The Volkswagen K70 is a four-door, front engine, front wheel drive
sedan developed by
NSU and marketed from 1970–1975 by Volkswagen after its 1969 acquisition of NSU.
Designed by NSU's chief engineer Ewald Praxl and styled by
Claus Luthe
Claus Luthe (December 8, 1932 – March 17, 2008) was a German car designer, noted for his design work on the NSU Ro 80, Volkswagen K70 and numerous seminal models from Audi and BMW. Luthe was a pioneer of aerodynamics and digital design within ...
as a four-door sedan (and five-door wagon) to complement the
NSU Ro80
The NSU Ro 80 is a four-door, front-engine executive sedan manufactured and marketed by the West German firm NSU from 1967 until 1977.
Noted for innovative, aerodynamic styling by Claus Luthe and a technologically advanced powertrain, the Ro ...
, the K70 would become the first Volkswagen with a front-mounted engine, water cooling and front wheel drive. Competing with VW's own
411/412 and Audi's
100, the K70 was ultimately sold only as a sedan, with 211,127 examples manufactured for model years 1970–1975.
The ''K70'' retained NSU's naming convention, as introduced with the Ro 80 — with ''K'' denoting the German word ''Kolben'' (piston) and ''70'' designating an engine output of .
Development
The K70 was originally developed to complement the
Ro 80, distinguished by its conventional piston engine rather than the Ro80's
Wankel
Wankel may refer to:
* Wankel engine, a type of internal combustion engine using an eccentric rotary design instead of reciprocating pistons
* Wankel AG, a German company that produces Wankel engines for ultralight aircraft and racing cars
People ...
rotary engine. NSU scheduled the press launch for March 1969, intending to present it to the wider public at the 1969
Geneva Motor Show
The Geneva International Motor Show is an annual auto show held in March in the Swiss city of Geneva. The show is hosted at the Palexpo, a convention centre located next to the Geneva Cointrin International Airport. The Salon is organised by th ...
.
Prior to launch, rumors arose that Volkswagen would absorb cash strapped NSU. Even before the take over had been made public, the K70's future was threatened by management concerns that the K70 was too close in size and price to the recently launched
Audi 100
The Audi 100 and Audi 200 (and sometimes called Audi 5000 in North America) are primarily mid-size/executive cars manufactured and marketed by the Audi division of the Volkswagen Group. The car was made from 1968 to 1997 across four generations (C ...
.
Plans for the K70 launch were deferred at the last minute, with rumors that Volkswagen removed the K70 from NSU's show stand on the eve of the
show. The NSU K70 was shown and advertised in
Automobil Revue's 1969 Geneva Show yearbook, published in March 1969, with a note in the addenda stating that the K70 "will not be built for the time being" and will not be shown.
In total, 23 pre-series K70s with NSU badging were built.
BMW may have also been relieved, as the NSU K70 would have competed directly with their recently introduced
2002
File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...
.
[
A 26 April 1969 NSU shareholders' meeting endorsed a NSU/VW merger in which NSU was to take over ]Auto Union
Auto Union AG, was an amalgamation of four German automobile manufacturers, founded in 1932 and established in 1936 in Chemnitz, Saxony. It is the immediate predecessor of Audi as it is known today.
As well as acting as an umbrella firm f ...
in return for an increase in the NSU share capital issued to Volkswagen. In reality, VW took over NSU, and during 1969 NSU was integrated with Auto Union, which Volkswagen had acquired from Daimler Benz
The Mercedes-Benz Group Aktiengesellschaft, AG (previously named Daimler-Benz, DaimlerChrysler and Daimler) is a German Multinational corporation, multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It ...
in 1964 — in turn creating the basis of modern-day Audi
Audi AG () is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. As a subsidiary of its parent company, the Volkswagen Group, Audi produces vehicles in nine production facilities worldwide.
Th ...
.
