Ludwig Maurer (entrepreneur)

Ludwig Maurer (born May 14, 1873 in Sigmanns near Wangen im Allgäu , † May 23, 1936 in Nuremberg ) was a German entrepreneur and inventor.

Life and work

Ludwig Maurer was the son of a shepherd and landlord. Even as a schoolboy he was fascinated by factories and mechanical workshops. He learned the mechanic's trade at various bicycle, sewing machine and mechanical engineering workshops and attended evening seminars at the technical center in Winterthur . Maurer's first vehicle designed and built by himself was a motorized high wheel.

From 1895 to 1898, Maurer was a foreman at the Munich motorcycle factory Hildebrand and Wolfmüller . He then moved to Nuremberg and worked as a foreman and design engineer at the Beißbarth company. In the same year, 1898, he designed his first car there. The carriage-like car was equipped with a new type of friction drive, a stepless power transmission from the engine to the rear axle. This face plate friction gear is seen as the forerunner of today's automatic transmissions. With this invention, Maurer founded the first car factory in Nuremberg in August 1899, which was named Nürnberger Motorfahrzeugfabrik Union, System Maurer GmbH in 1900 after merging with Siebe, Kotschenreuther & Co. Maurer developed, among other things, a two-seater "doctor's car" ( Type IIb ) specially designed for doctors , which with a leather half-top cost 4,300 Reichsmarks .

Maurer's wagons were considered to be particularly fast. Maurer won the first race from Nuremberg to Würzburg and back with one of his cars. In 1902 the factory moved to Regensburger Str. 40–46. At peak times, around 60 vehicles left the factory every month. In addition, there was a production of buses and car cabs . In 1903 Maurer also founded the Erste Bayerische Motor-Omnibuslinien-Gesellschaft mbH. From 1907, trucks with a load capacity of up to 1.5 tons were also built. Maurer was also one of the first truck manufacturers in Germany. Maurer equipped these vehicles with their own engines. The range of engines included single-cylinder with 4–12, two-cylinder with 10–12 HP and four-cylinder machines with 16 HP. In 1905 half of the 160 cabs in Berlin came from Maurer.

The further development was marked by disputes between Ludwig Maurer and imitators of the friction gear, for example with the Berlin company Otto Weiß & Co. At a company meeting on January 20, 1908, Ludwig Maurer was relieved of his post as managing director. However, the new management had to liquidate the company in March 1911.

From 1908, Maurer ran a repair shop under the name of his wife. There he developed u. a. a propeller-driven snowmobile for Russia. In the 1920s he got into motorcycle production. In 1924 he developed a small car with an aluminum body . In 1931 Maurer patented a transportable reinforced concrete car garage. After Maurer's death in 1936, his sons Paul, Leonhard, Eduard, Hans and Christian continued to run a repair shop under the name Ludwig Maurer, Kraftfahrzeuge OHG . In 1971 he was liquidated.

literature

• Wolfgang H. Gebhardt, German Omnibuses since 1895 , Motorbuch Verlag, 1996
• Ernst Neuberg, Yearbook of the Automobile and Motorboat Industry , Boll & Pickardt, 1909
• Autotechnikus, buying a car: Advice before buying and an overview of the types of automobiles built and traded in Germany, including prices , RC Schmidt, 1907

Web links

• German Historical Museum
• Maurer Union in the dream car archive
• Information from the GTÜ
• nuernberginfos

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.nuernberginfos.de/traditionsfirmen-aus-nuernberg/maurer-union.html
2. ↑ http://www.nuernberginfos.de/nuernberg-mix/erste-bay-omnibuslinie.html
3. ↑ http://www.nn-online.de/artikel.asp?art=974327&kat=5  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  

See also

• Nuremberg motorcycle industry