Post by: Cool Hand Luke 22:36 on May 14, 2005, 10:22:42 PM
Like the (rip-off) Beetle it has a horizontally opposed, air-cooled rear engine.
Here's more on the story:
http://www.autosoviet.altervista.org/main-english.htm
Post by: Cool Hand Luke 22:36 on May 15, 2005, 05:20:38 AM
Quote
Yeah, that stuff typically happens when armies at war take over things. Shall we start returning land to the indians?
And, VW started making the Beetle years before the war. They ripped off Tatra's design well before the war started.Quote
The engineer Hans Ledwinka, instead, never was indemnified for the illegal use of the patents:
Dr. Porsche was a fraud. That's my point. People need to get past the myth of German engineering prowess.And yes, we should return the land to the original inhabitants of N. America, who, as archeologists now know, were in fact, the Irish.
Post by: K Frame on May 15, 2005, 10:49:18 AM
Hitler used the myth of the Beetle to suction millions of Reichsmarks out of the pockets of working Germans under the premise that they were deductions for one of these Volkswagons. After enough payments had been made, you could go pick up your car and on the way out of the lot give the old stiff-arm salute to the big picture of Hitler.
There was no intent of ever making the German people mobile, it was simply an easy way to raise funds for war.
Post by: Cool Hand Luke 22:36 on May 15, 2005, 12:22:12 PM
Quote
And you're surprised... how?
I'm not suprised really. We are talking after all, about the socialists who made lampshades of the skin of murdered Jews. I just found this interesting from a historical standpoint. People seem to have the mistaken impression that Porsche was a genius of some sort. And most of that opinion is based on his design of the Beetle.
Post by: mfree on May 16, 2005, 03:56:10 AM
Post by: Harold Tuttle on May 16, 2005, 05:57:01 AM
Quote
People need to get past the myth of German engineering prowess.
Post by: K Frame on May 16, 2005, 07:04:23 AM
Everyone knows that the Germans simply got that jet engine by copying the Kalihari Bushmen.
Or the V2 rocket from the designs of a cat in Reno, Nevada.
Post by: mtnbkr on May 16, 2005, 07:32:37 AM
Regarding the purchase plan, the workers who kept their "coupons books" till after the war got a discount on a VW once production restarted (thanks to the Brits).
FWIW, I drove a 72 Beetle for 6 years.
Chris
Post by: mfree on May 16, 2005, 08:04:16 AM
Tatra had the V570 #2 prototype finished and running in 1933. Rear engine, air cooled 2 cylinder (very shortly later was the T75 project with a 1.48 liter flat 4m still in 1933) and looked shockingly like... a VW beetle.
"In the early 1930s Tatra engineers, under the direction of Hans Ledwinka's son Erich and design engineer Erich Ãœbelacker, started work on the development of a small people's car with a rear-mounted engine in a backbone frame. Ledwinka was very consistent in his belief that an air-cooled rear-mounted engine would bring with it several big advantages, like reducing efficiency loss in the drive shaft and noise and vibration caused by the drive shaft. Elimination of the drive shaft also ment a more comfortable passenger compartment as there would be no central floor tunnel and the passengers would be able to sit fairly low and well forward of the rear axle. This ment a lower centre of gravity and a more favourable inter-axle weight distribution. Mounting the engine in the rear would mean shortening the front part of the body to make a longer tail possible, which was consistent with the laws of aerodynamics. Also the noise regenerated by the engine would not disturb the passengers and would not be heard when driving at a speed of over 50 km/h. Air-cooling would solve the problem of freezing radiators during the winter and boiling radiators during the summer due to the climate in Central-Europe."
Post by: K Frame on May 16, 2005, 08:04:29 AM
Ask Herb how long it took his Beetle to warm up in Minnesota, Chris.
Post by: mfree on May 16, 2005, 08:08:59 AM
Top speed of 150km/h...err... I mean 93mph. Stellar for 1935! Especially for a big sedan.
Post by: mtnbkr on May 16, 2005, 08:20:10 AM
Quote
Ask Herb how long it took his Beetle to warm up in Minnesota, Chris
Mine worked fine in Va and NC. Then again, I made sure I replaced the aging heater hoses (paper with metal supports!) and installed new heater boxes. Heck, my windshield defrosters even worked. In freezing weather, it took about 5 miles of driving to warm the system up enough to be comfortable. The few times I had to deal with sub-zero weather, it took about half an hour to warm up. My biggest complaint is that the blower was based on engine rpm. Therefore, at idle, you'd get less heat than at cruising speed. So, around town with lots of stops, it could take a bit longer to warm the cabin than on road trips. On longer trips, I would end up with the heat just barely turned on. I've driven modern cars that didn't warm that quickly though. My wife's old Pontiac Grand Sham, I mean Grand Am being an example...Being in Minnesota, he should've bought a gasoline heater rather than relying on the stock system. My mechanic had one since his oversized exhaust pipes were too big for the stock heater boxes. He swore by it and I decided I'd go that route myself if I ever had to eliminate the heater boxes for similar reasons (sidebar: why doesn't someone design heater boxes for oversized exhaust systems?).
