The Neue Automobil-Gesellschaft (NAG), or Nationale Automobil-Gesellschaft after it changed its name in 1915, was a German

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with Wheel, wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, pe ...

manufacturer in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

." In 1902, German electrical company

AEG Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft AG (AEG; ) was a German producer of electrical equipment founded in Berlin as the ''Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaft für angewandte Elektricität'' in 1883 by Emil Rathenau. During the Second World War, AEG ...

purchased the

coachbuilding A coachbuilder or body-maker is someone who manufactures bodies for passenger-carrying vehicles.Construction has always been a skilled trade requiring a relatively lightweight product with sufficient strength. The manufacture of necessarily ...

branch of

Kühlstein The Kühlstein Wagenbau in Berlin-Charlottenburg was a coachbuilding company that produced electric cars from 1898 to 1902. Some were vehicles of in-house design, others were Jeantaud cabs built under licence. The firm also built tractor units to ...

, under engineer

Joseph Vollmer Joseph Vollmer (1871–1955) was a German automobile designer and engineer and a pioneering tank designer. As chief designer for the German War Department's motor vehicle section, he designed the World War I German tanks A7V, K-Wagen, LK I and LK ...

, renaming it NAG. The company's first two cars were reliable, if unoriginal: the two-

cylinder A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infin ...

Typ A and 5.2

liter The litre (international spelling) or liter (American English spelling) (SI symbols L and l, other symbol used: ℓ) is a metric unit of volume. It is equal to 1 cubic decimetre (dm3), 1000 cubic centimetres (cm3) or 0.001 cubic metre (m3). ...

(317 ci) four-cylinder Typ B, both with

chain drive Chain drive is a way of transmitting mechanical power from one place to another. It is often used to convey power to the wheels of a vehicle, particularly bicycles and motorcycles. It is also used in a wide variety of machines besides vehicles. ...

, which resembled contemporary Mercédès. Shortly, an enlarged Typ B2, with 40/45 hp (30 kW) 7.9-liter (482ci) four, appeared. In 1907, one of these was given to the Empress

Auguste Viktoria Auguste may refer to: People Surname * Arsène Auguste (born 1951), Haitian footballer * Donna Auguste (born 1958), African-American businesswoman * Georges Auguste (born 1933), Haitian painter * Henri Auguste (1759–1816), Parisian gold a ...

.Wise, p.1480. The next year, AEG got out of the car business, but NAG continued alone, introducing a 15 hp (11 kW) 1502 cc (91.7ci) four called Puck, with a remarkable (for the period) ability to rev to 3000 rpm, which may have contributed to its achievement of winning the Gothenburg Cup at the Swedish Winter Trials three years in a row, in 1912, 1913, and 1914. This sporting reputation was balanced by "aggressively ugly Prince Henry-type bodies". The Puck would later be developed into a model known in Germany as the Darling. From 1911 to 1914, NAG's standard offering was an 8495 cc (518ci) 60 hp (44.7 kW), joined in 1912-14 by a 1502 cc (91.7ci) 10/12 hp (7.5 kW) K2, 2085 cc (127ci) 14/20 hp (10 kW) K4, 3308 cc (202ci) 20/25 hp (15 kW) K5, and a 5193 cc (317ci) 25/35 hp (19 kW). During the recovery after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, NAG produced smaller numbers of 2.5-liter (153ci) C4s, essentially prewar K4s with new vee

radiator Radiators are heat exchangers used to transfer thermal energy from one medium to another for the purpose of cooling and heating. The majority of radiators are constructed to function in cars, buildings, and electronics. A radiator is always a ...

s replacing the prewar oval ones. The economic situation was so serious, NAG partnered with Brennabor, Lloyd, and Hansa to form GDA (the equivalent of a US

trust Trust often refers to: * Trust (social science), confidence in or dependence on a person or quality It may also refer to: Business and law * Trust law, a body of law under which one person holds property for the benefit of another * Trust (bus ...

), to prevent competition from destroying all of them. It proved successful for NAG, which prospered, enough to build the C4b sports variant, designed by chief engineer

Christian Riecken Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

Minerva Minerva (; ett, Menrva) is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. Minerva is not a patron of violence such as Mars, but of strategic war. From the second century BC onward, the Roma ...

racing driver Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organise ...

prewar). Riecken ran a C4b at the newly opened

AVUS The Automobil-Verkehrs- und Übungsstraße ('Automobile traffic and training road'), known as AVUS, is a public road in Berlin, Germany. Opened in 1921, it was also used as a motor racing circuit until 1998. Today, the AVUS forms the northern p ...

in 1922, winning at 84.3 mph (135.7 km/h), which was greater than the C4's top speed. It sacrificed nothing to reliability, as NAG went on to place well at the 1923 All-Russian Trials and the ADAC ''Reich'' Trials for 1923-26. In 1924, NAG hit its apex at

Monza Monza (, ; lmo, label=Lombard language, Lombard, Monça, locally ; lat, Modoetia) is a city and ''comune'' on the River Lambro, a tributary of the Po River, Po in the Lombardy region of Italy, about north-northeast of Milan. It is the capit ...

