Martin Stolle

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Martin Stolle (born March 3, 1886 in Berlin ; † September 25, 1982 ) was a German automobile and motorcycle designer.

Life

Victoria with BMW engine

Martin Stolle initially worked for Cudell in Aachen, from 1917 at Rapp Motorenwerke , from which BMW later emerged. BMW delivered boxer engines of the type M 2 B 15 to various companies, including at Victoria for the Victoria KR I . Stolle was involved in these constructions. After deliveries were discontinued, Victoria secured the services of Martin Stolle. Martin Stolle then created an overhead, horizontal two-cylinder boxer engine with higher output for the successor models from Victoria.

Before that, Stolle founded an automobile factory in Munich, which eventually operated under the name Vorster & Stolle Motoren AG. From 1925, Stolle built the Stolle sports cars with four-cylinder engines there . They had a displacement of 1490 cm³ (69 mm bore and 100 mm stroke), an overhead camshaft driven by a bevel shaft and made 40 hp (29 kW) at 2800 rpm. In Munich, the Munich Automobile Club, founded in 1903, awarded him honorary membership.

Later Martin Stolle went to the German industrial works in Berlin-Spandau. Motorcycles were built there and sold under the brand name D-Rad , along with a few automobiles. One of the tasks for Stolle was to improve the handling of the motorcycles “jumping like a buck” ( Spandauer Springbock ), which were equipped with leaf spring forks , and to improve the company's reputation. Stolle achieved this through the deployment of works teams in various races and difficult reliability drives. For years, the team was considered the best German works team with their green driver's coats and helmets.

In 1929, Stolle designed the R-10 with an overhead engine, separate gearbox and parallelogram suspension, and the R-11 with a side-controlled engine. With the Great Depression in 1929, the motorcycle program had to be switched to cheaper two-stroke models with Bark engines, which then hit an oversaturated market in 1930. This led to the formation of a sales company with NSU and to the short-term disappearance of D-Rad from the market.

Martin Stolle then designed an air-cooled four-cylinder boxer engine for one half of the week (as the forerunner of the Beetle engine, and therefore existed before the Porsche construction) for the NAG automobile factory and the unfortunate KR 8 for Victoria in the other half of the week . This side-controlled two-cylinder engine with 497 cm³ displacement was built into a modern chassis with side panels. The design of the KR 8 was immature and was then replaced by the alternately controlled KR 9 , which received other improvements. The production of passenger cars at NAG was discontinued, so that this air-cooled four-cylinder engine was no longer built.

Martin Stolle's drawing board included a small Sursum motorcycle with a two-stroke engine and bicycles motorized for the Gustloff works in Suhl. Ideas for tanks and equipment were added during World War II. After the war, Martin Stolle became an expert on motor vehicles.

literature

  • Siegfried Rauch; Frank Rönicke: Men and motorcycles - a century of German motorcycle development. Stuttgart: Motorbuch-Verlag 2008, ISBN 978-3-613-02947-7 , pp. 212-221

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Honorary Members of the ACM. In: 50 Years Anniversary Chronicle of the Automobil-Club München eV Munich. 1903-1953. Book and art print shop Max Schmidt & Sons, Munich 1953.
personal data
SURNAME Stolle, Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German automobile and motorcycle designer
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH September 25, 1982