Ackermann vehicle construction

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Ackermann Fahrzeugbau
Oschersleben GmbH

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 1850
Seat Oschersleben , GermanyGermanyGermany 
management Gregor Scheipers (Managing Director)
sales € 16.5 million (2016)
Branch Commercial vehicle construction
Website ackermann-trailers.com

Ackermann Fahrzeugbau is a manufacturer of semi-trailers, trailers and bodies and was founded in 1850 by CW Ackermann in the Wuppertal district of Vohwinkel as a workshop for agricultural equipment.

Early years

In the early years only agricultural implements were produced. The young company Ackermann soon specialized in the construction of horse-drawn vehicles for the transport of goods. A platform wagon with a load capacity of 100 tons was built as early as 1894. In the era of motorization, Ackermann expanded its range to include trucks in the mid-twenties and offered trailers and truck bodies, among other things. The moving van, newly developed by Ackermann at the time, was designed in such a way that it could be transported on a freight wagon of the Deutsche Reichsbahn . The rounded edges on the roof of this moving van became Ackermann's trademark. The furniture vans and omnibuses developed by Ackermann were built in a very elaborate manner using a wooden stave concept, which meant that other bodies and trailers for trucks were also suitable for transporting various goods.

developments

Ackermann vehicle construction special exhibition in May 1950
Magirus-Deutz furniture transporter with Ackermann superstructure

Before the Second World War , Ackermann was already experimenting with the much lighter and technologically revolutionary aluminum cell construction. 1948 developed Carl Wilhelm Kölker and Bernd Thiele the first trailer in aluminum cell design, the centenary anniversary 1950 to this design, the patent with the number: issued 804,159th The first vehicles in aluminum cell construction were the Pullman furniture cars from Ackermann, which were mounted on trucks from various manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz , MAN or Magirus-Deutz . Ackermann built a chassis with a furniture box body and mounted it on the delivered truck frame. These superstructures were also provided with the winged logo on the upper side edge of the case.

For the production of the so-called thermos wagons, Ackermann experimented with some refrigerated transport companies as early as the 1960s; this later became today's refrigerated trucks for the commercial vehicle sector.

Ackermann also built semi-trailers for container transport for the German Federal Railroad . Ackermann developed a special semi-trailer for the road delivery vehicles to transport the pa containers or medium containers. This trailer, an Ackermann B 900, could transport a container, was fully hydraulic and had a height-adjustable swivel frame. See also: Railway container wagons for pa containers

In 1965, Ackermann introduced the AWL system (Ackermann changeable loader), whereby the truck driver could pick up and set down a swap body from the truck without outside help . This changing system has been further developed by various manufacturers.

In 1979, the first series-produced "large-capacity truck" was developed at the Wuppertal site. Ackermann got the idea for this in 1977 at the IAA during an X90 pilot project from MAN, where the truck exhibited there could be seen with an additional sleeping compartment. Ackermann developed a sleeping cabin that was built on a truck cab; this Ackermann creation received a lot of attention in specialist circles as a so-called “topsleeper”. From the truck drivers this sleeping was always rejected because the driver had to climb through a small hole to get into the cab patch plastic to get -Schlafkabine. In addition, the roof top cabin was poorly ventilated. For these reasons, the truck jumbo train was also delivered without a “topsleeper”. The sleeping cabin on the driver's cab gained around 600 mm of loading space, and the very short drawbar made it a total of 1,500 mm.

In 1986 Ackermann presented the type EZ 70 with a central axle trailer for the first time . This was coupled to a small fifth wheel attached deep under the towing vehicle body and thus the distance between the towing vehicle and the trailer was reduced to 750 mm in a straightforward, straightforward manner.

With the Talbot wagon factory , a system was developed with which the semi-trailer could be driven on rails as a kind of freight wagon in train compositions with the help of the railway chassis pushed under the front and rear . Modern deep-freeze trailers were also further developed, which should revolutionize the market.

history

Ackermann acquired a new production site in Wolfhagen near Kassel in 1966 . There, composite plastic elements for the box bodies such as those used for food and refrigerated transports were produced. From around 1970 the insulated box bodies were added to the program, for which the required composite plastic elements were also pre-produced in Wolfhagen and assembled in Wuppertal. This production technique made Ackermann one of the leading manufacturers of closed box bodies in Germany in the years that followed.

Ackermann-Fruehauf GmbH was founded in 1972 , which consisted of five plants with locations in Wuppertal- Vohwinkel , Treis an der Mosel , Wolfhagen , Schierling (Upper Palatinate) and Hamburg and was managed by Karl-Martin Bensch until 1992. One of the goals of Ackermann-Fruehauf GmbH was to increase the truck loading volume while maintaining the same length of the truck trailer. In 1987 production and administration were relocated from Wuppertal to Kerpen- Sindorf near Cologne. In 1987 the Fruehauf Corporation spun off its European plants, which were incorporated into the new European "Ackermann-Fruehauf Group" in Paris at the beginning of 1988. This European company for the construction of semi-trailers produced in France, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Germany. The Ackermann-Fruehauf Group had a market share of 25%. In 1991 the Karosserie- und Fahrzeugbau GmbH in Oschersleben was bought. In 1992 the competing systems Kombitrailer and Semirail were merged to form the uniform European system "Kombirail".

Bankruptcy and a fresh start

After the boom caused by German reunification , the order situation steadily declined; in April 1996 a settlement request was made. This could be converted into insolvency proceedings , which led to the end of the Ackermann-Fruehauf group. In 1996 Gesco AG joined “Ackermann Fahrzeugbau GmbH” in Wolfhagen and produced kits for closed bodies. The range extends from plywood cases and aluminum cases (e.g. for transporting furniture or clothing) to insulated bodies for temperature-controlled transport. The plant in Wolfhagen was taken over by Schneider-AluTeam from Bielefeld in 2012 . "Ackermann Fahrzeugbau Oschersleben GmbH" was also founded, which produces bodies, trailers and semitrailers for VW commercial vehicles.

See also

Web links

Commons : Ackermann-Fahrzeugbau  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

supporting documents

  1. Schneider-AluTeam takes over Ackermann. In: verkehrsrundschau.de. May 4, 2012, accessed August 9, 2020 .
  2. Not to be confused with Ackermann GmbH Aufbauten & Fahrzeugvertrieb in 87700 Memmingen
  • Deutsche Bundesbahn (Ed.): Freight wagons, large containers, road scooters . Advertising and information office for passenger and goods traffic, Frankfurt (Main) 1965.