By far the best book on the subject of the Beetle’s early development is Chris Barber’s “Birth of the Beetle”. Barber spent 20 years researching it, and the resulting book was published in 2003. It’s very expensive now; currently used ones are priced at over $900 at Amazon. I managed to find one for just under $300, but it came too late for my story on the genetic origins of the Beetle. That’s ok, as I planned all along to do another article on the actual gestation and birth of the Beetle, now that we know its parentage.
One tidbit in Barber’s book caught my eye: a drawing by Franz Xavier Reimspiess from 1937 showing the definitive version (top) and an alternate-reality one with its engine in front, driving the rear wheels through a rear-mounted transaxle. I’m not sure why, as the fundamental configuration of the VW’s rear engine design goes back to Porsche’s very first drawings in 1932.
Clearly there would be some advantages and disadvantages.
The larger rear luggage compartment is of course the obvious advantage (the spare tire and fuel tank are relocated to the rear behind the transaxle). And the front suspension with its transverse torsion bars would have had to be completely redone. And the Beetle’s superb traction, which allowed it to be so readily adapted to military use in the form of the Kübelwagen, would be missing. That alone would have likely been a no-starter, as potential use as a military vehicle was in the design brief from the get-go, once the government got involved.
Coincidentally, down in Austria, Steyr was building their “Austrian Volkswagen” with just that configuration: a boxer four in the front with a conventional drive train to a rear swing axle. And a scan be seen, it does have a fairly good sized luggage area, although as was the inevitable tendency by brochure artists, the passengers are undersized to make it look roomier than it was.
As can be seen by this cutaway, the engine was rather different than that of the VW, the only rear similarity being a boxer four. The Steyr’s was a water-cooled flathead cast iron unit, as their early experiments with an air cooled engine did not pan out. It took the folks at Porsche quite some time to make theirs work reliably. The Steyr engine had a tall radiator above the engine, and used the thermosyphon principle (no pump) to keep the water flowing. In its second and definitive version, it made 23.5 hp, the exact same as the VW engine. And thanks to a four speed transmission and the right gearing, it was able to climb the steepest passes and mountain roads in the Alps. But it was priced at three times of what the VW was going to sell for, so sales were relatively modest.
Of course this was essentially the formula Tatra had made so successful with their T11/12, and later the four cylinder T30/T57 models, starting in 1923. These all had a solid front axle, and Tatra did master the secrets of air cooling early on.
In any case, despite the unusual drawing for a front engine VW, there was never any doubt about its location. Just as well, as it’s a bit hard to imagine it today with a front engine under its nose. It just seems so antithetical.
Now if it had also had front wheel drive, now that would be a different story…
- related reading:
Who’s The Real Father of the Volkswagen? Hunting For Its DNA Back To 1903
Yeah, not sure why either, I think it would have added more parts and complexity, which as you mention is antithetical. (That’s the CC vocabulary word of the day folks)
It is amusing that the woman’s heels need clearance in the floorpan of the Steyr 55.
What a great thought though, to have angled floorboards on which rear passengers would rest their feet.
This was also the layout Alec Issigonis wanted for the Morris Minor which ended up having to use an existing inline engine.
That leads to the question of why front-wheel-drive wasn’t considered, lack of CV joints? Citroen made it work, first in the more upscale Traction Avant but they never considered anything else for the TPV which became the 2CV after the wartime delay.
Front wheel drive was very, very rare at the time and was still considered novel. The lack of reliable CV joints must have been a factor as you state here.
The first thing I thought of when I saw this article was the Jowett Javelin, but that car’s flat-four engine was water cooled.
Chassis schematic.
Chassis of the Jupiter roadster – the Javelin didn’t have a separate chassis.
This reminded me of the original VW Gol that used the Beetle engine in front wheel drive configuration. Considering Germany was an early adopter of front wheel drive it bears a question why this was not considered. I wonder if paying royalties for the technology had to do with it, knowing that the goal for pricing the KdF-Wagen under 1000 RM was ver ambitious.
That Tatra certainly exhibits the positive camber of the Beetle also.
As does the Steyr 50 in photos online.
I can’t really see why positive camber was considered a good idea with swing axles – why not at least no camber? – but, as The Editor has banned me from ever mentioning swing axles here again despite my irrefutable proof of their Complete Evilness, I shall speak no further.
Positive camber is inherent with swing axles, right? Otherwise it wouldn’t swing, right?
