POST-WAR MILITARY PORSCHES
Karl Ludvigsen unearths the story behind some less common Porsches
Chugging around Porsche’s Werk I in the Stuttgart suburb of Zuffenhausen were angular olive-drab vehicles that looked foreign and familiar at the same time. This was 1955, and these were not the Porsche sports cars the world had come to know. They looked strikingly like the Type 82 or Kübelwagen of World War II. Porsche was bidding for a way back into the military vehicle business.
Porsche warmed up for this assignment as a result of some initiatives from the New World. When America’s Marines wanted a new-fangled Jeep that they could deploy from a helicopter, Kansas City’s Mid-american Research Corporation entered the lists. Needing lightness in every part of its design, the company contacted Porsche to discuss use of its sportscar engine. This led to Ferry Porsche’s first flight of any kind in the autumn of 1951 aboard Pan Am’s Boeing 377, best known as the Stratocruiser, for meetings in New York with both his car importer Max Hoffman and Mid-american Research.
Porsche supplied engines for Mid-american’s first prototypes, which were revealed in the spring of 1953. Although officially the MARCO MM-100, the 1500lb Jeeplet became known as the ‘Mighty Mite’. Only 104 inches long against the Jeep’s 140, it placed the Porsche four in the front of its aluminium structure, which featured allindependent suspension.
Cited as a peculiar drawback of the MM-100’S design was that the ducting of its exhaust fumes through the frame to save weight led to premature structural failure as a result of acidic fumes and condensation. Nor was there enthusiasm for a German-made engine so soon after the war. Most significant was that the newly formed American Motors came to the party with a V4 air-cooled engine and ample production capacity. The nod went to AMC with its M422, inheritor of the ‘Mighty Mite’ sobriquet. Just under 4000 were made through 1962.
In parallel with the Mid-american project Porsche worked with Fletcher Aviation of Pasadena, California, on an amphibious Jeep for the American Army. Porsche first met company chief Wendell Fletcher in 1953 when he was sponsoring Porsche’s
racing campaign in Mexico’s La Carrera Panamericana.
The basis of the Fletcher relationship with Porsche was their mutual work on an aquatic Jeep. The American company’s design made use of Porsche’s rear-mounted engine and transaxle in concert with four-wheel drive and a two-speed transfer case. Torsion-bar suspension was of Porsche origin.
Fletcher’s use of the reduction-gear hubs originally designed by Porsche for the Kübelwagen gave its ‘Flair 115’ ample ground clearance. A boxy monocoque structure of aluminium provided both cockpit space, with a cab-forward driving position, and capacity to carry 800lb of cargo. Oval apertures in the hatch over the engine vented exhaust gas in concert with a jet-cooling system that Fletcher and Porsche were developing. It was even mooted that the cooling jets would propel the Flair on water, but this flopped. Instead the rotation of all four wheels was enough to achieve a waterborne speed of 2.2mph. Success for the Flair would be a boon for Porsche, whose designs would be produced in the USA by Fletcher under licence agreements that would yield lucrative royalties. The Flair compared well against competition from Willys and AMC’S Muskrat, reaching land speed of 68mph. ‘The Army liked everything about it,’ said historian Fred W. Crismon. However, he added, ‘Although successfully tested, none were purchased.’ Neither were any of its rivals added to America’s inventory.
This activity was beneficial to Porsche when the rebuilding German Army, the Bundeswehr, came knocking with its requirement for a light vehicle to transport its military police.
Porsche’s competition for the assignment came from Goliath, part of the Borgward group, and Auto Union’s DKW. Another obvious potential contractor would be Volkswagen, but that company had declined to participate. For company chief Heinz Nordhoff the overarching priority was to pursue the growing international demand for his profitable Beetles.
To be sure, as journalist Werner Oswald wrote, ‘It’s difficult for the German citizen to reconcile himself to the thought of the remilitarisation of his country.’ Porsche’s new quarter-ton Jeeptype vehicles were more pussycat than Panzer, but the flickering shadows that the latter cast were still alarming to many. Their creation responded to a 1953 request from Theodor Blank of the
“THE FLAIR COMPARED WELL AGAINST COMPETITION…”
Bundeswehr Office for Defence Technology and Procurement for a ‘NATO Class ¼-ton’ four-by-four to meet the needs of Germany’s military police.
In charge of Porsche’s work on this vehicle, its Type 597, was Franz Xaver Reimspiess. A veteran of negotiations between Porsche and the German military authorities, he had been chief designer at the tank-building Nibelung Works during the war. Reimspiess, who was also a talented amateur artist and photographer, officially launched work on the Type 597 on 19 December 1953.
Porsche took on the challenge without the government backing that its rivals were receiving. ‘To win the competition,’ Ferry Porsche told Günther Molter, ‘we naturally counted on the great experience that we had gathered during the last war with the Kübelwagen and Schwimmwagen. Thus we built a prototype without a contract and at our own cost.’
Ferry and his colleagues hoped that the 597 could lead to inhouse production that would supplement the still-uncertain demand for sports cars. Known also as the Jagdwagen or Hunter, the four-wheel-drive model was first revealed in the press in December of 1954 and exposed to the general public on Amag’s stand at the Geneva Salon in March 1955.