VW needed a new family sedan to replace the Type 4 (Volkswagen 411 / 412), which itself had been intended as a move upmarket from Type 1-based cars. Considering the K70, with its front wheel drive and modern styling, could transform its image, VW scrapped publicity material showing the K70 badged as an NSU, and just over a year later the sedan went into production at Volkswagen's new Salzgitter
Salzgitter (; Eastphalian: ''Soltgitter'') is an independent city in southeast Lower Saxony, Germany, located between Hildesheim and Braunschweig. Together with Wolfsburg and Braunschweig, Salzgitter is one of the seven ''Oberzentren'' of Lower ...
plant, rather than at NSU's Neckarsulm
Neckarsulm () is a city in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany, near Heilbronn, and part of the district of Heilbronn. , Neckarsulm had 26,800 inhabitants. The name Neckarsulm derives from the city's location where the Neckar and Sulm rivers ...
plant. Branded as a Volkswagen, the K70 arrived off the production line in August 1970, and was subsequently launched in export markets. A launch date for the wagon / estate version, which would have competed directly against the Volkswagen 411/412 Variant, was delayed indefinitely.
Engine and transmission
The K70 was launched featuring a four-cylinder water-cooled engine: this was a development from the four-cylinder air cooled engine mounted in the rear of the NSU 1200
Events
By place
Europe
* Spring – Boniface I, marquis of Montferrat, sends envoys to Venice, Genoa and other city-states to negotiate a contract for transport to the Levant. Meanwhile, Boniface and various nobles are mustering ...
, its displacement increased to . Despite reports that the car's name reflected an output of , the engine was rated . It was longitudinally mounted, well forward and placed directly above the differential, between the front wheels, and canted to the right. The clutch and gear box were directly behind the differential, and the three comprised a compact package which necessitated a relatively high bonnet but which also maximised the proportion of the car's weight carried by the front wheels, and the space available for passengers and their luggage, characteristics that the K70 shared with the NSU Ro80
The NSU Ro 80 is a four-door, front-engine executive sedan manufactured and marketed by the West German firm NSU from 1967 until 1977.
Noted for innovative, aerodynamic styling by Claus Luthe and a technologically advanced powertrain, the Ro ...
. The K70 also featured the same inboard disc brakes as the Ro80.
The performance from the engine, especially on the entry level version, was merely adequate. Comparison with the 411, which by 1970 had acquired an enlarged engine and fuel injection
Fuel injection is the introduction of fuel in an internal combustion engine, most commonly automotive engines, by the means of an injector. This article focuses on fuel injection in reciprocating piston and Wankel rotary engines.
All comp ...
, was (and is) hard to avoid. Neither of VW's family middle weight sedans topped the charts for top speed and acceleration, nor for fuel consumption, and the K70's indifferent fuel consumption became an increasingly pressing issue because the car's production run coincided with the 1973 oil crisis
The 1973 oil crisis or first oil crisis began in October 1973 when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), led by Saudi Arabia, proclaimed an oil embargo. The embargo was targeted at nations that had supp ...
.
For what was essentially a limited production car, the K70 did undergo numerous changes. Most of them were intended to increase the parts commonality with other Volkswagen products (which was initially nearly none at all). The original square-edged bumpers were replaced with the rounded ones of the Audi 100
The Audi 100 and Audi 200 (and sometimes called Audi 5000 in North America) are primarily mid-size/executive cars manufactured and marketed by the Audi division of the Volkswagen Group. The car was made from 1968 to 1997 across four generations (C ...
in August 1971. The shifter linkage was simplified in the spring of 1972, which improved the shift action; a new synchronization design introduced in August 1972 (for the 1973 model year) further improved it. At this time the car was also modified beneath the front bumper, with new openings in the sheet metal to provide better cooling for the differential. At the same time, the L versions' rectangular headlights were replaced with twin round units which distanced the car slightly from its NSU origins. In August 1974 the three-spoke steering wheel was replaced with a padded, four-spoke item also used in the Beetle. The May 1973 introduction of an version with a claimed addressed performance concerns and was accompanied by redesigned engine and transmission mountings intended to reduce interior noise.[ The final K70s did out-accelerate the final 412s, and had a higher maximum speed with the 411/412 offering a fuel mileage advantage.
