Sachsenring (company)

Sachsenring Karosseriemodule GmbH
legal form	Company with limited liability
founding	2014
Seat	Sangerhausen , Germany
Number of employees	35 employees
sales	EUR 8.8 million
Branch	Automotive supplier

Sachsenring Gate 1, January 2006

Sachsenring Karosseriemodule GmbH is a medium-sized company in the automotive supplier industry in Zwickau in western Saxony . The company emerged from the insolvency of HQM Sachsenring GmbH in 2014 and supplies body parts. In the GDR , VEB Sachsenring , which became famous for the production of the Trabant series, produced at this point .

history

post war period

The Sachsenring history goes back directly to the factories of Horch (famous until the war for the production of luxury cars) and Audi in Zwickau. Horch was forcibly expropriated together with the rest of Auto Union following a referendum in June 1948 . In the same year the plant was reopened as VEB HORCH motor vehicle and engine works Zwickau as a company in the industrial association of vehicle construction (IFA). Initially, the H3 truck and the RS01 tractor were manufactured here. In 1954, production of the newly developed IFA H3A began .

The Horch factory tried to maintain the tradition of luxury limousines with the P 240 "Sachsenring" (known as Horch "Sachsenring"). The name of the vehicle was transferred to the factory in 1957, which from then on was called VEB Sachsenring Motor Vehicle and Engine Factory Zwickau . At the same time, the forerunner of the Trabant, the AWZ P 70 , was produced in the VEB Automobilwerk Zwickau (AWZ) , where the first experience with body parts made of thermoset could be gained.

Trabant production

Main article: Trabant (passenger car)

Band of the Zwickau automobile plant in July 1990

In order to be able to achieve the desired production figures for the new Volksautomobil Trabant , both plants were merged on May 1, 1958 to form VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau . The truck production was transferred to the motor vehicle plant "Ernst Grube" Werdau . In Plant 1 (Sachsenring), the floor assembly and the steel frame as well as the transmission of the Trabant were manufactured from now on. (FB = production area 11 press hall for punching and forming the sheet metal parts, FB 2 assembling the body, FB 6 gear manufacturing) The thermoset body was manufactured in plant 3 (AWZ) and final assembly in plant 2 FB 9. Up to its first few meters under its own power, the Trabant was driven back and forth several kilometers between plants I, II and III on low loaders.

In the next few years it was possible to steadily increase production and also to advance the further development of the model. However, the new body of the Trabant 601 in 1963 was the last successful new development from the Sachsenring development department. In the 1970s and 1980s the Trabant was built almost unchanged.

Inhibited development

Automobilbau Zwickau - GDR stamp set

According to Sachsenring's will, however, the development of the Trabant would have continued seamlessly. As early as the summer of 1962, immediately after the completion of the P 601, development of the P 602 began. In addition to an improved chassis, the car was to be equipped with an engine that had been increased to 28 hp. However, the development of the 28 hp two-stroke engine failed. At the same time, Sachsenring was asked to produce parts for the Eisenach (AWE) automobile plant in order to ensure that the new Wartburg could start up . The remaining potential at Sachsenring was too weak, so development was stopped in 1964.

On December 30, 1966, a new type was commissioned - the P 603. The car received a hatchback body, similar to the later VW Golf I . Nine functional models were built and tested with different engines: the three-cylinder two-stroke engine from the Wartburg, a four-stroke engine from Škoda and a newly developed Wankel engine . Despite promising approaches, the project was discontinued in November 1968 on the instructions of Günter Mittag and some of the prototypes were destroyed; others continued to drive on public roads until the end of the 1980s.

Development of the P760 began in January 1970. Since a completely newly developed vehicle had become almost impossible for the GDR economy, the 760 was planned as a so-called RGW car as a joint project by Sachsenring, AWE and Škoda. Parts of the electrical system should also come from Hungary. However, the GDR withdrew from the project in autumn 1973; the plants should continue development separately. In Czechoslovakia, the P760 later served as the basis for the 105-130 series from Škoda, the forerunner of the Favorit .

In the GDR, the project was continued as the P610. A larger version was planned as "Wartburg" and a smaller one as "Trabant". But this development was also discontinued.