The 597’s underpinnings included the VW Kombi’s reductiongear hubs, as first used on the wartime Kübelwagen. Special front spindles not only increased ground clearance to 10 inches but also contained live hubs to transmit drive to the wheels. The customary twin transverse torsion-bar housings were present, with the lower tube carrying the front of the differential through two rubber bushings. The wide-spread rubber-isolated mounting of the whole assembly was a patented creation of Ferry Porsche and his chief designer Wolfgang Eyb.
An extra-low starting gear for the fully synchronised transaxle was not unlike the one used in the works Type 550 Spyders in 1955. Its housing was a new ‘tunnel’ design, no longer split down the middle. A shaft went forward to a disengageable differential that drove the front wheels, giving the choice of fourwheel drive which the standard Kübelwagen had lacked. Ratios ranged from a crawling speed of less than 3mph to a top speed of about 60mph.
Power came from a detuned single-carburettor Porsche engine, initially of 1488 cc. With the modest compression ratio of 7.0:1 to cope with battlefield fuels it produced 50bhp at 4000rpm and delivered 74lb ft of torque at 2300rpm. In the autumn of 1955 engine size was enlarged to 1582 cc. This had the same power output at the higher speed of 4300rpm on a 6.5:1 compression ratio and torque raised to 77lb ft at 2400rpm. Though its power was moderate, with its low gearing the Type 597 was able to climb grades as steep as 60 per cent – a rise of six feet for every ten feet forward. The Hunter carried its 2180lb dry on knobbly 6x16 tires.
The familiar Vw/porsche torsion-bar suspension was kept. Initially this was spaced to give a wheelbase of only 74.8 inches and track of 53.5 inches. With entries from the two rivals somewhat larger, in its final version the Type 597 had a 81.2
inch wheelbase and front/rear track of 52.8/54.6 inches. Thanks to its rear-mounted engine the spare wheel could be slotted into a notch in its nose.
Built as prototypes by Reutter and in 1957 as a 50-vehicle series by Karmann, which carried out the final engineering for manufacture, the 597’s monocoque body-frame initially dispensed with the doors of the Kübelwagen. Instead it had high side sills and boxed sections that gave buoyancy; it floated with confidence. Although the first short-wheelbase version was flatsided, the next design was deeply ridged along its decks and flanks to add stiffness as well as a look of ruggedness. A final prototype gave up the floating ability in favour of lower sills and the fitting of four doors.
The competition shared certain important features. Both were derived from front-wheel-driven models, so had engines ahead of their front wheels to which their rear live axles were engaged only when required. They had steel perimeter frames to which bodywork was added. They had two-stroke engines, the DKW’S a carburetted triple of one litre developing 50bhp and the Goliath’s a fuel-injected twin of 886cc producing 38bhp, brought forward from the unit that would power its 1956 GP900 E passenger car. Although Goliath later submitted cars with its flatfour engine developing 50bhp, this was too late to affect the Bundeswehr’s decision.
Seeking a contract not only to design military vehicles but also to build them in its own facilities was a new role for Porsche. We lack insights into the arguments that Porsche deployed to persuade Bonn that its pipsqueak of a company could produce these vehicles by the tens of thousands. Certainly Karmann of Osnabrück would have continued to figure in the body’s construction and indeed, as with some 356s, in the final assembly as well.
In a 1955 brochure Porsche offered the Hunter to the public as ‘a light cross-country car,’ pointing out that ‘it will carry four passengers over hill and dale to hunting lodges or fishing spots’ and noting that it was fully floatable, though of course not powered in the water the way the VW Schwimmwagen had been. Proclaimed the brochure, ‘Everywhere both military and civilian men have eagerly awaited the announcement that the Hunter is ready!’
At Zuffenhausen Porsche converted the 50 shells built by Karmann into test vehicles for the Army. ‘Off-road it was almost impossible to outperform the Porsche Type 597,’ wrote Peter Blume. ‘Thanks to its all-wheel drive the vehicle even navigated slopes of 65 degrees without problems. With its tub-like body and high sides the vehicle could swim although it could not move through water on its own.’ A drawback was that the noise of its air-cooled engine made use of the radio impossible when it was running.
‘Well aware of the superior performance of its Type 597 during testing by the Bundeswehr, Porsche had every confidence that its entry would be the winner. But after the first meeting of the committee that would decide the winner Ferry heard the following story from a member who arrived late and so was alone with the three contenders in the courtyard:
‘Now, which vehicle is the best?’ the latecomer asked the Sergeant in charge of the prototypes.
‘That one there, the Porsche,’ came the reply. ‘During the
trials we were always ordered to use the Porsche whenever one of the competitors was stuck in the mud and had to be pulled out. That meant that it was more heavily stressed than the others. Also, whenever we were back at base we were ordered to leave the Porsche’s engine running so that its fuel consumption would be high, because they wanted that one,’ pointing to the DKW.
At a final review of the rivals all the supplicants were present. To Ferry Porsche’s astonishment he was told that his entry had fine attributes, to be sure, but was not production-ready. A shock-absorber mount had broken and a silencer was damaged, he learned.
