Zündapp Janus

Zündapp of Nuremberg made everything from motorised bicycles to heavy motorcycles. Late in 1954, the Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum writes, it became shockingly clear that buyers wanted vehicles that kept the weather out, and the motorcycle trade went into a tailspin.source 3 Zündapp could not afford a long development of its own. It looked at the Kroboth, at Brütsch’s designs and at the Fuldamobil, and then chose a car from the aircraft maker Dornier, the Delta, which it took on under licence (see built under licence).source 3source 4

Zündapp reworked it thoroughly. The doors now hinged at the side, the front one in the manner of the Isetta, and the two halves of the body still looked almost alike.source 3source 1 German Wikipedia says the engine was new, a horizontal, fan-cooled 248 cc two-stroke designed for the car; the Weiner museum and RM say it was the 250 cc engine of Zündapp’s Bella scooter.source 1source 3source 5 It sat in the middle, between the backs of the two benches and ahead of the rear axle; a propeller shaft and a differential took the drive to the rear wheels. The four-speed gearbox came from Zündapp’s motorcycles, with a true reverse added, and was worked by a hand lever on the driver’s left.source 1source 2 The rear passengers faced backwards, looking out through the rear door, and both benches folded into a bed 1,800 mm (71 in) long.source 1

Zündapp announced it in September 1956. auto motor und sport found it excellently sprung, with the legroom of a much bigger car and, it expected, faultless road manners, but could not accept its engine in a four-seater outside the shortest local trips.source 2 Zündapp’s own caption promised that travelling by the dozen was cheaper and more fun, and listed what would fit: father, mother, two children, a dog, a teddy, dolls, a sailing boat, a bathing bag and a picnic case.source 2 At the IFMA show a month later the magazine called the Janus undoubtedly the technically most interesting vehicle there, and unusually well shaped too.source 6

Too late, and too dear

Production began in June 1957, much too late in the Weiner museum’s view, after a further redesign that saved weight with sliding Plexiglas side windows. Zündapp needed 15,000 a year to break even and built 1,731 in the first six months.source 3source 7 It cost DM 3,290, with DM 40 more for the heater, when a Volkswagen Standard cost DM 3,780, a price that put it among the dearest of the bubble cars.source 1 Its 14 PS had to move about 425 kg (937 lb) and four people, and the first cars barely reached 80 km/h (50 mph).source 3source 1 The engine in the middle made the cabin noisy, and sometimes smelly through a badly sealed cover; Zündapp’s advertising turned that into a virtue, since you could change a plug under your own roof in the rain.source 1 Riding backwards, as the museum puts it, proved less of a thrill to customers than had been thought.source 3

It had its admirers. In 1958 auto motor und sport held up its simple suspension as better in some respects than the Citroën 2CV’s, and the ADAC road patrol, which ran 191 motorcycle-and-sidecar outfits, added a Janus with room for a stretcher.source 8source 9 Its drivers needed only the old class 4 licence.source 10 In America the importer sold it from US$1,190 and promised a 600 cc twin of 25 hp for the spring of 1958; no such car is known.source 1

Sold to Bosch

In July 1958 the magazine reported that Robert Bosch had bought the Zündapp works at Nuremberg, and that it was not yet decided whether the mopeds, scooters, motorcycles and the Janus would go on.source 11 In October Zündapp sold the big press that had made the Janus body, with other machines, to Hans Glas, maker of the Goggomobil, for DM 315,000. The Janus was to be built again in Zündapp’s Munich works in 1959, with demand met from stock meanwhile.source 12 It never was.source 1source 4 German Wikipedia counts the car’s failure among the main reasons the Nuremberg works were sold; Zündapp went on making two-wheelers in Munich.source 1source 11

The idea was Claudius Dornier junior’s, the eldest son of the aircraft maker Claude Dornier.source 1source 4 In the spring of 1955 Werner Oswald described the prototype in auto motor und sport. Dornier, he wrote, was the third well-known aircraft firm, after Messerschmitt and Heinkel, to come up with a small cabin car (see aircraft makers). It was an extraordinarily roomy four-seater whose rear bench faced backwards, which promised better protection in a crash, good use of space, good weight distribution and a symmetrical body that would be cheap to make.source 13 Its doors at both ends hinged upwards; the rear bench could come out to make a load space, or both could fold into a flat bed 1.8 m long, so that it was a car, a small van and a camper in one. With both doors raised it looked like a helicopter.source 13

The engine, a 200 cc ILO, sat in the middle under the seats, and Oswald said it was there only so that the thing could move at all: Dornier knew its 360 kg car needed at least 400 cc. All four wheels were sprung independently on trailing arms, and the car was 2,780 mm long.source 13 Dornier would decide on building it only once it was clear whether it could build aircraft again; a licence was possible, and at 1,500 a month it could sell for under DM 3,000.source 13 English Wikipedia ties the Delta to the ban on German aircraft; the 1955 report reads more like a firm looking for work while its future in the air was uncertain.source 4source 13 The public saw it at the Frankfurt show that September, where the magazine thought it not beautiful but a terrific thing, more for engineers than for buyers.source 14 In the mid-1960s Dornier built a six-seat Delta II with Hymer, which stayed a prototype.source 4

The Weiner museum said in 2002 that few remain, and no count has been found.source 3 Owners have the Zündapp Janus IG, which holds the press kit of September 1956, and Thomas Reinwald has written the car’s history, Zündapp Janus und die anderen automobilen Entwicklungen von Zündapp (2008).source 1 The Museum Industriekultur in Nuremberg marked its 60th anniversary in 2017 (see museums and meets).source 1 The Weiner museum’s 1958 car, chassis W3571, fetched US$51,750 at the Weiner sale in Madison, Georgia, in February 2013.source 5