Help from the west

Sachsenring Tor1 1990

Progress was not indicated until 1984: the IFA had acquired the license from Volkswagen to build the VW Polo engine, which was manufactured in series in the Barkas works from 1988 . At the same time, the further development of the Trabant 1.1, which was to be manufactured in the new Sachsenring plant in Zwickau-Mosel , was pushed ahead . For economic reasons, however, little was left of the further development: the VW Polo engine was installed in a car whose body (apart from the bonnet, front grille, bumpers, rear lights and fuel tank) essentially came from the 1960s. For the fuel tank, a new hall with four large presses from Italy, a washing machine, flange welding systems and coloring system was built in Johanngeorgenstadt by 1989. This investment (40 million GDR marks) did not come to fruition. The Politburo with GDR economic expert Günter Mittag was of the opinion that whoever produced the previous parts was also responsible for the “new one”.

The front axle of the 1.1 was a construction with MacPherson struts , wishbones and an anti-roll bar. The rear axle had coil springs and corresponded to the last revised 601 series. Only the rear wheel brake cylinders and brake drums (bolt circle change, LK98 instead of the previous LK160) have been changed.

Sachsenring Automobilwerke GmbH , founded in July 1990, tried unsuccessfully for another year to sell the new Trabant 1.1 - most recently for less than DM 6,000. On April 30, 1991, vehicle production at Sachsenring ended. Volkswagen invested heavily in the new plant in Zwickau-Mosel and later founded Volkswagen Sachsen GmbH here. The former VEB-Sachsenring was wound up by the Treuhandanstalt by December 1993 and then re-privatized.

New beginning

The development department of Sachsenring was privatized in 1992 as FES GmbH Fahrzeugentwicklung Sachsen . In 1993, the plant and the naming rights were sold to the Rittinghaus brothers from Hemer , who wanted to establish the company as an automotive supplier under the name Sachsenring Automobiltechnik GmbH . The company quickly developed into the model company of the new federal states. In 1996 the company was converted into a stock corporation, which was listed on the Neuer Markt from 1997 onwards. At the end of 1996 Sachsenring presented the Uni1, a newly developed, environmentally friendly car. The vehicle with an aluminum frame and a combined electric-diesel drive was intended to appeal to authorities, taxi companies and car rental companies. The Uni1 was not built. In 1999 Sachsenring Fahrzeugtechnik GmbH was founded as a subsidiary of the stock corporation, which in turn now functioned as a holding company . Sachsenring AG acquired 51% of NAW shares from DaimlerChrysler in 2000 . The concept of buying up smaller companies with the money earned through the IPO and thus expanding Sachsenring failed. Sachsenring got into increasing financial difficulties, especially as a result of the takeover of the Zentrum Mikroelektronik Dresden (ZMD): The Saxon state government had illegally forwarded funding to the troubled company ZMD, which was previously owned by the Free State, and thus violated EU law. Since ZMD was consolidated in the Sachsenring group after the takeover in 1998, there was a threat of an EU main review procedure from 1999 to 2002 and the repayment of DM 360 million by the Sachsenring group. The payment of new subsidies for ZMD was thus also delayed. Sachsenring's house banks, which, as shareholders, had managed all of ZMD's shares for the Free State up to the sale to Sachsenring and had recommended the purchase on the Sachsenring supervisory board, withdrew from the financing of Sachsenring AG from 2000 due to the EU risk and stopped lending the company. Since the former main shareholders Rittinghaus now only held less than 25% of the shares in Sachsenring, they refused further payments into the share capital of the AG against the background of the unexplained EU risk.

Both Sachsenring Fahrzeugtechnik GmbH and Sachsenring AG filed for bankruptcy on May 30, 2002. The group left no wage payments in arrears. Ulf Rittinghaus previously resigned as CEO. At the same time, the chairman of the supervisory board, Ludger Staby, resigned. In January 2006, the Rittinghaus brothers were charged with falsification of accounts, breach of trust and deliberate delay in bankruptcy. In addition, Sachsenring AG was significantly involved in the QMF scandal - not least because of the personal links between the unions . On March 9, 2002, the criminal proceedings against the Rittinghaus brothers ended with a settlement, as the charges of falsification of accounts and delayed bankruptcy were refuted by court-ordered expert reports. Nevertheless, the court regarded it as proven that the shareholder loan paid by the Rittinghaus brothers to Sachsenring in 1999 in the amount of DM 15 million was not in the form of stock corporation law and that the interest payments to the lenders would therefore amount to an offense of trust. In 1999, the entrepreneurs loaned Sachsenring AG 15 million DM and charged less interest than was charged by banks at the time. Ultimately, the criminal court assessed the individual interest payments to the lender as an act of unfaithfulness. In March 2009, the Rittinghaus brothers agreed to the settlement offered by the public prosecutor's office, after having been subjected to more than seven years of prosecution.