‘Gentlemen,’ Porsche responded, ‘I don’t understand how such minor failures can lead you to such a conclusion, because I’m aware that engines, transmissions and axles of our competitors have been changed a number of times because they weren’t working!’ Their response was a change of subject.
Later Ferry drew the conclusion that politics guided the decision to award the Bundeswehr contract to DKW’S Munga in spite of its smoky and noisy two-stroke engine. One of the company’s main shareholders appealed on its behalf to Bonn, saying that the factory in Ingolstadt desperately needed the contract, without which it would have to make substantial cuts in its workforce. Such arguments are often compelling to politicians. More convincing to the Army’s procurement officers, however, must have been the DKW Munga’s proffered price of DM8600 per copy against Porsche’s quote of some DM16,000.
From start-up in October 1956 to its final production of December 1968 DKW produced 46,750 Mungas. That was an average of 3900 per year, with which Porsche could easily have coped, indeed with extra volume available for the civilian market. However no military contract meant that there was no civilian production either for the go-anywhere Type 597 Hunter. Porsche’s hopes of having a second string to its production bow at Zuffenhausen were dashed.
The Porsche magic that had won so many assignments from the Third Reich failed to conjure a contract success in peacetime. Of the first version and a post-1957 revised model, Porsche made 71 Hunters in all through 1958, 19 of which were pre-production prototypes. A few with the refinement of doors, 49 were sold into the civilian market. Some final work continued to the autumn of 1959, when a longer wheelbase and alternate body styles were considered, but without issue.
Nor was Ferry’s finance chief Hans Kern fully successful when he went to Bonn to gain compensation for the prototypes that they had delivered. ‘We asked for DM1.8 million,’ said Ferry, ‘the effective cost, whereupon my man heard, “We’re offering you 1.2 million. If you don’t accept that, you’ll get nothing at all!”
‘From this time on,’ Ferry Porsche continued, ‘I decided not to lift a pencil in this sector until presented with a firm contract. I kept to this subsequently.’ Where a firm contract did materialise, as for work on a new tank for the Bundeswehr, young Porsche turned his team loose. They had been recommended for the
tank-design project by Daimler-benz, which in 1951 had cooperated with Zuffenhausen on the creation of a 32-ton tank design for India’s Tata Engineering.
After the initial Bundeswehr requirements were released in November of 1956 the Porsche men began their preliminary designs on 15 January 1957 as their Type 714. They were one of three rival teams. Porsche was part of Team A, Rheinmetall leading Team B and Borgward constituting Team C. Except for the last, which quickly fell out, each of the teams was to build two prototypes of its design.
After several phases of prototype build, during which the French withdrew as possible customers, Porsche’s design was chosen to be manufactured by Munich’s Krauss-maffei. Dubbed the ‘Leopard’, it had in common with Porsche’s 1939–40 design of the same name a V10 powerplant, this one made by MTU. A multi-fuel engine, it produced 830bhp and drove through a conventional transmission. Lightly armoured for agility and capable of 40mph, the Leopard was respected for its deadly British-built 105mm cannon.
First deliveries of Leopards began in late 1965. Other NATO members and allies soon joined the queue, operators eventually including Belgium, Brazil, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Australia, Canada, Turkey and Greece. Italy bought some and negotiated home production of more. An upgraded version was the Leopard 1A1 with skirting protecting its treads and suspension. Through 1979 6485 in all were produced, 4744 being battle tanks and the rest of lesser configurations.
At the other end of the armour scale, in the ‘Tankette’ category, was the ‘Wiesel’ or ‘Weasel’ developed by Porsche and produced by Rheinmetall. With the aim of creating a light armoured vehicle capable of supporting airborne troops, in the mid-1970s the Bundeswehr asked Porsche to apply its skills to designing a mini-tank that could combat either infantry or other vehicles. Its small size would make it hard to detect and target.
Although lack of funds led to the Bundeswehr’s cancellation of the project in 1978, Porsche had enough encouragement from other countries to justify carrying on. Porsche’s engineers envisioned a tracked vehicle with power from a four-cylinder Audi petrol engine driving through a hydraulic torque converter to a five-speed transmission based on the one in its 928 sports car. Hydraulic braking provided steering while power was delivered through its front sprockets. The tracks rode on four wheels suspended by arms operating torsion bars.
In 1985 the Bundeswehr came back to the party, placing an order for 343 Weasels. Delivered later in that decade, they found many applications including an important role in 1993 in support of the UN’S intervention in the Somali civil war. Weasels were easily deployed by helicopters. Hopes that they might be air-dropped by parachute were dashed by four unsuccessful trials. An order for 178 units led to production of an improved and larger Weasel 2 with five-wheel track support, more power from a diesel engine, a ZF automatic transmission and—much appreciated by the crew—air conditioning.
Porsche designed and built its Leopard and Weasel prototypes at the remote southern end of its engineering centre and proving ground at Weissach, south-west of Stuttgart. When in 1981 it stood down its military activity the vast sheds and offices were taken over by its motor-sports department to build racing cars. As an example of swords into ploughshares it could hardly be bettered. CP