-Kritik attacked the old and well-established auto companies with biting irony and with the ardent conviction of a missionary.
He built prototypes for other makers: the Ardie-Ganz at Nuremberg in the summer of 1930, and in May 1931, at Adler in Frankfurt, the Maikäfer, the May Beetle.source 1source 2 By Schilperoord’s research, as the Ganz archive gives it, Ferdinand Porsche, his son Ferry and Adolf Rosenberger tried the Maikäfer before Porsche began work on the Zündapp Type 12.source 2 Ganz also advised Daimler-Benz and BMW.source 1source 2
Gutbrod takes a licence
Wilhelm Gutbrod had founded Standard Fahrzeugfabrik at Ludwigsburg in 1926 to make motorcycles.source 3source 4source 2 In 1932 he met Ganz and watched the Maikäfer demonstrated, and Standard bought a licence to Ganz’s patents; a prototype was built and tested that autumn.source 3source 2 The patent layout put a horizontal two-cylinder two-stroke on one side of a central tube, ahead of the swinging half-axles, and the gearbox on the other side, engine, clutch and gearbox making one unit on the backbone.source 2 In the car, the 396 cc water-cooled twin lay across the frame in front of the rear axle and turned the rear wheels with no differential; the rear track was only 950 mm (37 in).source 3source 4
The pre-production Superior was shown at the motor show in Berlin, the IAMA, in February 1933. Hitler, Chancellor for two weeks, opened the show, and by Schilperoord’s account he took an interest in the car and in its price, RM 1,590.source 1source 2 The chassis was praised for its revolutionary design.source 2 The body, a simple beetle-like shell of wood and artificial leather, was not, and among those who called it impractical in Motor-Kritik was Ganz himself.source 3source 2 The car paid no motor vehicle tax.source 4 A slightly altered production model followed in April 1933.source 3source 2
A Volkswagen before the Volkswagen
In May 1933 the Gestapo arrested Ganz on falsified charges of blackmailing the motor industry. He was released, but his career was systematically destroyed.source 1source 2 The car went on. A new model for 1934, the Type 2, came in September 1933 by the archive’s date or November by English Wikipedia’s, with a longer wheelbase, an extra side window each side and a larger seat behind for a child.source 3source 2 From 1934 it also had a more raked windscreen and smoother wings and door openings.source 4 Standard advertised it as the fastest and cheapest German Volkswagen; one of its guarantee certificates, dated 22 December 1933, survives.source 3source 2source 5 A larger engine, the 500, had 494 cc and 16 PS (11.8 kW), and was good for 80 km/h (50 mph) against the 400’s 70 km/h (43 mph).source 4
The Superior was 3,300 mm (10 ft 10 in) long, beyond the Fiat Nuova 500, the length against which this site measures what a microcar is, and it is here for its part in the Volkswagen story.source 4 It was odd in more ways than its layout: the doors were hinged at the back, there was no differential, and only the rear wheels had brakes.source 4source 2
In June 1934 Ganz left Germany, for Liechtenstein and then Switzerland. That same month Hitler commissioned Porsche to design a Volkswagen to sell for RM 1,000, and Standard and the rest were then forbidden to call their cars Volkswagens.source 1source 2 In September 1934 Standard added the Merkur, a light truck on a longer, stronger Superior chassis with a differential and pump cooling, as a pick-up, a van and an ambulance.source 2
Tatra’s lawsuits
In December 1933 Tatra had complained that Ganz’s patent, DRP 587409, infringed one of its own. The Berlin Patent Office rejected the complaint at the end of March 1934, and the appeal in May; a second complaint, over an engine at the front of a backbone tube, dragged on.source 2 In May 1935 Gutbrod stopped building the Superior for fear of an unfavourable verdict, and Standard’s car making ended with it; the Merkur followed in 1936.source 2 German Wikipedia adds that the car sold poorly because it cost little less than bigger cars.source 4 In 1941 a Berlin court found for Ganz and ordered Tatra to pay him more than RM 4,000.source 2 Gutbrod came back to cars after the war, in 1950, with a new Superior.source 3
Well, sometimes Ledwinka looked over my shoulder and sometimes I looked over his.
Ganz afterwards
In Switzerland Ganz worked on a Swiss Volkswagen, with prototypes in 1937–38 (see Rapid, below). He moved to France in 1949 or 1950, then in 1951 to Australia, where he worked for General Motors-Holden, and he died in Melbourne on 26 July 1967.source 1source 2 Two years before, West Germany had proposed him for the Officer’s Cross of its Order of Merit; Australia’s rules blocked the award.source 1source 2
It is in his capacity as editor of the magazine ‘Motor-Kritik’ between 1928–1934 that Mr. Ganz took a keen interest in the development of a German ‘Volkswagen’ and, together with other engineers like Professor Porsche, has greatly contributed to realizing this project.