Sachsenring affair

In November 2002, Rittinghaus raised serious allegations against the CDU state government in the MDR magazine Fakt and Stern . At a classic car exhibition on October 9, 1998, shortly after the Bundestag election was lost, Saxony's Minister of Economics, Kajo Schommer , is said to have asked for a campaign donation of over five million DM. Rittinghaus refused this request for fundamental reasons. Kajo Schommer denies that he meant this request seriously. There are different representations of who is supposed to have brought up this topic of conversation at all. The subject of the conversation in the following is also supposed to have been a possible “election campaign” by Sachsenring AG with regard to the upcoming state elections in September 1999.

In a round of negotiations on October 15, 1998, the initially envisaged subsidy (negative purchase price) for the takeover of the ZMD (Center for Microelectronics Dresden) was increased from DM 25 million to DM 29 million by a consortium of buyers dominated by Sachsenring AG. According to works council chairman Manfred Schürer, this was done in order to carry out a covert election campaign for the CDU state government. The Saxon State Chancellery denies these allegations; the four million DM had rather been paid so that Sachsenring could repay a loan on ZMD.

Nevertheless, shortly before the upcoming state elections in 1999, Sachsenring invested almost three million marks in the “Saxony for Saxony” campaign. According to Rittinghaus, the actually non-partisan action was actually intended to put the incumbent CDU state government in a particularly good light in line with the state elections.

At the request of the PDS and SPD parliamentary groups, the Saxon state parliament then set up an investigative committee to review the events. The work of the committee was discontinued in October 2004 without a final report because doubts had arisen in both representations.

In August 2006, the Dresden public prosecutor brought charges against Kajo Schommer on charges of bribery and infidelity to the Dresden Regional Court, file number: 912 Js 854/04. Schommer passed away in July 2007 without any previous decision regarding the opening or rejection of the main proceedings.

insolvency

Sachsenring Fahrzeugtechnik AG was meanwhile continued by the insolvency administrator Bruno Kübler from Munich . On July 1, 2003, he founded Sachsenring Zwickau AG without debts and with a share capital of one million euros. He turned down takeover offers like those from ThyssenKrupp , which wanted to take over the company for a symbolic € 1, because Sachsenring managed to return to the black in its first fiscal year. Individual production areas, such as the special protection department that makes armor for limousines, were sold. In this way, 400 of the original 750 jobs could be secured.

Furthermore, the group established a project with the Sachsenring Africar to say goodbye to the Trabant history. Since then, the brand has been based in South Africa and at the time it was founded was intended in particular to relocate the Sachsenring know-how in order to act as a lifeline outside Germany. A few years ago, the Cape Town plant was bought by Chery Automobile , which continues the brand name.

Takeover by HQM

The main plant in Zwickau with 170 employees was sold at the beginning of 2006. The HQM group from Leipzig prevailed against 14 domestic and foreign applicants, who acquired the plant for a double-digit million amount. HQM itself was an automotive supplier with 500 employees.

The HQM Sachsenring GmbH was founded on 1 March 2006 as a subsidiary of "hardening and Quality Management GmbH". HQM planned to use the plant in Zwickau to full capacity again with 300 employees. The company also promised success through the higher level of awareness of the “Sachsenring” brand compared to the largely unknown abbreviation “HQM”. Among other things, the company supplied the Zwickau Volkswagen factory with parts for the Golf and Passat models. In 2012 it generated sales of 170 million euros.

Another bankruptcy

On May 10, 2013, the HQM Sachsenring again filed for insolvency. On August 1, 2013, insolvency proceedings were opened at the Chemnitz District Court and Joachim Exner was appointed as insolvency administrator by the law firm Dr. Beck & Partner ordered.

On July 30, 2014, the two parts of the operation, pre-assembly of vehicle parts and the production of articulated parts with around 90% of the remaining total sales, were sold to Tube Technology Systems AG in Massen-Niederlausitz (transfer of operations ). Tube Technology Systems AG (TTS) was founded in 2002 as a manufacturer of brake pressure lines and has the Volkswagen Group as a main customer. Sachsenring had the idea to manufacture brake lines itself, but the insolvency of the automotive supplier prevented implementation. Dr. Andreas Röher was managing director of Sachsenring Fahrzeugtechnik GmbH until 2001 and then founded TTS with partners. TTS cooperated early on in development and production with the profitable Sachsenring plant in Tröbitz . Brake and fuel lines for the Trabant from the Sachsenring works in Zwickau have been manufactured in Tröbitz since 1983, and Volkswagen has been supplied since 1992.