Positive camber is more noticeable and inherent in small cars, as the axles are shorter and the camber changes are accentuated. Back then, ground clearance was more important due to the highly varying conditions. And average speeds were significantly lower.
The VW was universally praised for its superb handling and road holding at the time, which was vastly better than any other car in its class, as well as most in other classes much ore expensive.
The torsion bars on the VW are of course adjustable so that any degree of camber can be dialed in.
Positive camber isn’t inherently evil; almost all cars with solid front axles had it to varying degrees, some very strongly so.
Since you loved your drive in a Porsche 356 and desire to own one, you’re quite welcome to extol the virtues of swing axles here as much as you desire.
Hehe! I shall take another swing, then.
Absolutely agree the VeeWee was miles ahead in the ’30’s without a fabric/wood body or solid axles both ends and with aero but no iron lumps or flatheads and a speed beyond many a posh car (at brilliantly low engine revs). As your article showed, The Combined Greatest Hits Of Europe, Interpreted By Ferdinand.
What I don’t get is why START with positive camber? The Tatra pic below shows enough room to walk a tall dog under the diff without getting oil leaks on his spine furs, in other words, lots of ground clearance on a small car with the wheels more or less upright even before the body is fitted. (Pretty sure the VW’s had 16 inch wheels originally). If starting slightly positive, as the car rolls over in to a bend, the axle swings upwards, putting lots of lovely negative camber on the wheel, rather than the more and more positive and ultimate tuck-under (or air-out) if it starts negative.
I presume there was an engineering theory behind this beyond just clearance, as all the rear-engine mob did it for years after. Well, until Mercedes (in front-engine app of course) invented the low-pivot idea which fixed my complaint (which admittedly I wasn’t then alive to make).
My wording is completely arse-about in the second para: should be, if starting slightly negative, it’ll get more so as it rolls, giving lots of lovely negative, and if starting positive, it’ll get more and more so until tuck-under, etc.
My hunch is that the object was to ideally have the axle joints operating at near zero degrees as much as practicable. That would mean aiming for a target of “level” arms with the anticipated usual loads on the usual roads.
My hunch is that the object was to ideally have the axle joints operating at near zero degrees as much as practicable. That would mean aiming for a target of “level” arms with the anticipated usual loads on the usual roads.
That’s much too logical of an explanation for Mr. Baum. 🙂
The Tatra is only a chassis, without any weight of a body on it. So naturally it has positive camber.
It’s not clear in the bare chassis image if the suspension has some sort of arrangement to compensate for the spring gaining length as it is flattened from weight? Without that it’d seem camber will go even more plus when weight is added
Presumably yes. But in any case the camber will not go more positive, as swing axles pivot only at the differential. So they have to go negative as weight is increased.
There surely has to be some sort of pivot mount where the spring attaches to the hubs. Otherwise the whole assembly would be rigid.
Of course there’s a provision for the spring to adjust to the varied camber, otherwise it wouldn’t work. Here’s a better picture:
It’s interesting that the back luggage compartment in the drawing of the rear-engine VW seems a lot larger than it was in production. I wonder if this was a late change, or if that’s just how it looks in cross-section? (The drawing certainly draws one’s attention to the shelf-like limited space of the front locker). The Steyr has no trunklid, which seems common enough to small cars then and even later, so perhaps the rear section of the VW was always intended as the actual place for proper luggage.
That drawing was not of the definitive version. It came out a bit smaller in the end, but it was considered the primary luggage compartment
I suppose rear-engine cars were considered to be the wave of the future, back in the 1930s.
Placing the engine in the rear offered greater possibilities for aerodynamic body design and better traction as well as more passenger space. High speed stability wasn’t so much of a factor back then either, with such low-powered cars. Trunk space – no so good, but how many suitcases did people bring along in their cars during the Great Depression? I’m sure guys like Porsche and Ledwinka were turned on by these advantages.
As for the engines, a monobloc cast-iron inline water-cooled engine would have been much cheaper to manufacture than an air-cooled flat four. I don’t know if that this was an over-riding consideration at Renault, but the 4CV was a laid out that way. It had a little cast-iron inline four mounted after of the rear axle with a rather primitive swing axle suspension.
I have never owned one, but I got a long ride in one. Talk about going back in time!
Mercedes had very bad experience with their rear engine 130H/170H, which had cast iron water cooled fours hanging out back. The weight distribution of rear engine cars is critical. Porsche knew that and that’s why he insisted on a compact and light engine, using magnesium for the main case, and aluminum fr the heads and transmission case. It really made a significant difference. The VW’s weight distribution was quite reasonable for a rear engine car, and the handling was therefore considered superb in its time.