The AC system was another issue though. I never could find the compressor...
Chris
Post by: K Frame on May 16, 2005, 09:23:01 AM
It was right beside the water pump.
And you say you owned a Beetle.
Tut tut.
Beetle owner wanna-be fraud.
What will you be telling us next, that you were a Ninja in the Seels?
Post by: mtnbkr on May 16, 2005, 10:01:38 AM
I've seen watercooled heads for VW engines. They were painfully expensive and not terribly effective, but they were out there for the Cali hotrodder wannabes who also did things like cover their aircooled engines with chrome or used those silly decklid standoffs that were supposed to offer additional cooling (but didn't because getting cooling air to the engine was never a problem).
I miss my Bug.
Chris
Post by: K Frame on May 16, 2005, 11:02:55 AM
Well, it's not as if they're rare or expensive...
Post by: mtnbkr on May 16, 2005, 11:16:59 AM
Quote
Well, it's not as if they're rare or expensive
They are not as common as they were when I bought mine and much more expensive ($2k for a driveable specimen).Hard to justify one these days anyway.
Chris
Post by: Cool Hand Luke 22:36 on May 16, 2005, 01:09:41 PM
Thanks for the additional example of German technological perfidity. They of course stole the basics of jet engine from the British, who had patents on the technology about 6 years prior to the Germans having anything close to a woking prototype.
Post by: Cool Hand Luke 22:36 on May 16, 2005, 01:14:34 PM
Quote
Or the V2 rocket from the designs of a cat in Reno, Nevada.
Wernher Von Braun & the rest of the German rocket scientists simply pilfered most of their technology from the American Robert Goddard.
Post by: Cool Hand Luke 22:36 on May 16, 2005, 01:18:44 PM
Post by: K Frame on May 16, 2005, 05:59:40 PM
Wrong.
Men in both nations, as well as others, had been working on the concept of a turbine powered engine
since at least the early 1920s.
Griffith's work was largely a dead end.
Whittle's work showed a lot more promise, but in one of those coincidences in history, both he and von Ohain were working on the same concept at the same time without knowing of the other's work.
What's more important is that von Ohain and engineers at at least 4 German aircraft concerns passed Whittle's work and developed a working, stable, and airworthy prototype several years before Whittle. Even Whittle admitted that they had solved problems using solutions that he didn't try.
"Frankly, I wouldn't be at all suprised to learn that the Germans had stolen the idea for pickled cabbage (Sourkraut) from the Koreans (Kim Chee)."
Yow. And you think the Koreans were the first to pickle cabbage?
How about sausage?
One thing you'd do well to understand about technology of just about any type.
It is rarely, if ever, an Archimedia "Eureka" process.
One inventor's workable creation always owes great debts to developments and discoveries that have come before.
It's how an inventor/engineer, any inventor/engineer, comes to the process of making the final product viable that is the important concept.
The Haber-Bosch process, for instance.
Drew on chemistry and physics developments made by men in at least half a dozen nations, and put them together in a way that no one had before.
Post by: mtnbkr on May 17, 2005, 02:20:36 AM
Quote
One inventor's workable creation always owes great debts to developments and discoveries that have come before.
Funny how CNS used that same point to educate us rubes at The Roundtable about the Ansari X Prize competition last summer. If The Roundtable still existed, I'd quote him here.Chris
Post by: mfree on May 17, 2005, 03:46:52 AM
Post by: Tallpine on May 17, 2005, 06:28:14 AM
I never could keep the lights or horn working for more than a few blocks. The "sockets" for the turn signal bulbs were just the beer can thickness metal of the reflector cone bent into a shape that would hold the bulb about long enough to get the lense cover screwed back on.
Post by: mtnbkr on May 17, 2005, 06:52:33 AM
People would have better luck with old Veedubs if they'd stay away from the JC Whitney catalog or the flashy ads in the back of HotVWs magazine.
Chris
Post by: mfree on May 19, 2005, 03:49:46 AM