Rare Rides: NSU's New Way to Wankel - the Spider From 1965 (Part III)
Part II of the NSU story gave some color to the company’s first bout of financial trouble, and how it passed on a Ferdinand Porsche design that would go on to become the Volkswagen Beetle a few years later.
As we left off last time, NSU and Fiat were locked in a longstanding disagreement about who could brand which cars in which way.
After their extended argument, lawyers on either side decided the only way to settle things was in a courtroom. NSU leaned on its history of automobile and motorcycle production, while Fiat’s piece of supporting evidence was an informal letter from 1929 between the two companies. The subject of the letter: a vague agreement to the NSU-Fiat branding. After both sides pitched their argument, the judge ruled that such an informal letter was not legally binding between two companies, and that NSU-Fiat branding could do damage to NSU were it to continue.
The German company had won the case, and Fiat was forced to rebrand. As of 1957 all NSU-Fiat cars were badged as Neckar (the plant was in Neckarsulm), a name which would last until 1971. At that time, Fiat ended its German production effort.
Shortly before winning their own name back, NSU returned to the passenger car market with the 1954 Prinz. Putting two motorcycle engines together, the compact’s two-cylinder, air-cooled engine produced 20 horsepower.
This brings us to our Rare Ride, the very Germanic-sounding Wankelspider, or Spider to Americans. The Spider was introduced at the Frankfort Motor Show in 1964, the same year it went into production. The body hid a Sport Prinz coupe from 1959, and the roadster’s design was penned by none other than Bertone.
Increasing focus on automobile offerings and Wankel engines meant a decline in NSU’s development of motorcycles. As new designs ceased to exist, NSU produced its last motorcycle in 1968 — a Quick 50. It’s just as well the company only had one product type to develop, as its troubles were about to come to a boil.
The next and final installment in our Rare Rides NSU series will review the Spider, and how it and its Prinz stablemates brought the company to its knees.
[Images: seller]
Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.
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AMC should be on that list too
The great, seldom-told tale of NSU is how well they drove and performed. Few os are left who've driven an NSU, even the fairly common 1000 TT sedan. Hundreds of those were sold here, maybe even three. What luck that I should own two, for a combined nine years. It wasn't because they were glamorous, luxurious or easy to repair. But it was just such a fine driver's car! On the highway, it was as stable as, say, an Audi 4000 Quattro, but with frisky agility whenever you hit the twisty bits. Every car since has been more powerful, heavier, quieter and safer, but I miss my little bathtub buzz-bomb like no other car.