Adler 2.5-litre
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The Adler 2.5-litre (in German Adler 2,5 Liter) was a sensation when first presented by
Adler Adler may refer to: Places *Adler, Alabama, an unincorporated community in Perry County * Adler Planetarium, Chicago, Illinois, USA * Adler Township, Nelson County, North Dakota, USA * Adler University, formerly Adler School of Professional Psych ...
at the
Berlin Motor Show The Berlin Motor Show originally started in 1897 in the Germany, German capital Berlin as the home of the International Motor Show Germany, International Motor Show (''Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung'', IAA) and ran until 1939. From 1951 the I ...
early in 1937, although this did not convert into correspondingly sensational sales.
Oswald Oswald may refer to: People *Oswald (given name), including a list of people with the name * Oswald (surname), including a list of people with the name Fictional characters *Oswald the Reeve, who tells a tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's ''The Canterbu ...
, p 34
Production got under way in November 1937. Seen as a successor for the six cylinder Adler Diplomat, it was an executive sedan/saloon featuring a strikingly streamlined body designed by Karl Jenschke (1899–1969) who till 1935 had been the Director of Engineering with
Steyr-Daimler-Puch Steyr-Daimler-Puch () was a large manufacturing conglomerate based in Steyr, Austria, which was broken up in stages between 1987 and 2001. The component parts and operations continued to exist under separate ownership and new names. History Th ...
. Jenschke's last creation during his time with Steyr had been the
Steyr 50 The Steyr 50 is a supermini, small car released in 1936 by the Austrian automobile manufacturer Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG. Design The streamliner, streamlined body was approved by Director Karl Jenschke to be constructed in 1935, however, in November ...
which the Adler 2.5-litre, though larger, closely resembled. Both on account of its uncompromisingly stream-lined silhouette and because its launch coincided with Germany’s first
Autobahn The (; German , ) is the federal controlled-access highway system in Germany. The official term is (abbreviated ''BAB''), which translates as 'federal motorway'. The literal meaning of the word is 'Federal Auto(mobile) Track'. Much of t ...
construction boom, the car was popularly known as the Autobahn Adler. The body for the four-door fast back saloon came from
Ambi-Budd Ambi-Budd was a German automobile body company founded by Edward Gowen Budd. In Germany, Edward Gowen Budd worked with Arthur Müller and set up a steel pressing plant ''Ambi Budd Presswerke'' (ABP) in the old Rumpler factory and became a succes ...
whose Berlin based German business made the steel bodies for several of Germany’s large automakers in the decade before the
war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...
. The two- and four-door cabriolet bodies came from
Karmann Wilhelm Karmann GmbH, commonly known as Karmann, was a German automobile manufacturer and contract manufacturer based in Osnabrück, Germany. Founded by Wilhelm Karmann in 1901, the company specialised in various automotive roles, including d ...
of
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.


Engine and transmission

The Adler 2.5-litre was powered by a longitudinally installed water-cooled straight-six side-valve engine of 2,494 cc displacement, with a four-bearing crankshaft and pressured lubrication. The side valves were controlled via a chain-driven camshaft. The radiator, engine and gear box were all set well forward in the car, and power was delivered to the rear wheels via a four-speed manual transmission which included synchromesh on the top three ratios. The gear lever emerged directly from the centre of the dashboard.
Oswald Oswald may refer to: People *Oswald (given name), including a list of people with the name * Oswald (surname), including a list of people with the name Fictional characters *Oswald the Reeve, who tells a tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's ''The Canterbu ...
, p 37


Structure and running gear

The load bearing aspects of the car’s structure were a welded box chassis with a floor platform. Side elements of the frame were bowed in order to provide for a roomy passenger cabin. As a result, the car was more than wider than contemporary competitors from Mercedes-Benz and BMW, though only slightly wider than a 1997
Volkswagen Golf Mk4 The Volkswagen Golf Mk4 (or VW ''Type 1J'') is a compact car, the fourth generation of the Volkswagen Golf and the successor to the Volkswagen Golf Mk3. Launched in October 1997 for the 1998 model year, it was the best selling car in Europe in 2 ...
. The front suspension employed wishbones and quarter-elliptical springs. The rear wheels were attached to a swing axle with a transverse leaf spring and tie rods. The differential was bolted to the frame. All four wheels used hydraulic
Shock absorber A shock absorber or damper is a mechanical or hydraulics, hydraulic device designed to absorb and Damping ratio, damp shock (mechanics), shock impulses. It does this by converting the kinetic energy of the shock into another form of energy (typic ...
s and hydraulically controlled drum brakes. The steering used a ZF manufactured Ross system


