A new book explaining the entire history of NSU was published to mark the 150th anniversary. If NSU were still active today, this car and motorcycle brand would be one of the oldest in existence. However, the actual activities were discontinued over 50 years ago, NSU was absorbed into the VW conglomerate and merged with Audi. At the time, NSU was not doing badly, having brought the world a number of innovations and laid the foundations for cars and construction methods that would be felt for decades to come.
The "NSU Story" was written by Peter Schneider, who once started his career in the NSU press department, but later also worked for BMW and Porsche.
Historically along the timeline
It was in 1873 when Christian Schmidt and Heinrich Stoll founded a small workshop for the manufacture of embroidery machines that NSU began. However, this name only came into being much later, when they wanted to compete against BSA in motorcycle production with a seal of quality. The three letters NSU were simply borrowed from the site name NeckarSUlm.
As already indicated, the knitting machines did not last long. The bicycle was followed by the motorcycle and the first automobiles were built as early as 1905/1906, initially under license but soon including in-house designs. Motorsport successes helped with sales, but eventually the company had to concentrate on motorcycles and later also on scooters. The construction of the Type 32, a forerunner of the Volkswagen, was a brief intermezzo.
It was not until the second half of the 1950s that the automobile was back on the scene and economically interesting enough to venture a new entry. This was followed by the NSU Prinz 1 to 4 models, the Sport Prinz and finally the NSU 1000, 1200 and TT/TTS with four-cylinder engines.
An important development was of course the Wankel engine, which first appeared in the Wankel Spider and finally in the Ro 80, with which NSU moved towards the luxury class. And with the NSU K70, which was only produced 23 times as a pre-series vehicle, the story came to an end.
Excitingly told
Schneider guides us along the timeline through the eventful history of NSU. It makes gripping and very informative reading. With around 265 pages, there is of course only limited space available for such an extensive historical narrative and the author cannot devote as much time to each vehicle type as a type compendium would. A few pages have to suffice for the Prinz or the TT. It goes without saying that you can't expect complete reprints of test reports or press releases from the time. But there are other books for that.
We would perhaps have liked a clear presentation of the timeline with the most important events and types on one or two pages. This would have made it easier to get started and the page numbers could even have been referenced. Because there is also no index, you have to work your way through the book largely sequentially. For someone looking for specific facts or figures, this can be a bit time-consuming, but for them there is a comprehensive appendix (see below).
Attractive selection of images
The authors and publishers have done an excellent job with the selection of images, which includes many rare pictures from the factory collection. Not only the automobiles and motorcycles are shown, but also depictions of the factories and portraits of important people throughout history.
Fortunately, they have also refrained from replacing historical black and white images with color photos taken later, which is why the majority of the illustrations are in black and white. This is a good thing, because these old factory photos give this book a lot of atmosphere.
Extensive appendix
We have already briefly mentioned the very extensive appendix of around 140 pages. It mainly contains data and descriptions as well as photos of the vehicles built by NSU over a period of around 90 years. There is no lack of unit numbers or detailed technical data and additional descriptions.
On six pages, production figures are also summarized by model and year of manufacture. This is also very valuable information.
416 pages
At over 400 pages, this EUR 69.00 book is a highly interesting brand compendium on an important car and motorcycle brand. It is well written, extensively researched and excellently illustrated. What more could you want? This work should also be added to the library of anyone interested in automotive history who may not have had NSU on their radar before, as it also describes a great deal of industrial history.
Bibliographical information
- Title: The NSU story - All the cars and motorcycles from Neckarsulm
- Author: Peter Schneider
- Language: German
- Publisher: Motorbuch Verlag
- Edition: 1st edition, February 2023
- Format: Hardcover, 230 x 265 mm
- Size: 416 pages, 720 pictures
- ISBN: 978-3-613-04546-0
- Price: EUR 69.00
- Buy/Order: Online at amazon.de, online at Motorbuch-Verlagor at the relevant bookstore