, where Riecken and Hans Berthold won the Gran Premio della Norte in a C4b, covering 1656 mi (2665 km) in 24 hours, an average of 68.99 mph (111.02 km/h), for which the model was renamed ''Monza''. In 1926,

Protos Protos means "first," derived from the ancient Greek . Protos may also refer to: * Protos (monastic office), a monastic office at the Eastern Orthodox monastic state of Mount Athos * Protos (constructor), a former racing car constructor * Protos ...

(which had built the winner of the New York-Paris race) was acquired from

Siemens-Schuckert Siemens-Schuckert (or Siemens-Schuckertwerke) was a German electrical engineering company headquartered in Berlin, Erlangen and Nuremberg that was incorporated into the Siemens AG in 1966. Siemens Schuckert was founded in 1903 when Siemens & Ha ...

, leading to "a series of dull six-cylinder cars". The next year, NAG again expanded by taking over Presto, which had just bought

Dux ''Dux'' (; plural: ''ducēs'') is Latin for "leader" (from the noun ''dux, ducis'', "leader, general") and later for duke and its variant forms (doge, duce, etc.). During the Roman Republic and for the first centuries of the Roman Empire, '' ...

, and continuing to build the 2.6-liter Typ F and 3-liter Typ G. The difficulty was that despite their quality, none of them was distinctly different from other German cars of the period. In response, NAG created a disastrous

straight Straight may refer to: Slang * Straight, slang for heterosexual ** Straight-acting, an LGBT person who does not exhibit the appearance or mannerisms of the gay stereotype * Straight, a member of the straight edge subculture Sport and games * Str ...

-eight (abandoned due to

crankshaft A crankshaft is a mechanical component used in a piston engine to convert the reciprocating motion into rotational motion. The crankshaft is a rotating shaft containing one or more crankpins, that are driven by the pistons via the connecting ...

whip), which was never built, then hired former

Impéria Impéria Automobiles was a Belgium, Belgian manufacturer of automobiles, active between 1906 and 1948. Its factory in Nessonvaux, Liège (province), Liège had a rooftop test track since 1928. History Impéria was a Belgium, Belgian automo ...

and Steiger man Paul Henze, "one of Germany's most gifted car designers", in an effort to remedy this situation with a new top-line car. Henze settled on a 4540 cc (277ci) V8, Germany's first to enter production which became "one of the outstanding German luxury cars of 1931, the NAG 212." Rather than rely on conventional shaft drive, however, NAG chose to attempt to fit a Voran FWD system (designed by Richard Bussien) to a backbone

chassis A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of an artificial object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpart ...

with

independent suspension Independent suspension is any automobile suspension system that allows each wheel on the same axle to move vertically (i.e. reacting to a bump on the road) independently of the others. This is contrasted with a beam axle or deDion axle system in w ...

, which proved too ambitious, and the development costs disastrous. In 1934, NAG ceased car production, while NAG-

Büssing Büssing AG was a German bus and truck manufacturer, established in 1903 by Heinrich Büssing (1843–1929) in Braunschweig. It quickly evolved to one of the largest European producers, whose utility vehicles with the Brunswick Lion emblem were w ...

commercial vehicle A commercial vehicle is any type of motor vehicle used for transporting goods or paying passengers. The United States defines a "commercial motor vehicle" as any self-propelled or towed vehicle used on a public highway in interstate commerce to ...

s continued to be produced for a few more years. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the company produced the ''Sd.Kfz.'' 231, ''Sd.Kfz.'' 232, ''Sd.Kfz.'' 233, and ''Sd.Kfz.'' 234 series armoured cars.Hogg, Ian V., and Weeks, John. ''Illustrated Encyclopedia of Military Vehicles'' (London: Hamlyn, 1980), p.183, "Sd.Kfz. 231 (6 rad)" & p.184.

Notes

External links

* {{MAN SE, state=autocollapse Piston engine configurations Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of Germany Companies of Prussia Manufacturing companies based in Berlin AEG

See also

Notes

External links