Kurt Kuhnke

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Kurt Kuhnke in 1961 on the Halle-Saale loop

Kurt Kuhnke (born April 30, 1910 in Stettin ; † February 8, 1969 in Braunschweig ) was a German racing driver , designer and entrepreneur.

life and career

Kurt Kuhnke was born in Stettin in 1910 as the son of a signalman and soon moved to Braunschweig with his parents . He attended elementary school, then did a commercial apprenticeship and, as an autodidact, developed considerable skills in technical matters. His motorsport career began in 1930 with grass track races on Ardie and Velocette motorcycles .

1930s and war years

After the seizure of power of Hitler and the Nazis in 1933 came Kuhnke with the law in conflict and was imprisoned for some time. He then ran a small haulage company and took on "special racing work". His customers included Jewish fellow citizens, whose belongings he transported when they were forced to emigrate. He hid a Jewish merchant who was threatened with deportation to a camp in his workshop before he could take him to the French border to flee from France to Palestine .

The haulage business was going well that Kuhnke was able to buy a used DKW racing motorcycle in 1938 , with which he took part in almost all German races in 1939, albeit with little success. In 1941/42 he served as a soldier in a motor vehicle unit in Braunschweig and had the opportunity to convert the engine of his DKW to supercharging . This machine survived the war in a village near Braunschweig.

post war period

Motorcycle racing

Kuhnke started his DKW as early as 1946. The self-developed compressor motor was prone to failure, and Kuhnke often fell out of the top group. Only in 1948 did he win the races in Cologne and on the Grenzlandring and in 1949 in Berlin. In 1949, using drawings and parts from the DKW factory in Zschopau, he built an opposed piston engine into his machine. How he could get both remained unknown. However, in 1950 he was only able to win the race on the Dessau race track before supercharged engines were no longer permitted in racing motorcycles.

Racing sports car VLK

At the beginning of 1947, with the support of VW engineer Walter Hampel, Kuhnke had a sports coupé with a streamlined body built by the Wolfsburg-based company Petersen & Sattler in Heinrich Schwen & Sohn's workshop. The engine, transmission, wheel suspensions, etc. came from VW Type 1 ( VW Beetle ); the wheelbase was shortened from 2.40 meters to 2.20 meters. Kuhnke called the car VLK (fully streamlined lightweight construction). The first race of the VLK on August 24, 1947 on the Autobahn in Braunschweig ended with a victory. In 1949 Kuhne converted the car into a roadster and sold it to the Bad Harzburg racing driver Richard Trenkel .

It may be presumptuous that in 1951 Kuhne and Hampel accused Porsche that the Porsche 356 was a plagiarism of their VLK and that they were probably expecting compensation. This was preceded by the finding that the VLK was similar to the Berlin-Rome car that the Porsche design office had developed in 1939 under the direction of Erwin Komenda on behalf of the Volkswagen factory.

1950s with Formula 3 and Formula Junior

In 1952 Kurt Kuhnke bought a new Formula 3 racing car , a Cooper with a 500 cc engine in accordance with the regulations at the time. He drove around 80 races in this car, many of which he won and which earned him considerable entry and prize money. Formula 3 was followed in 1959 by Formula Junior with engines up to 1100 cm³. Kuhnke did not have the money to buy a new car of this formula and installed a 1000 cc DKW engine in his Cooper, with an output of around 80 hp. The now 50-year-old drove a full season with this car in 1961 with good placements and a win on the Bautzen motorway ring .

Entry into Formula 1

At the age of 52, Kurt Kuhnke ventured into Formula 1 . With the support of a financier, he bought everything from the racing department of the Borgward works , which went bankrupt in 1961 and whose 1.5-liter engine from the Borgward RS Stirling Moss won the FIA Cup of Formula 2 in 1959 . Formula 1 has been running with 1.5-liter engines since 1961. Initially, Kuhnke took over a Lotus 18 with a Coventry Climax engine from the racing driver Wolfgang Seidel and a little later - financed by a partner - he bought a Lotus 20 without an engine as a second car.

The Borgward engine was to be installed in both cars, but this proved difficult despite the cooperation of a former Borgward employee and dragged on for some time. That is why Kuhnke wanted to take part in the 1963 German Grand Prix with the Lotus Climax, but could not qualify.

When both BLK (Borgward-Lotus-Kuhnke) were finished, the Borgward engine was no longer competitive, although a power of 172 hp at 8000 rpm was stated. In 1964, Kuhnke and his partner drove some Formula 1 races that were not part of the world championship, but there was no success.

Last years of life

After the failure in Formula 1, Kuhnke's active participation in motorsport ended, to which he remained connected until his death. He ran a small free petrol station with a used car trade in order to earn the necessary living. Four years after the death of his wife, who had hit him badly, he suffered a stroke in February 1969 and died at the age of almost 59.

literature

Web links

Commons : Kurt Kuhnke  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cecilie Hollberg (ed.): Braunschweiger Prinzenpark-race. Exhibition catalog and calendar 2012. p. 201.
  2. ↑ Speedweek. Kurt Kuhnke's profile . Retrieved June 16, 2020.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Whether or to what extent Kuhnke's political views as a supporter of the SPD played a role in the imprisonment is not clear from the source.
personal data
SURNAME Kuhnke, Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German motorcycle and automobile racer
DATE OF BIRTH April 30, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Szczecin
DATE OF DEATH February 8, 1969
Place of death Braunschweig