The Renault had a very small engine, and was able to make it work reasonably well, but its weight distribution was not as good as the VW’s.
Actually they made one (VW Mexico to be precise), But it didn`t work well, because used beetles were so cheap. And it was too “complicated” because steering. It was called VW La Hormiga (spanish for ant).
The Hormiga was FWD. I think I’ve read comments on this website about other FWD air cooled VW models made in Brazil.
The front engine/rear transaxle Bug would have had great weight distribution.
I’m curious what that small Tatra would have been like to drive with a solid axle front end and a swing axle rear.
From all reports, it was a superb car in its time, including its handling and roadholding. One of the primary motivations in creating and using the swing axle was to reduce unsprung weight. Driven solid rear axles were heavy, and in lighter cars, the ratio of unsprung to sprung weight made them problematic. The swing axle drastically improved on that issue. meanwhile, the solid front undriven axle was quite light, so not a problem in that regard.
On of my favourite YouTube car videos of the past few years is Chris Harris’ drive in the ‘first Porsche’ – a Porsche Type 64 from 1939.
He makes the point that one of the major imperatives in the design of the car was the need to do more with less, in achieving speed not though brute strength but rather by minimizing materials, weight, and air resistance. The engine in the rear had the benefit of reducing frontal area, and helped the car achieve a top speed of 88mph from a 1 litre engine producing only 32 hp.
The VW design brief would have shared many of the same imperatives from the very beginning. The chassis of the Porsche has nothing to do with Volkswagen – it’s derived from airframe technology – but the original 1 litre VW engine is there in the back, along with a lot of 1930’s VW running gear.
Fascinating viewing, and a beautiful object.
I saw this about the time it came out, and can also highly recommend it.
The thing could pass as a credible bit of abstract sculpture, rather than the science-driven piece of the great engineer’s art that it really is.
Or perhaps that should be “..that it also is.”
The chassis of the Porsche has nothing to do with Volkswagen – it’s derived from airframe technology
The chassis of the Type 64 was 100% Volkswagen/KdF Wagen. That was the whole point, actually. The engine was hopped up to give some 32-34 hp, but otherwise it was all VW. The body was of course different. Reutter built them out of aluminum to reduce weight and they were of course very aerodynamic to yield a much higher top speed, close to 100 mph. The whole idea was to have a high-speed KdF Wagen for the planned 1939 Berlin-Rome road race.
The Berlin-Rome race for which they were built was cancelled, so one of them became Dr. Porsche’s personal car, in which his driver drove him to his constant business meetings during the war when the train schedule didn’t work out.
They would probably be more around. I’ve always said, if air cooled VWs were front engined, the oil leaks would have preserved the entire undercarriage 😂
No more rusted out pans!! And the aftermarket JC Whitney ’40 Ford hoods would have finally made sense! I don’t know why this guy didn’t find an earlier chrome bumper with the overriders.
Might it be a smaller version of the Airflow?
That’s what would bother me about it. As a small car packaging becomes even more important, and as mentioned FWD was still not common. I kind of have the same aversion to vehicles that can be ofofered in AWD and FWD models, in that unusable space for the 4WD version is part of the design even when I just buy FWD. Guess efficient packaging is a big deal to me, which is part of the reason I prefer the Golf (which I own) to the new Beetle.
Anyhow, I don’t think you can overlook packaging efficiency, whick I think was part of the success of the original Beetle, plus having good snow traction which in a lighter car would be better with FWD. So I think the original RWD Beetle was probably the right anser fo the time, despite impeding VW in the 60’s when FWD became more available…they should have switched to FWD 10 years before the Rabbit or Dasher came out..
