Thomas Ammerschläger - the NSU years

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Thomas Ammerschläger - the NSU years

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Created on January 14, 2020

Text:

Daniel Koch

Photos:

Daniel Reinhard

8

Thomas Ammerschläger

50

Bruno von Rotz

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unbekannt

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70

Victory at the Ulm-Laupheim airfield race (1970)

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Thomas Ammerschläger, proudly standing next to the family's first car, a Fiat 600 (1958)

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Pico de Veleta, Spain, 3200 m above sea level (1958)

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NSU Prinz 4 with self-made bucket seat (1963)

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Thomas Ammerschläger on the self-constructed crash test facility (1967)

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Accelerated to 50 KMH with a hot water rocket and driven into a concrete barrier (1968)

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3rd place with the NSU TT in Zolder (1969)

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Ulm-Laupheim, victory in the 1150 cc class (1970)

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Accident in the Touring Car Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, with Axel Bonin and Jürgen Wirthmüller (1970)

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Mass collision at the Nürburgring Südschleife (1970)

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Sepp Greger, Baron de Graffenried, Huschke von Hanstein, Peter-Max Müller, Prince von Metternich, Helmut Polensky (1970)

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Brixner Spyder by Rocco Zibaldone (1975) - built on Thomas Ammerschlaeger's chassis of the NSU 1100 TT

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Driver's license, issued on September 8, 1956

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Without a works team, but proud of the private drivers' successes (1969)

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Carl H. Hahn, Member of the Board of Management of Volkswagen, expresses his thanks (1970)

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Creative end-of-career business card (1970)

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NSU Ro 80 (1973) - on the club stand - at Retro Classics Stuttgart 2013

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NSU Ro 80 (1972) - you know the saying from elsewhere ...

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NSU Ro 80 (1972) - luxurious but simple interior

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NSU Ro 80 (1972) - at that time, no designers were employed for the engine compartment

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NSU Ro 80 (1972) - later model years had larger rear lights

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NSU Ro 80 (1972) - the outer skin of the Ro 80 was elegant and simple

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NSU Ro 80 (1972) - NSU allowed itself the luxury of developing a vehicle just for the Wankel engine

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NSU Ro 80 (1972) - drove the NSU company into the arms of the Volkswagen plant

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NSU Ro 80 (1972) - allows fast travel averages

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NSU Ro 80 (1968) - See-through drawing - Technology made visible

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NSU Ro 80 (1967) - Explanations of the technology - from the press kit

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NSU Ro 80 (1967) - the final interior design chosen

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NSU Ro 80 (1967) - sketch - steering construction

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NSU Ro 80 (1967) - Sketch - Brake system

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NSU Ro 80 (1967) - rejected studies for the interior design

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NSU Ro 80 (1967) - Sketch - Air intakes in the dashboard

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NSU Ro 80 (1968) - A look at the technology

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NSU Ro 80 (1967) - various designs were created for the rear end - a layered design of the light units was chosen

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NSU Ro 80 (1970) - transparency drawing - special attributes of the Wankel sedan

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Summary

Even the young Thomas knew what he wanted to be one day: an engineer who developed cars. He did not deviate from this wish, studied mechanical engineering, was first successful as a navigator in rallies, and later as a driver in NSU circuit races. He also had a promising career at NSU until the merger with Audi heralded changes at the end of the 1960s. We tell the exciting story of the young Thomas Ammerschläger and his beginnings at NSU with the TT and the Ro 80, in the second part we will focus on the Ford years and the Turbo Capri, and in the third part we will look at the BMW years with the M3 of the E30 series.

This article contains the following chapters

The Bible
First motor vehicle
Off to Spain
First optimizations with the second car
The NSU era begins
The unexpected often happens
NSU Ro 80, the Wankel hope
With big steps into a racing career
Advantage through knowledge
Diverse starting field
Soon on everyone's lips
The Italians pull away
New class
Full season
Season continued successfully
NSU era comes to an end
Change

Estimated reading time: 16min

Preview (beginning of the article)

Born on 24.11.1937 in the German town of Altefeld, now called Herleshausen, Thomas Ammerschläger already knew at the age of seven that he wanted to develop cars one day. And this despite the fact that no one in his family had ever had anything to do with cars or owned one. Just four years later, he set off on his own to attend the only car race in his region, the Maschsee race in Hanover. After that he was hooked, and from then on he also attended the Hanover Eilenrieder races for motorcycles, where he always made his way to the track without having the necessary change for a ticket. At the time, the magazine "Das Auto" gave him a glimpse into the big, wide world of automobiles. As he couldn't afford to buy the issues, he rode his bike to his friend and classmate Philipp-Axel Bonin every 14 days to take a look at the latest issue.

Welcome to Zwischengas!

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