Otto Kässbohrer (26 January 1904 – 20 June 1989,
Ulm) was a German
entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones.
An entreprene ...
and vehicle
manufacturer
Manufacturing is the creation or Production (economics), production of goods with the help of equipment, Work (human activity), labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the
secondary se ...
. In 1951 he designed and constructed one of the first
chassisless bus
A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used ...
es.
Life
Kässbohrer started his apprenticeship in 1919 in the
Karl Kässbohrer Fahrzeugwerke
Karl Kässbohrer Fahrzeugwerke GmbH was a German vehicle manufacturer in Ulm. Its products were buses, Coach (bus), coaches, vehicle transporters, Trailer (vehicle), trailers and special vehicles like Snow grooming, snow groomer vehicles. The ...
vehicle factory which had been established by
:de:Karl Heinrich Kässbohrer, his father, in 1893. His apprenticeship was formally completed when he received his
qualification certificate in 1922. That same year, on 26 December, his father died, and Kässbohrer took control of the business together with his brother, Karl, who was studying for an engineering qualification at the time.
The firm employed 20 people at this stage, and was already specializing in public transport vehicles. In 1928 Kässbohrer purchased an
Ulm coach building firm called ''Neuner & Thieme'' which had run into difficulties. He decided to specialize in producing buses, trailers and vehicle bodies.
Twenty years later Otto Kässbohrer found time to marry his wife, Kathi Kemnitz. 1948 was also the year in which he was nominated chairman of the politically powerful
VDA (Automotive Industry Association).
In 1951 he succeeded in building one of the first chassisless buses, under the name
Setra (SElbst-TRAgend / Self-supporting). At this time
monocoque
Monocoque ( ), also called structural skin, is a structural system in which loads are supported by an object's external skin, in a manner similar to an egg shell. The word ''monocoque'' is a French term for "single shell".
First used for boats, ...
bodied cars, inspired by the pre-war
Opel Olympia, were beginning to appear, and applying equivalent structural approach to motor coaches was a logical extension of this development in the auto industry. Just two years later, at the 1953
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 trade fairs. I ...
, Setra presented Europe’s first
articulated bus
An articulated bus, also referred to as a slinky bus, bendy bus, tandem bus, vestibule bus, stretch bus, or an accordion bus, is an articulated vehicle, typically a motor bus or trolleybus, used in public transportation. It is usually a ...
, with space, it was claimed, for 170 passengers. A feature of the Setra buses that was unusual at that time was their rear-mounted engines, which made it possible to incorporate relatively low floors and doors along most of the length of the passenger cabin. But later designs also became available featuring high floors, with space below the passenger deck for luggage and, on long distance coaches, other enhancements such as drivers’ bunks and passenger toilets. Already in the 1950s Setra delivered the first three-axle, high-deck buses, the “Silver Eagle” and the “Golden Eagle” in North America
In 1973 his brother and co-director, Karl Kässbohrer, died, and Otto Kässbohrer took on the sole leadership role.
Four years later he funded a window, known as the ''Fenster der Erfüllung'' (Window of fulfillment) in the
local cathedral, and in 1978 Ulm recognized his contribution to the city’s success, honouring him with a medal for service to the city.
In 1982 chairmanship of the firm passed to Kässbohrer’s nephew. Two years later, in 1984, he led the creation of the ''Otto Kässbohrer Foundation'', a charitable foundation whose objectives included providing support for employees who had, through no fault of their own, fallen on hard times. In January 1989, on his 85th birthday, he received the
Albrecht Berblinger Award, and six months later, on 20 June, he died.
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kassbohrer, Otto
1904 births
1989 deaths
German automotive pioneers
Businesspeople from Baden-Württemberg
Engineers from Ulm