Mars works

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Mars-Werke A.-G.

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 1873
resolution 1958
Reason for dissolution bankruptcy
Seat Nuremberg , Germany
management Paul Reissmann
Branch Bicycle manufacturer , automobile manufacturer

The Mars works were a company of vehicle production in Nuremberg .

Company history

Mars A 20 ("White Mars")
Share over RM 100 in Mars-Werke AG from May 23, 1936
Mars automobile from 1903
Mars motorcycle with 174 cc engine from Fichtel & Sachs
Mars-Monza with 49 cc JLO engine

In 1873 Paul Reissmann founded the Mars company on Siegmundstrasse in Nuremberg-Doos to manufacture cast-iron, so-called American ovens . This was followed by the production of hand, belt and motor sirens, grinding machines and bicycles. In 1903 the construction of motorcycles began and in the same year the production of a few automobiles that were powered by 1000 cc De Dion Bouton engines with one cylinder. However, automobile manufacture ended in 1909. The motorcycles had Swiss Motosacoche and Zedel engines .

The most famous construction was the legendary White Mars , designed by Ing.Claus Richard Franzenburg in 1920 , which, contrary to the name, was also available in red or green. The two-cylinder boxer engine , also designed by Franzenburg, was manufactured by Maybach in Friedrichshafen exclusively for Mars. The air-cooled, side-controlled engine was started with a hand crank, had a displacement of 956 cm³ and was installed transversely in the box frame , which was welded and riveted from sheet steel , so that the cylinders were one behind the other in the direction of travel. The gearbox was placed above the rear cylinder , the magneto above the front cylinder.

The company also built competitive machines of this type, which achieved great sporting success. The works racing drivers Ernst Schulz and Heinz Wilhelm achieved places 1 and 2 in the Bavarian championship in 1921.

The plant ran into economic difficulties during the inflation of 1923/1924 . The brothers Johann and Karl Müller, who worked as operations managers and designers at Mars, took over the plant, but not the brand name. After this change of ownership, the machines were sold under the name "MA".

From the end of the 1920s until the Second World War , Mars manufactured motorcycles with built-in engines from Motosacoche , Villiers , Sachs , JAP and Sturmey-Archer . There were two-stroke as well as four- stroke machines of different displacements .

After 1945 Ing. Rudi Albert, who had previously worked as chief designer at Allright in Cologne and Phenomenon in Zittau , designed the Stella with 147, 174 and 198 cm³ Sachs engines and the last light motorcycle from Mars, the Monza with one 49 cc engine. In 1958 Mars - like many German two-wheeler manufacturers at that time - was forced to file for bankruptcy. The Gritzner -Kayser AG in Karlsruhe- Durlach briefly continued the construction of the Monza and also took over the production facilities of another moped, the Milano . Gritzner kept moped production up until the 1960s.

Licenses

Slatiňanská továrna automobilů RA Smekal from Slatiňany , then Austria-Hungary , manufactured vehicles under a license from Mars.

literature

Postage stamp 1983
  • Peter Ullein: From the “American furnace factory Paul Reissmann” to “Marswerke AG”. The first fifteen years from 1894 to 1908 (=  Nuremberg bicycle history (s) ). Self-published, Nuremberg 2019.
  • Erwin Tragatsch : All motorcycles from 1894 to today. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-87943-410-7 .
  • Tilman Werner: From Ardie to Zündapp. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-613-01287-1 .
  • Matthias Murko: motorcycle legends. W. Tümmels, Nuremberg 1994, ISBN 3-921590-27-2 .
  • Thomas Reinwald: Motorcycles from Nuremberg. ZWEIRAD-Verlag, Erlangen 1994, ISBN 3-929136-03-1 .
  • Thomas Reinwald: Nuremberg motorcycle industry. Podszun, Brilon 2002, ISBN 3-86133-299-X .
  • Halwart Schrader : German Cars 1885–1920. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart, ISBN 3-613-02211-7 .
  • GN Georgano : cars. Encyclopédie complète. 1885 à nos jours. Courtille, 1975 (French)

See also

Web links

Commons : Mars  - collection of images, videos and audio files