Museum Autovision shows 115-year-old "world first"

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Created on July 1, 2020

Text:

CS - Museum Autovision, translated by DeepL

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CS - Museum Autovision

Pipe P4K (1905) - this car is the world's last vehicle of its kind still in running order

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Pipe P4K (1905) - The hubcaps of the classic car are adorned with a tobacco pipe, known as a "pipe" in Belgium

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Pipe P4K (1905) - The engine with hemispherical combustion chamber was a world first in 1905

There was actually no room for another classic car in the "Beginnings of mobility" exhibition area of the Autovision Museum in Altlußheim. After all, the world's largest pre-war exhibition of the NSU brand is housed there. However, the museum management could not resist the opportunity with the newly acquired automobile, as it is a classic car whose long sought-after engine was an important milestone in the early years of automobile production in Neckarsulm.

1905: NSU opted for the "Belgian pipe"

Neckarsulmer Motorenwerke (NSU), whose main business in the early years from 1873 was knitting machines and then two-wheelers, did not start building automobiles until 1905. However, the company did not yet have its own engine development department in that year. For this reason, the company obtained a license from the Belgian company Pipe, whose name translates as "pipe", to reproduce the newly designed 4-cylinder four-stroke engine from Brussels.

Pipe P4K (1905) - The engine with hemispherical combustion chamber was a world first in 1905

Attention was drawn to this almost 30 hp combustion engine because it was considered a world first at the time with its hemispherical combustion chamber. The inventor of this new engine design was the German engineer Otto Pfänder, who succeeded Wilhelm Maybach at Mercedes at the time.

Worldwide unique specimen is even ready to drive

The vintage car now on display at the Autovision Museum, a so-called runabout with the rather sober-sounding model name "P4K", has exactly this first automobile engine used at NSU. The already very extensive NSU pre-war exhibition has thus been enriched by another unique milestone in the history of the Neckar company.
milestone in the history of the Neckarsulm-based company.

Pipe P4K (1905) - this car is the world's last vehicle of its kind still in running order

Standing between the NSU motor tricycle with the first water-cooled engine from 1904 and NSU's first own car engine development from 1906, the "Pipe P4K" now closes a gap that completes and enhances this exhibition area even more. Museum founder Horst Schultz is particularly pleased about this, as he had been looking for this historic engine for over two decades!

Further information can also be found on the Autovision Museum website.