Ahead of its time, without success
09/04/2022
No, the red car will not win the prize for the most elegant car. But perhaps it will receive an award for a particularly unusual story and for exceptional inventiveness. It is a prototype built by Friedrich Eugen Maier in 1935.
Maier was an inventor and he wanted to build nothing less than a German Volkswagen. He packed many ideas into the car that were not standard in series production vehicles for decades. For example, the prototype had a self-supporting light metal body - after all, the company behind the car was called Leichtbau Maier.
The headlights steered with the car when cornering, the chassis was height-adjustable and the driver's seat could be individually adjusted.
Maier, who studied mechanical engineering, had many of his ideas patented internationally, as evidenced by 12 patents. But the timing was bad. Maier probably did not get along with the Nazis and was eventually captured and deported to Russia. When he returned to Berlin in 1947, he was faced with a pile of rubble.
But he kept the car until his death; in the end it was a wreck. His daughter sold his estate, including the prototype, at the end of the 1970s. Around thirty years later, the current owner bought the now restored but non-functional car. For years, he tried to research the history, which was still completely unknown at the time, until he had pieced it together to the extent that it is briefly recapitulated here.
At the Classic Gala Schwetzingen this weekend (September 1 to 3, 2022), he will be showing the interesting car, so perhaps some of you will still have the opportunity to take a look at it.
