The Porsche Type 12 was a German project to develop an "Everyman's

automobile A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, peopl ...

" (''Auto für Jedermann'') for Zündapp. Fritz Neumeyer, then owner of Zündapp, ordered

Ferdinand Porsche Ferdinand Porsche (3 September 1875 – 30 January 1951) was a German automotive engineering, automotive engineer and founder of the Porsche, Porsche AG. He is best known for creating the first Petrol engine, gasoline–Electric motor, el ...

to design and build the prototype in 1931. Eventually, two saloons, and one drophead coupé were built. All of those cars were lost during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the last one in a bombing raid in Stuttgart in 1945. The Type 12 is considered an important early step in the development of the original Volkswagen. A replica of the Type 12 is on static display at the '' Museum Industrielkultur'' in

Nürnberg Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the largest city in Franconia, the second-largest city in the German state of Bavaria, and its 544,414 (2023) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest city in Germany. ...

Comparison with contemporary concepts

The Type 12 was an early example of the aerodynamic and rounded designs that came somewhat in vogue in the 1930s, developed concurrently with Mercedes-Benz's 120H, and ahead of Tatra's second V570 prototype, 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 ...

's F2-based, one-off rear-engined streamline prototype — both in 1933.DKW Auto-Union Project: DKW's 1933 Rear Engine Streamliner
/ref> In production cars the style was typified by the 1934 Chrysler and DeSoto Airflow, Toyota's AA copy of these (1936), and the eventual "People's car", the 1938 KdF-Wagen aka the Volkswagen Type 1 or ''Beetle''.
Contemporaneous prototypes with a more extreme focus on aerodynamics were the 1933

Dymaxion car The Dymaxion car was designed by American inventor Buckminster Fuller during the Great Depression and featured prominently at Chicago's 1933/1934 World's Fair. Fuller built three experimental prototypes with naval architect Starling Burgess ...

and Karl Schlör's Schlörwagen, developed from 1936 to 1939.Christopher, John. ''The Race for Hitler's X-Planes'' (The Mill, Gloucestershire: History Press, 2013), p.200.

Description

The vehicle has a single, U-profile, central beam frame as opposed to the VW Beetle's central tube platform chassis. The car's body (made by Reutter) has – for its time period – a reasonably aerodynamic shape with covered rear wheel arches. Both the front, and the rear axles are leaf sprung and feature a single, transverse leaf spring each. Porsche used a worm-gear steering box and four hydraulic drum brakes on the Type 12. The car already has the VW Beetle-typical drivetrain design with a combined rear gearbox differential unit with the engine directly flanged to its rear end, which means that, the rear axle is a

swing axle A swing axle is a simple type of independent suspension designed and patented by Edmund Rumpler in 1903 for the rear axle of rear wheel drive vehicles. This was a revolutionary invention in automotive suspension, allowing driven (powered) whee ...

, located in between the gearbox, and the engine. This was technically feasible because the engine was rather short in length. Unlike the VW Beetle, the Porsche Type 12 has a wet single disc clutch. The engine is a five-cylinder

radial Radial is a geometric term of location which may refer to: Mathematics and Direction * Vector (geometric), a line * Radius, adjective form of * Radial distance (geometry), a directional coordinate in a polar coordinate system * Radial set * A ...

Zündapp-made Otto (

spark ignition A spark-ignition engine (SI engine) is an internal combustion engine, generally a petrol engine, where the combustion process of the air-fuel mixture is ignited by a spark from a spark plug. This is in contrast to compression-ignition engines, ...

) engine, rather than the

flat four A flat-four engine, also known as a horizontally opposed-four engine or boxer engine, is a four-cylinder piston engine with two banks of cylinders lying on opposite sides of a common crankshaft. The most common type of flat-four engine is the box ...

Porsche preferred.Christopher, John. ''The Race for Hitler's X-Planes''. The Mill, Gloucestershire: History Press, 2013, p.200. The five-cylinder Zündapp engine is water-cooled, and has a regular water pump. The camshaft is of the cam drum variety (i. e. a very short camshaft) and actuates two

overhead valves An overhead valve engine, abbreviated (OHV) and sometimes called a pushrod engine, is a piston engine whose valves are located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with flathead (or "sidevalve") engines, where the va ...

per cylinder. With its 70 by 62 mm bore and stroke, the engine displaces . It has a compression of ε=5.3, a single Zenith 26 mm carburettor, and produces at 3200/min. The car's top speed is .

Gallery

File:Porsche Typ12 Model Nuremberg.jpg, Right side of the Type 12 Replica File:Porsche Typ12 Model Nuremberg Engine.jpg, Five cylinder radial engine in the Type 12 replica File:Porsche typ12.jpg, Scale model of the Porsche Type 12

Notes

{{Porsche vehicles 1930s cars Cars introduced in 1931 Automobiles powered by radial engines Cars powered by rear-mounted 5-cylinder engines Subcompact cars Type 12