Puch Adria TS
The Puch Adria TS is a sports coupé on the technical basis of the Puch 700 C (station wagon, the wheelbase is slightly longer than that of the Puch 500). It was designed by the Viennese designer Werner Hölbl in the early 1960s. Only 18 pieces were built, mostly by hand in the father's car repair shop in Vienna's 13th district. The name "Adria TS" was intended to recall the southern lifestyle, which was one of the Hölbl family's favorite holiday destinations. Today we know of two existing vehicles, none of which are currently ready to drive.
history
From 1957, the Puch 500, a local four-seater small car, began popular motorization in Austria. Thanks to the simple and technically reliable construction of the car, it became a success story. So it was only a matter of time before resourceful hobbyists would use this vehicle as the basis for their own creation. There are several examples of this, such as the Puch Imp, the Jamos GT and others.
The Puch Adria TS was the first work of the young designer Werner Hölbl. His aim was to build his own sports coupé with a trend-setting design. It should have distinctive corners and edges instead of the usual curves at the time. The first drafts date from 1960/61 and already show a vehicle that largely corresponds to that of later production. After a few design variants, the wooden mold for a raw model was finally ordered by Hölbl in Italy. It was suitable to drive the individual body parts over it by hand . The cost of this wooden form was around 1 million (!) Austrian schillings, a horrific amount for the time . With these expenditures alone, an economically profitable production by hand would never have been possible. On the other hand, it was this professional way of working in connection with the attention to detail that made the Puch Adria TS the most technically mature construction among the prototypes made on the basis of Puch.
The first two prototypes were based on the Puch 500. In practice, however, it turned out that the wheelbase was too short and a longer floor assembly would benefit the vehicle's handling. The consequence was therefore to switch to the 7 cm longer floor assembly of the Puch 700 C (station wagon) and to lengthen the wooden shape in front of the rear axle in order to achieve the desired effects.
Werner Hölbl had always thought of series production of the vehicle, which was imminent, but ultimately failed because of the rigid attitude of the then Fiat managing director Giovanni Agnelli and Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG.
On the occasion of Agnelli's visit to Austria, Werner Hölbl succeeded in presenting his coupé creation to the Fiat boss. He was enthusiastic about its shape and lines and did not rule out series production. Hölbl then began to work out a calculation to inform Agnelli of the approximate production costs. The chassis and engines requested from Steyr-Puch (as the basis for putting on your own body) would have been almost as expensive as a finished Puch 500. This would have increased the cost of the smart coupé so much that an attractive retail price would have been out of reach seemed. It can therefore be assumed that Steyr-Puch saw the Puch Adria TS as a dangerous competitor to the Puch 500 and therefore consciously and ultimately successfully tried to let the project fail. In addition, Fiat was interested in using its own engines, but this failed because of the rather low power output of the engines available at the time (the normal engine of the Puch 500 was slightly more powerful than the engine of the Fiat 500). In addition, the body of the Puch Adria TS is around 100 kg heavier than that of the Puch 500, so that the already modest performance would have been reduced. As a few photos show, Werner Hölbl drove his car himself in some races, for example on the airfield course in Aspern.
The newspapers of the time proudly reported on the 1962 International Motor Show in Paris, where the Puch Adria TS could also be seen. For this purpose, the vehicle was brought to France on a trailer by Hölbl himself and presented at the Fiat stand. The opinion of the press was largely positive. There is even a known sales brochure that announced the Puch Adria TS at a price of ÖS 39,900; However, it did not go into series production.
Of the total of 18 copies produced, only two are likely to have survived. Both vehicles are now privately owned and awaiting restoration. As far as drive and chassis parts are concerned, no problems are to be expected, as there is a very good supply of spare parts. When it comes to body-specific parts, however, reproductions in time-consuming and costly manual work are necessary. The value of the vehicles can hardly be determined due to the virtually non-existent market.
Most of the Puch Adrias were probably equipped with TR engines or at least technically very similar. It is known that a separate version of the well-known Puch boxer engine was planned for the vehicle as a "sports engine" with its own engine number series, starting with the number 528.0001 - also a sign that the Puch factory was originally part of the project It paid attention, although it later held back when it came to the delivery of floor assemblies and engines.
builder
Werner Hölbl, born in 1941, completed an apprenticeship in body construction and studied at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. He worked as a car designer in Turin and at Opel in Rüsselsheim . He had his own design office in Turin and since 1972 in Vienna. Later he worked in industrial design. Werner Hölbl, who lives in Vienna, has received numerous awards over the years. He played a key role in the design of the Opel GT . As a friend of Jochen Rindt , he followed his career right up to the tragic end - they even shared an apartment at times.
literature
Egon Rudolf: Puch - A History of Development . Verlag Weishaupt, Gnas 2008, ISBN 3705902598 . 208 pages
Individual evidence
- ↑ Special bodies , Steyr-Puch friends of Upper Carinthia
Austro-Motor magazine, issue 3/1963, page 98. Motor magazine, Saturday, October 13, 1962 issue, page 13. MOT magazine, No. 2., Volume 9 (1963), page 15. MOT magazine, No. 3rd, 9th volume (1963), page 39. New Austria newspaper. Issue from December 22nd, 1962 in the part "Der Motor".