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I noted with interest, while reading FSW 06/2003, photographs
of the newly released models by Swiss Mini of the Le Mans
Borgwards and since these cars only appeared in 1953 I thought
it would make an appropriate extra chapter to the tales I
have recently written about that outstanding edition of the
Le Mans 24 hour race. Older enthusiasts will no doubt recall
the Borgward Isabella, a well-made and highly competent 1
1/2-litre saloon introduced in 1954 and one which was more
than able to hold its own on the race tracks. And so what
was the provenance of Borgward, a name that means little to
the modern-day race-goer?
Carl Borgward,
a native of Hamburg, was initially active in producing component
parts for cars in a factory in Bremen in northern Germany
in the early twenties. This was the starting point for this
ambitious man to build his car empire. By the end of the decade
he had acquired the Goliath company, makers of small 3-wheeler
and 4-wheeler commercial vehicles, and the Gärtner body
manufacturing concern. He also gained ultimate control over
the Hansa-Lloyd concern, producers of Hansa cars during the
nineteen-thirties.
These all
merged to become the Borgward company in Bremen, and the Borgward
name was applied to cars just before the outbreak of the Second
World War. This conflict eventually left the Borgward factories
80 per cent destroyed but in typically Teutonic fashion they
were up and running very effectively by 1948. Borgward then
introduced the Hansa 1500 saloon at the 1949 Geneva Salon
and this was the first all-new German car on the market after
the war.
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Happily for motor sport lovers, Carl Borgward believed
in the positive advantages of throwing his cars into competition
and to this end the company developed a very streamlined 1500c.c.
sports-racer for the 1952 season. It was based on a lightweight
twin-tubed chassis which was drilled with, it is said, no
fewer that two thousand holes to achieve lightness. Coil spring
independent suspension was fitted all round. This car was
designed by Karl Brandt and the engine was a development of
that of the Hansa 1500 saloon.
Competition
in the smaller sports car classes was already fierce in Germany
by the early fifties, the BMW-engined Veritas and increasingly
competitive Porsches offering strong rivalry to newcomers
such as the Borgward. The Bremen car first appeared at the
Eifelrennen in May 1952 but did not make its mark until the
team returned to the Nurburgring to contest the 1500c.c. sports
car race which accompanied the “Grosser Preis von Deutschland”
in August. Here a promising second place was achieved by Hans
Hugo Hartmann, a former Mercedes-Benz reserve Grand Prix driver
who had steered one of the all-conquering Silver Arrows to
an 8th place in the 1939 Eifelrennen and a final 7th in that
year’s Swiss Grand Prix at Berne.
Later in August
1952 Hartmann gave Borgward its first win with the car at
the Grenzlandring and backed this with a further victory at
the daunting Avus track in September when his team-mate Adolf
Brudes, a former motor-cyclist, backed him up with 3rd position.
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Records were achieved in October at Montlhéry and the
1953 season saw Hartmann and Brudes score a 2nd and 3rd at
May’s Eifelrennen on the Nurburgring. However, the team
had three entries for the 1953 Le Mans which was to be Borgward’s
big step into international racing. Three all-alloy bodied
coupés were built but one was written-off before the
team set off and this reduced the runners to two. Prior to
Le Mans Borgward took a car to Montlhéry in May equipped
with an 1800c.c. diesel engine wearing a similar coupé
body to that of the Le Mans cars and records were successfully
broken in the 50km up to 200 miles categories.
In June the
two race cars were driven from Bremen to Le Mans as was the
customary procedure in those golden days and troubles quickly
began as an over-ambitious official tested the windscreen
with a hammer, smashing it to pieces, the frustrated mechanics
only just able to repair it in time! Car no. 41 was entered
for Frenchmen Jacques Poch and his friend Edmond Mouche -
Poch needs an article all to himself, having made good through
importing foreign cars, especially those from Czechoslovakia
and having already piloted an Aero-Minor in the famous race.
Mouche had the distinction with Auguste Veuillet of giving
Porsche a class win on the marque’s very first appearance
in the race in 1951, the two of them repeating the feat the
following year!
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Car no.42 was entrusted to the
two loyal German drivers Hartmann and Brudes, and this was
to be, as it turned out, the only occasion on which the two
of them graced Le Mans. Misfortune certainly struck them in
the race for their car ran out of fuel in the third hour (there’s
nothing new under the sun!). Their team-mates went well, and
were as high as 18th out of 27 runners in the last hour. Here
misfortune caught up with them in a most unjust way: Mouche,
quite understandably, eased off a bit in the final hour in
a well intentioned desire to save the engine but, alas, as
he dropped the revs so a serious vibration on the crankshaft
developed which eventually destroyed this vital component
in the last half hour. Thus did neither Borgward finish the
race.
Drama there
was again for back in Bremen car no.42 was completely destroyed
in another crash and the other, which happily survives in
Sweden, had also been crashed before being restored!
Borgward went
on to produce some more exciting open-bodied racers which
were equipped with fuel injection and eventually twin-overhead
cams. These offered strong opposition to Porsches especially
in German national events and European Hill-Climbs. And Poch
did some record-breaking in the original streamliner at Montlhéry.
Interestingly,
visitors to the Frankfurt Motor Show in March 1953 would have
seen a production version of the Le Mans-type coupé
but not much more seems to have been heard of this. And, sadly,
not much more was heard of Borgward in the sixties either
for Carl Borgward’s motor empire collapsed in 1961 and
he himself died in 1963.
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