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A mystery car identified – 1934 Zündapp prototype

Anders Ditlev Clausager has put us out of our misery and has given us all the information he has on the mystery car in the picture he sent to us.  He would still be grateful for any more information that readers can give him.

If you do have any information, just use the “Leave a Comment” facility below.

Anders writes as follows:

“This slightly awkward-looking sports car is a prototype made by the German Zündapp company of Nuremberg in 1934.  Zündapp was one of the leading German motorcycle manufacturers, founded by Fritz Neumeyer in 1917. They were famous for their large flat-twin shaft-drive machine – rather like a BMW – nick-named the green elephant.  After the Second World War, they concentrated on smaller capacity motor cycles, scooters, and mopeds, and also made the extraordinary Zündapp Janus mini car from 1957 to 1958.  This had a door at the front, a door at the rear, and back-to-back seating, and the symmetrical appearance gave the car its name, from the Roman God looking both ways.  Zündapp went bankrupt in 1984.  They had experimented with cars long before the Janus.  in 1932, Neumeyer commissioned Ferdinand Porsche to design a small car, the type 12, of which three prototypes were built. This had a rear engine and streamlined body shape and is considered as the first forerunner of the Volkswagen. By contrast the car shown here is undocumented. It was registered in Nuremberg in August 1934 and is believed to have had a 2.5-litre engine. The photo was taken in a Berlin street and published in the Allgemeine Automobil-Zeitung for 20 October 1934.  As far as is known, it was not a Porsche design.”


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