The Borgward P100 is a large four-door sedan first presented in September 1959 at the

Frankfurt Motor Show The International Motor Show Germany or International Mobility Show Germany, in German known as the ''Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung'' (''IAA'' – International Automobile Exhibition), is one of the world's largest mobility shows. It cons ...

, and produced by the

Bremen Bremen ( Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state cons ...

based auto-manufacturer Carl F. W. Borgward GmbH between January 1960 and July 1961.

Design and engineering

The design featured the ponton,

three-box The configuration of a car body is typically determined by the layout of the engine, passenger and luggage compartments, which can be shared or separately articulated. A key design feature is the car's roof-supporting pillar (car), pillars, design ...

design pioneered by Borgward in

1949 Events January * January 1 – A United Nations-sponsored ceasefire brings an end to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. The war results in a stalemate and the division of Kashmir, which still continues as of 2022. * January 2 – Luis ...

, but now filled out to the relatively angular corners, reminiscent of the style being popularised by

Pininfarina Pininfarina S.p.A. (short for Carrozzeria Pininfarina) is an Italian car design firm and coachbuilder, with headquarters in Cambiano, Turin, Italy. The company was founded by Battista "Pinin" Farina in 1930. On 14 December 2015, the Indian ...

with designs such as that of the Fiat 1800. Like the Farina designs, the P100 featured small angular

tailfins The tailfin era of automobile styling encompassed the 1950s and 1960s, peaking between 1955 and 1961. It was a style that spread worldwide, as car designers picked up styling trends from the US automobile industry, where it was regarded as the ...

. The P100 followed the structural approach of the existing Isabella, incorporating an

integral In mathematics, an integral assigns numbers to functions in a way that describes displacement, area, volume, and other concepts that arise by combining infinitesimal data. The process of finding integrals is called integration. Along with ...

chassis. The

straight-6 The straight-six engine (also referred to as an inline-six engine; abbreviated I6 or L6) is a piston engine with six cylinders arranged in a straight line along the crankshaft. A straight-six engine has perfect primary and secondary engine bala ...

2240 cc engine derived from that fitted in earlier Borgward six-cylinder sedans, of which the most recent had been the Borgward Hansa 2400 Pullman. Advertised performance figures included a power output of and a maximum speed of around . Contemporary publicity material highlighted the car’s revolutionary self-levelling

air suspension Air suspension is a type of vehicle suspension powered by an electric or engine-driven air pump or compressor. This compressor pumps the air into a flexible bellows, usually made from textile-reinforced rubber. Unlike hydropneumatic suspension, ...

Commercial

The P100 was competing in the six-cylinder sedan sector which through the 1950s had become ever more dominated by Mercedes-Benz, whose 220SE model also received a modern chiselled body shape in 1960. Borgward’s previous six-cylinder sedans had achieved only limited market penetration, and early reports that the P100 was confirming Borgward’s reputation for introducing new models beset by teething troubles suggested that despite its technically adventurous suspension and modern style, the P100 might struggle to compete against Stuttgart’s well established reputation for producing dependable sedans. Nevertheless, during its nineteen months in production, the P100 notched up over 2,500 cars produced, putting it on course usefully to outperform earlier six-cylinder Borgwards in the market place. The bankruptcy of the business in August 1961 brought P100 production to an end, although the plant did complete another 47 cars in the days following the bankruptcy. The model enjoyed a brief afterlife: the production line was sold and shipped to Mexico by Grupo Industrial Ramirez in Monterrey NL, where between 1967 and 1970 more than 2,000 additional P100s were produced.

References

{{Borgward timeline 1945 to 1970 Cars introduced in 1959 P100 Executive cars Rear-wheel-drive vehicles 1960s cars