]
Design
Tall by contemporary standards, the K70 benefited from the space saving characteristics of its front wheel drive
Front-wheel drive (FWD) is a form of engine and transmission layout used in motor vehicles, where the engine drives the front wheels only. Most modern front-wheel drive vehicles feature a transverse engine, rather than the conventional lon ...
layout and compact engine installation. The boxy cabin was unusually spacious and the luggage capacity class leading. The driver sat slightly higher than in competitor vehicles and the large window area conferred above average all-round visibility.[ The relatively large glass area also led to the car carrying an above average proportion of its weight above waist height, however, rendering a wide ]track
Track or Tracks may refer to:
Routes or imprints
* Ancient trackway, any track or trail whose origin is lost in antiquity
* Animal track, imprints left on surfaces that an animal walks across
* Desire path, a line worn by people taking the shorte ...
particularly important in order to ensure lateral stability.[
The 1960s was a decade when forward looking manufacturers were highlighting secondary safety features. Those on the K70 included a fuel tank mounted directly ahead of the rear axle and boot/trunk, within the wheelbase.][ As publicity for the ]Mercedes-Benz S Class
The Mercedes-Benz S-Class, formerly known as ''Sonderklasse'' (German for "special class", abbreviated as "S-Klasse"), is a series of full-sized luxury sedans, limousines and armored sedans produced by the German automaker Mercedes-Benz, a div ...
would stress when that car was launched in 1972, this was the least vulnerable position in terms of the risk of the fuel tank being punctured in the event of a crash. The steering column was angled in order to reduce the risk of its being pushed too far back into the passenger cabin, and while seat belt
A seat belt (also known as a safety belt, or spelled seatbelt) is a vehicle safety device designed to secure the driver or a passenger of a vehicle against harmful movement that may result during a collision or a sudden stop. A seat belt reduc ...
s were an optional extra, at least on the domestic market, mounting points for them were standard.
Commercial
For the Volkswagen dealership network, their staff trained over many years to promote and service rear-engined air-cooled cars, the appearance at relatively short notice of the water-cooled front-engined K70 presented a challenge. Although the car was priced below the Audi 100, there was an unavoidable overlap in the market place with the Volkswagen 411. Despite the different badging, some potential buyers may have tarred the K70 with the same brush as its unreliable NSU Ro 80 sister car, leading to poor sales. The car also gained a reputation for rampant body corrosion
Corrosion is a natural process that converts a refined metal into a more chemically stable oxide. It is the gradual deterioration of materials (usually a metal) by chemical or electrochemical reaction with their environment. Corrosion engine ...
from which it never recovered.
The K70 was replaced in 1973 by the Audi
Audi AG () is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. As a subsidiary of its parent company, the Volkswagen Group, Audi produces vehicles in nine production facilities worldwide.
Th ...
-based Volkswagen Passat
The Volkswagen Passat is a series of D-segment, large family cars manufactured and marketed by the Germany, German automobile manufacturer Volkswagen since 1973, and now in its eighth generation. It has been marketed variously as the Dasher, Sa ...
, although it continued in production until February 1975, by which time Volkswagen had produced 210,082 K70s. An alternative source gives the production total for the K70 as 211,127. Of these, only 800 were thought to have been produced in right-hand drive for the British market. The K70 together with the VW 411/412 ended up being the only cars ever to be produced at Salzgitter, the plant being turned over for engine and transmission manufacture for the entire Volkswagen Group, which continues to the present day.
Data
References
{{Volkswagen (Europe) timeline 1950-1979
K70
Sedans
Front-wheel-drive vehicles
1970s cars
Cars introduced in 1969