Porsche Type 12
Porsche Type 12 | ||
---|---|---|
Kerb weight | 900 kg (1,984 lb) | |
Chronology | ||
Successor | Porsche Type 32 |
The Porsche Type 12 was a German project to develop an "Everyman's
Comparison with contemporary car concepts
It was an early example of the aerodynamic / rounded designs that came somewhat in vogue in the 1930s, developed concurrently with Mercedes-Benz's 120H, and ahead of Tatra's second V570 prototype, and DKW's F2-based, one-off rear-engined streamline prototype — both in 1933.[3] In production cars the style was typified by the 1934 Chrysler and DeSoto Airflow, Toyota's AA copy of these (1936), and the eventual "People's car", the 1938 KdF-Wagen aka the Volkswagen Type 1 or Beetle.
Contemporaneous prototypes with a more extreme focus on aerodynamics were the 1933 Dymaxion car and Karl Schlör's Schlörwagen, developed from 1936 to 1939.[4]
Description
The vehicle has a single, U-profile, central beam frame as opposed to the VW Beetle's central tube platform chassis.[1] The car's body (made by Reutter) has – for its time period – a reasonably aerodynamic shape with covered rear wheel arches.[5] Both the front, and the rear axles are leaf sprung and feature a single, transverse leaf spring each. Porsche used a worm-gear steering box and four hydraulic drum brakes on the Type 12. The car already has the VW Beetle-typical drivetrain design with a combined rear gearbox differential unit with the engine directly flanged to its rear end, which means that, the rear axle is a swing axle, located in between the gearbox, and the engine. This was technically feasible because the engine was rather short in length.[1] Unlike the VW Beetle, the Porsche Type 12 has a wet single disc clutch.[5]
The engine is a five-cylinder
Notes
- ^ ISBN 978-3-87943-519-7
- ^ a b c Christopher, John. The Race for Hitler's X-Planes. The Mill, Gloucestershire: History Press, 2013, p.200.
- ^ DKW Auto-Union Project: DKW's 1933 Rear Engine Streamliner
- ^ Christopher, John. The Race for Hitler's X-Planes (The Mill, Gloucestershire: History Press, 2013), p.200.
- ^ ISBN 978-3-87943-519-7