In August 2014, the automotive manager Stefan Zubcic bought the body shop , which will continue to be run as the newly founded Sachsenring Karosseriemodule GmbH , so that the traditional brand name will be retained.

In the remaining, high-deficit mechanical manufacturing section , production ended at the end of August 2014. The employees switched to a transfer company .

Models

Construction period Produced vehicles	model series	annotation	picture
Small car
1955-1959 36,151	P 70 "Zwickau"	Produced at AWZ until 1958 as "AWZ P 70 'Zwickau'". The P 70 was the first production car with a plastic body. The floor pan was identical to that of the DKW F 8 . Production was discontinued in 1959 in favor of the Trabant.
1957-1962 131,435	Trabant (P 50)	Produced until 1958 as "AWZ P 50 'Trabant'". The P 50 was to be the first large-scale production car in the GDR.
1962-1965 106,007	Trabant 600 (P 60)	Identical to the P 50, but larger engine (from 500 cm³ / 18 HP to 600 cm³ / 23 HP). The station wagon version was produced two years longer until the body of the "Trabant 601 universal" was finished.
1964–1990 2,819,663	Trabant 601 (P 601)	Floor assembly and engine identical to the P 60, but new trapezoidal body, but with old doors and front fenders. Later increase in performance (e.g. needle bearing crankshaft) to 26 hp.
1990-1991 38,994	Trabant 1.1	Sales designation "IFA-Trabant 1.1". Body almost identical to the P 601, but new engine hood made of sheet steel. Technical improvements to the chassis also due to the use of the four-stroke licensed engine from Volkswagen .
Upper class
1954-1959 1,382	P 240	In the market until 1957 as the Horch P 240 "Sachsenring". Engine: in-line six-cylinder four-stroke engine (2,407 cm³, 80 hp), total length: 4,730 mm, weight: 1480 kg, wheelbase: 2,800 mm, top speed: 140 km / h
1969 5	representative	Following an order from the NVA, five representative vehicles based on the P 240 with a contemporary body were built in 1969 on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the GDR.
Trucks
1957-1958	H3S	The H3S was a revision of the Horch H3A and thus the first truck that the Sachsenring-Werke produced.
1959-1960	S4000 S4000-1	The "S4000" (S for Sachsenring) had a payload of 4.0 t. He used the same cab as the H3A / H3S and looked like it. In 1960, production was relocated to the "Ernst Grube" motor vehicle plant in Werdau . Here the S4000 was further developed into the W50 (W for Werdau). In 1965 the entire production was relocated from Werdau to Ludwigsfelde near Berlin.

Coordinates: 50 ° 43 ′ 55.2 ″  N , 12 ° 28 ′ 30.9 ″  E

Cultural significance

• From 1976 to 1991 a pair of city ​​express trains called the Sachsenring ran between Zwickau and Berlin-Lichtenberg .
• The German Bitpop pioneers, Welle: Erdball, have been using the Sachsenring emblem, rotated slightly to the left, as a band logo since 1996 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ History of NAW Nutzfahrzeuggesellschaft Arbon & Wetzikon AG CH / Switzerland ( online ).
2. ↑ Parts of HQM-Sachsenring are sold In: Freie Presse from August 6, 2014, accessed on October 23, 2014
3. ↑ Flanging in bulk ( Memento of the original from October 24, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: @VENTURE issue 29 / December 2010 - information from the Mittelständische Beteiligungsgesellschaft Berlin-Brandenburg, p. 1f, accessed on October 23, 2014
4. ↑ Black macaroni in: Lausitzer Rundschau of December 15, 2006, accessed on October 27, 2014
5. ↑ Tröbitzer Sahnestück from Sachsenring In: Lausitzer Rundschau of August 24, 2004, accessed on October 27, 2014
6. ↑ Sachsenring is retained as a trademark ( memento of the original from October 24, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. At: Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk from August 15, 2014, accessed on October 23, 2014
7. ↑ Restoration of the Zwickau auto supplier Sachsenring completed In: Leipziger Volkszeitung from August 15, 2014, accessed on October 23, 2014
8. ↑ Werner Lang: "Wir Horch-Arbeiter are building vehicles again", technical data of the P240, 2nd edition 2007, Bergstraße Verlagsgesellschaft mbH Aue, page 88, ISBN 978-3-9811372-1-7

Web links

• HQM Sachsenring GmbH