Wendax

Wendax Fahrzeugbau GmbH
legal form	Company with limited liability
founding	1949
resolution	1950s
Reason for dissolution	insolvency
Seat	Hamburg - Hamm , Germany
management	Adolf Alpers
Number of employees	just under 300
Branch	Draisine manufacturer , automobile manufacturer

Wendax was a German automobile manufacturer in Hamburg . The company goes back to Wendenstrasse in the Hamburg district of Hamm , where the company was originally based. The company primarily manufactured rail trolleys and operated under the name Draisinenbau Dr. Alpers .

Company history

From 1933 to 1940 and from 1949 to 1951, in addition to rail vehicles, open cargo tricycles were also manufactured. In 1949 the construction of automobiles began. Wendax was one of the first companies to bring a 1.5 t transporter onto the market after World War II . The vehicle had a VW Beetle engine and front-wheel drive. The engines came from the stocks of the former German Wehrmacht . Since Volkswagen refused to deliver engines to third-party companies - its own van was already in development - it did not go into series production.

The three-seater Aero WS 400 roadster was said to have defects in design and workmanship. It was powered by a single rear wheel. This made it possible to do without an expensive differential gear , but led to poor driving characteristics. In addition, the Aero WS 400 was more expensive than a VW Beetle of that time. Even the Wendax WS 700 limousines with 400 cm³ and WS 750 with 750 cm³ ILO engines, which were designed for use as taxis from 1950, found only a few buyers. According to the article In About Wendax by motor journalist Werner Oswald in Das Auto (6/1951), the company's reputation was ruined. At the end of 1951, Wendax had to register a settlement and automobile production was stopped. The draisine construction, on the other hand, lasted for a while.

Wendax express delivery van WL 250

The limousine with a 750 cc Ilo engine was 4400 mm long, 1470 mm wide, 1460 mm high and had four portal doors without a central column . With a usable seating area of ​​around 1300 mm, there was space for three people in the front - thanks to the undivided bench - and in the back. The front-wheel drive was via cardan shafts and a four-speed gearbox with reverse gear - available with a steering wheel shift for an extra charge - the front wheels were suspended from a transverse leaf spring, the rear wheels had torsion bar suspension . The hydraulic braking system acted on all four wheels, which were fitted with balloon tires measuring 5.00 × 16 ". The water-cooled Ilo U 750 double-piston engine, which was also used in the 750 Staunau model, had a 52 mm bore and 88 mm piston stroke and had a Solex BFH 26 downdraft carburetor 25 hp at 3500 rpm.

Web links

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

• Wendax - Hamburg's forgotten car brand (article in the Hamburger Abendblatt)

literature

• German cars of the economic miracle 1945-1965. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-613-02756-5 .
• Werner Oswald : German cars since 1945. All German passenger cars. Volume 2, Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-613-01492-0 , pp. 973f.
• Hanns-Peter Rosellen: German small cars after 1945. Loved, praised and unforgotten. Weltbild-Verlag, Augsburg 1991, ISBN 3-89350-040-5 .
• Walter Drawer: Small Cars International. Mobile, cabin scooters and driving machines from the 40s, 50s and 60s from over 250 manufacturers from all over the world. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-613-01959-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ evening paper
2. ↑ Michael Wolff Metternich : 100 years on 3 wheels. German three-lane vehicles through the ages. Neue Kunst Verlag, Munich, ISBN 3-929956-00-4 , pp. 385–386.
3. ↑ Erik Eckermann: The memories of Erik Eckermann. Save them who can. ( online ( Memento of the original from December 20, 2016 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 note. , accessed September 1, 2015)