June 2009 – The vehicle that is on display at PROTOTYP now is neither a car nor a motorcycle: it is an original “driving machine” by Ernst Neumann-Neander from 1939, a case sui generis.
On the race tracks of the 1930s this vehicle must have seemed like an ufo. Still nowadays the driving machine surprises not only with its design but with details like the gauges which are integrated in the steering wheel – like today Formula 1.
In 1939 Ernst Neumann-Neander built this vehicle with its tube frame, its body out of aircraft plywood and its 2 cylinders JAP-engine (1000 ccm, 55HP and patent rocker arms).
Neumann-Neander had the vision to build simple and affordable cars for everyone. But because of the complex and therefore expensive individual production of the vehicles this vision had to fail.
The driving machine was built in two versions: with four and with three wheels. The three wheeler had two front wheels which decline in bends – a technique ahead of the times.