A few things… The Tatra T57 didn’t have a solid front axle like its predecessors, as suggested. It had parallelogram transverse leaf independent front suspension. The ethos of front-engined Tatra rear swing axles isn’t so much reducing unsprung weight as compatibility with the trademark tube chassis …so much more elegant than trying to arrange any other solution, and the differential design that allows articulation without UJs is worth studying and understanding. The Mercedes-Benz rear-engined cars are routinely monstered these days, like most rear-engined cars, but contemporary reporting was typically complimentary, as I explained in ‘The Automobile’ a few weeks ago. These days the knee-jerk response to anything rear-engined is, let’s just say, not often based on personal experience. I guess I have the advantage of a 1934 Mercedes 130 of my own, and the six Tatras I’ve had include a 1938 T97 that’s still one of three still in our garages. The straight-4 longitudinal iron liquid-cooled rear engine was a more common post-war choice than the VW-style lightweight air-cooled flat-4, and could work well in Simcas, Skodas, Renaults, Fiats and others, most of which I’ve owned or used. My first new car was a Simca 1000 Special, and eleven years earlier my late father’s first new car had been a ’59 Renault Dauphine. I’ve always had ‘pushers, our ’65 Corvair Corsa convertible was a high point, and am not embarrassed to champion them.
Thanks for pointing that out about the T57; I lumped them in together in haste, forgetting about the 57’s IFS.
As to the swing axle and tube chassis, certainly the two are an obvious match-up. It’s hard to see the point of the tube chassis otherwise. But the better ride from the swing axles compared to the harsh ride of the heavy solid axles of the time was undoubtedly a major consideration too.
Sounds like you have quite the collection, past and present. If you’d like to share any of your experiences with them, a contribution would be most welcome.
I’d be eager to hear any feedback you might have from this recent article I posted here about the VW’s DNA, which covers the origins of the swing axle, as well as chapters on the the M-B rear engine cars, Ledwinka/Tatra, Rumpler, Ganz, and other elements that influenced the Beetle to one degree or another:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/automotive-history-whos-the-real-father-of-the-volkswagen/
“…hard to see the point of the tube chassis otherwise”? Really, Paul? Well, absolutely no twisting of the structure …no stress born by any sort of body, open or closed …how about that for starters? Tatra’s off-road trucks use the principle to this day. They’ve been so effective on the Dakar that the organisers have used them in the past as well as the Tatra teams often winning. Tatra abandoned the tube chassis for its rear-engined cars, but the Mercedes 130 and 170H (No ‘H’ on the 130 …the project number’s H was abandoned for production because there was no 130V to confuse) used the front-engined Tatra principle arse-about-face, and are also very strong, but D-B put the engine in a fork tail with rubber mounts, rather than bolting the power pack to the end of the tube. Škoda used a tube chassis, too, for its front-engined cars. I’ll have a look at your ‘real father’ piece …with fingers crossed, because everyone gets the chronology wrong. Just for starters, Porsche had prototyped a rear-flat-4-engined car before he left Daimler-Benz at the end of 1928, so it always grates with me when anyone suggests that my Tatra 97, ten years later, was some sort of ‘People’s Car’ Beetle inspiration (it was hand-made, had a quite big OHC engine and cost more than five times as much) …or, for that matter, that Ganz’s lightweights somehow justified the claim that the KdF was ‘his’ Beetle, despite their fabric or hand-beaten aluminium bodies and their little engines ahead of the rear axle-line. The little 2-cylinder Tatra V570, too, is routinely awarded un-earned significance compared with Porsche’s work, and I say that as founder and chairman of the world’s only English language single-marque Tatra club. I’ll have a read and get back to you! Best wishes, and stay safe in these strange times.
I meant, it’s a bit hard to see the full benefit (point) of the tube chassis without the swing axles. Did anyone ever do that? The tube chassis and swing axles were obviously made for each other.
I think (hope) you’ll be ok with my article. I debunked every one of those issues you brought up.
A good read, Paul, and uncommonly free of the standard nonsense. A nice compendium of the early ‘thirties zeitgeist, which I believe is a more sensible interpretation than picking champions, as might a football supporter. I suppose I step back a little further than you because I wouldn’t, personally, even start with the concept of alternative ‘fathers’ for the Beetle. Porsche had already prototyped a rear flat-4-engined design by the time he parted company with Daimler-Benz at the end of 1928, and the relentless inclusion of Hans Ledwinka as a potential Beetle inspiration is ridiculous, the more so because, unlike Porsche’s, his associates are seldom even mentioned. The company, in any case, didn’t start selling (nearly) all-steel streamliners until 1937. Erich Ubelacker was probably at least as key to Tatra’s fascinating cars, but trying to research his career is Mission Impossible until his move to Borgward. Ledwinka’s always referred to as a genius, I’m not sure why. He was certainly an accomplished chief engineer, but not the Messiah, and his responsibility encompassed all of the firms output, including railway stock and trucks, while his elves worked on the cars. Anyway, thanks for the steer. Enjoyed the read …particularly the Rumpler chapter.