The Denzel

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded ...

was an early competitor to Porsche in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

beginning in 1948. Although some automobile historians have relegated this marque to the category of a builder of "specials", the Denzel was manufactured for approximately 7–8 years after 5 years of development with total output approaching 300 units ending in 1959 according to the biography of Wolfgang Denzel on the company web site. Denzel achieved worldwide publicity with their stunning win of the 1954

Alpine Rally The Alpine Rally, also known by its official name Coupe des Alpes, was a rally competition based in Marseille and held from 1932 to 1971. In the 1950s and the 1960s, it was among the most prestigious rallies in the world and featured an internat ...

. Denzel only manufactured open

roadsters __NOTOC__ Roadster may refer to: Transportation * Roadster (automobile), an open, two-seat, often sporty car ** Roadster utility, an automobile with an open-topped roadster body and a rear cargo bed * Roadster (bicycle), a utilitarian bicycle, ty ...

, similar in style to the first post-war Porsche prototype. Like the Porsche marque launched in the ashes of

World War II 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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Denzel developed its own enhanced VW drivetrain components, and on occasion even used Porsche engines in some of its later models. Earliest models used handcrafted steel bodies but switched to

aluminum Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It h ...

bodies in the mid-1950s. Wolfgang Denzel was the owner of the Denzel Automobile Company located in Austria, which created the automobile. Today this is the Wolfgang Denzel AG, a

Car dealership A car dealership, or car dealer, is a business that sells new or used cars, at the retail level, based on a dealership contract with an automaker or its sales subsidiary. Car dealerships also often sell spare parts and automotive maint ...

company.

External links

Wolfgang Denzel AG
Car manufacturers of Austria Auto dealerships {{Austria-company-stub