AutoCult Leichtbau Maier (1935) (Germany)

About the Original:

Tragedy of an Idealist

The graduate engineer Friedrich Eugen Maier already made a good name in the aircraft industry as he switched into the car industry at the beginning of the 1930´s. The 32-old man founded a car workshop in the Sömmeringstraße 31/32 in Charlottenburg, a district of Berlin.

On 2nd of April 1930, he applied for a patent at the Reichspatentamt, in which we would like to protect his self-supporting car body. This idea was showing that his thoughts and designs were one step ahead of a lot of the other producers at the time. In the course of the proclaimed motorization of the nation in the form of a “national car” by the government in 1933, he benefited from a chemical plant near Munich, which provided him 300.000 gold marks to produce a “national car”.  He put a car on its wheels with this money that could quite meet the requirements given by the government. Primarily this was the installation of the engine in the rear, the suitability of the newly built highway, a complete closed car body and an interior that offered space for four persons. Friedrich Eugen Maier was using for the drive a two-stroke engine of a DKW automobile and was realizing innovations, which until than had not existed in a passenger car. Apart from the self-supporting car body, especially a centrally located headlight at the front was significant, whose technology was hidden behind a swivel mechanism, which adjusted the steering angle. The engineer also applied for a patent for this solution at the Deutsches Reichspatent as well as height-adjustable driver´s seat and also a changeable chassis. He was completing his drivable prototype in January 1935 under the designation Leichtbau Maier. Unfortunately his prototype found no approval among government circles, and he and his far-sighted ideas were forgotten.

It remained in a single produced car by himself. Friedrich Eugen Maier finally died in poverty and regardless at the age of 78 in Berlin. After his death his prototype was brought in to life by Jörg Jansen in 2008.