The body

Welded to the frame was a four-door fast back steel body for which the drag coefficient quoted was a remarkable 0.36. The standard body came with four doors, all hinged on the B-pillar, and a huge steel sun roof panel which extended almost to the full width of the roof, and from just behind the front windscreen to half way over the rear doors. In 1939 the size of the removable roof panel was reduced in order to make it more manageable.Odin, L.C. ''World in Motion 1939, The whole of the year's automobile production''. Belvedere Publishing, 2015. ASIN: B00ZLN91ZG. At the front two headlights were placed close together either side of the grill, but these proved inadequate, and in 1938 a second pair of “wide beam” lights was set into the wings, although from 1938 the regulations permitted only one of these. Other improvements in 1939 included a full size external lid for the luggage compartment in place of the minimalist opening on the original cars designed only for accessing the spare wheel, access to the rear luggage compartment having originally been achieved by leaning over the back seat from within the car, an arrangement which was still quite normal on European cars until well into the early 1950s. The rear wheels also received the “spats” (covers) in 1939, and a redesigned dashboard now incorporated much clearer instrumentation.


Broadening the range

In 1938 the range was broadened with the arrival of the ''Adler 2.5-liter Sport'', with a two-door body that from outside was clearly closely related to that of the 2.5-litre saloon, though actually the Sport was both lower and slightly longer, and thereby relatively cramped and uncomfortable. The upper part of the rear wheels was covered by the body work (properly called spats, and quickly removable for wheel changes). This body was the work of a
Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...
coachbuilder called
Gläser-Karosserie Gläser-Karosserie GmbH was a German coachbuilder, based in Dresden, and known in particular as a producer of bespoke cabriolet car bodies. The enterprise was founded in 1864 and lasted, by some criteria, till 1952. History Early years In 1864 ...
. The Sport model shared its 2,494 cc 6-cylinder engine with the sedan/saloon, but in place of the standard car’s single carburetter this one came with three. The compression ratio was raised and the lower three gear ratios were mildly lowered. of maximum power was claimed in place of the standard engine’s .


Commercial

The first “Autobahn Adlers“ were delivered to customers in November 1937, priced at 5,750
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for the standard bodied limousine. The cabriolets were only a few hundred Marks more. The powerful Sport-Limousine came with a rather higher recommended retail price of 8,750
Marks Marks may refer to: Business * Mark's, a Canadian retail chain * Marks & Spencer, a British retail chain * Collective trade marks A collective trademark, collective trade mark, or collective mark is a trademark owned by an organization (such ...
. By way of a comparison, the market leader in this category was probably the Mercedes-Benz 230 which underwent a relaunch in the second half of 1937. In 1937 the four-door sedan/saloon version of the Mercedes came with a manufacturer's recommended retail price of 5,875
Marks Marks may refer to: Business * Mark's, a Canadian retail chain * Marks & Spencer, a British retail chain * Collective trade marks A collective trademark, collective trade mark, or collective mark is a trademark owned by an organization (such ...
, though it was possible to pay more than 9,300
Marks Marks may refer to: Business * Mark's, a Canadian retail chain * Marks & Spencer, a British retail chain * Collective trade marks A collective trademark, collective trade mark, or collective mark is a trademark owned by an organization (such ...
for a cabriolet version.
Oswald Oswald may refer to: People *Oswald (given name), including a list of people with the name * Oswald (surname), including a list of people with the name Fictional characters *Oswald the Reeve, who tells a tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's ''The Canterbu ...
, p 254
Between 1937 and 1940, when production came to an end, 5,295 of the cars were produced. By comparison,
BMW Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, trading as BMW Group (commonly abbreviated to BMW (), sometimes anglicised as Bavarian Motor Works), is a German multinational manufacturer of vehicles and motorcycles headquartered in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Th ...
produced 15,936 of their more conservatively styled but slightly smaller
326 __NOTOC__ Year 326 ( CCCXXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Constantinus and Constantinus (or, less frequently, year 1079 ''Ab urbe condita''). The den ...
. The overall size of the German car market in the late 1930s was little more than 200,000 per year, but most of the top sellers, then as now, were
small family car The C-segment is the 3rd category of the European segments for passenger cars and is described as "medium cars". It is equivalent to the Euro NCAP "small family car" size class, and the compact car category in the United States. In 2024, the C-s ...
s produced, at that time, by the likes of
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and
DKW DKW (''Dampfkraftwagen'', – the same initials later also used for ''Des Knaben Wunsch'', ; ''Das Kleine Wunder'', and ''Deutsche Kinderwagen'', ) was a German car- and motorcycle-marque. DKW was one of the four companies that formed Auto U ...
. Even in that context, however, the volumes achieved by the Adler 2.5-litre were less impressive than the car’s reception at the 1937 motor show might have led the manufacturer to anticipate.


References

This entry incorporates information from the German Wikipedia equivalent article. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Adler 2.5-litre Cars introduced in 1937 2.5-litre Executive cars Rear-wheel-drive vehicles 1930s cars