In 1920, Dr. Moritz Straus acquired the majority of the shares in Horchwerke AG. He was already the major shareholder in the Berlin aircraft engine manufacturer Argus Flugmotorenwerken GmbH. Contacts between the two companies went back to before the First World War, when Horch carried out experimental work on aircraft engines that it was planned to build under licence from Argus. Although nothing came of this, the two companies remained in touch.
After the war, when the production of aircraft engines was prohibited, Dr. Straus’s contacts with Horch acquired a more urgent character. He secured a majority shareholding in the Zwickaubased automobile manufacturer and commissioned the Swiss designer Arnold Zoller to work on a passenger car to be built there. It was to be a single model that would replace the variety of pre-war models that Horch was still offering for sale.
On 1 July 1922 Paul Daimler, the son of Gottlieb Daimler, became the new Argus Chief Designer in Berlin, and took over from Zoller. In a consultant’s agreement he also undertook to update the design of the Horch models.
After putting the final touches to the Horch fourcylinder model that was Zoller’s work, Daimler went on to design the Horch 8, which became the company’s only product from 2 January 1927 onwards.
At this time Dr. Moritz Straus had planned the Horch brand’s strategy in a most praiseworthy manner. For him, design and development, production and marketing were to be regarded as a single unit. He encouraged refinements to the design of the eight-cylinder engine, built up production methods geared to exceptionally high quality and, by commissioning leading coachbuilders and designers, was able to ensure that the public
became aware of the style and character of the car bearing the crowned H emblem.
In the second half of the 1920s, production capacity was increased from four cars a day (1925) to twelve (1928), and reached 15 a year later.
Within a very short space of time at the end of the 1920s, the Horch 8 became a symbol of the top quality of which the German automobile industry was capable. Its reputation derived from its exceptionally quiet, smooth running and its high standard of workmanship. The Zwickaubased company had amassed a unique concentration of know-how, in particular with regard to the production of large motor-vehicle engines. It included the correct treatment of the large castings that was necessary in order to prevent them from distorting during subsequent machining, the milling of valve seats and their lapping with
precision hand tools, the precision balancing of all rotating parts including the dynamo pulley, and even the adjustment of the helical-cut bronze gears on the valve-gear drive shaft – using a listening tube!
Each engine ran on the test rig for an hour, including 40 minutes at full throttle. All parts subject to severe loads, for instance the main bearings, were machined with diamond cutting tools, Horch being one of the very first automobile manufacturers to adopt this method.
The funds at Dr. Straus’s disposal were far from sufficient to finance the purchase of all the necessary production machinery and equipment. A financial stake in the Zwickau company was therefore acquired by the banks – the Allgemeine Deutsche Credit Anstalt (ADCA) and the Commerzbank in Berlin. These banks were members of the consortium that set up Auto Union
in 1932, into which the Horchwerke were absorbed.
By 1920 Horch’s post-war production was in full swing, with six cars and three trucks in the sales programme. All of these were pre-war designs, including the top model with a four-cylinder engine developing 80 horsepower from a displacement of no less than 8.5 litres!
In 1923 this variegated collection of models was taken out of production, and only the 10/35 hp car designed by Zoller remained; it had entered production a year previously. This car’s 35 hp engine was a four-cylinder side valve unit. The chassis, which was also new, was protected by seven patents and eight registered designs. These related to the rear axle casing and also the engine, which formed a single ready-to-install unit together with the steering gear and the front bulkhead – what would today be called a modular element.
Paul Daimler’s first task was to revise the design of this model. It acquired four-wheel brakes and a more conventional front-end appearance, in contrast to the previous 10/35, which had been given a fashionable pointed radiator grille. The new company emblem also appeared on it for the first time: an H surmounted by the word Horch curved to resemble a crown. This emblem was designed by Prof. Ernst Böhm, Lecturer in Practical Graphics at the Berlin College of Advanced Free and Applied Art.
The climax of Paul Daimler’s period of activity for Horch, however, was most definitely his straighteight engine. This engine had a displacement of approximately 3 litres and a power output of 60 horsepower. The valves were operated by double overhead camshafts driven by a vertical shaft with bevel gears using the Gleason tooth contact pattern. The distributor was mounted at the top of this shaft. The bevel gear at the bottom of the vertical shaft also drove the engine’s gear-type oil
pump. Since the worm drive to the water pump and dynamo was also taken from the same shaft, no fewer than eight gearwheels were in mesh at this point.
Rechnet man den Schraubradantrieb für die Kühlwasserpumpe und für die Lichtmaschine hinzu, so arbeiteten bei diesem Antrieb nicht weniger als acht Zahnräder ineinander!
Many of the car’s design details were well ahead of their time. To minimise effort at the pedal, the four-wheel brakes, for instance, had vacuum servo assistance using the engine’s manifold depression (the system developed by the Belgian engineer Albert Dewandre). The cooling system included a thermostat that opened the main circuit only when a temperature of 72 degrees Celsius was reached, to help maintain an optimum operating temperature.
The new Horch was shown to the public for the first time at the Berlin Motor Show towards the end of 1926. The most basic version, an open tourer, cost 11,900 marks. Few of its competitors were more expensive, indeed many of them undercut this price significantly, for example the Mercedes Mannheim and the 3.3-litre Röhr.
Two years later a successor, the Horch 350, was announced. Its bodywork was styled by Prof. Hadank from the same Berlin art college as Böhm, the designer of the Horch emblem.
Half a dozen of the new cars were on display at the Berlin Motor Show in December 1928, including a Pullman saloon and a Pullman convertible, an open tourer, a saloon and a sports convertible. The main attraction, however, was the four-door “sedan cabriolet”, its grey paint finish harmonising with scarlet leather upholstery and trim, and with a sand-coloured soft top.
Horch was also the first German manufacturer to supply its cars from that time on with safety glass windows. The front-end styling was dominated by large headlights made by the Zeiss company in Jena. They were linked by a crossbar with a central badge consisting of an 8 in a circle to draw attention to the Horch’s eight-cylinder engine. The radiator, previously exposed, was now concealed behind a shutter system, painted in the same colour as the body and with a chrome border. Another new departure was the mascot on the radiator cap: a winged arrow, designed by O.H.D. Hadank.
A further two years later, Horch introduced a special version of its eight-cylinder model, with the rather anonymous model code 375.
Its body was again styled by Prof. Hadank, and Paul Daimler had subjected the mechanical elements to his usual careful scrutiny.
An innovation was the sharply cranked frame where it passed over the rear axle, and repositioned springs to permit a wider track and more satisfactory spring locations. The rear springs were 1.45 metres long, with 18 chrome vanadium steel leaves. This Horch was the first to have hydraulic shock absorbers. The mascot on the radiator cap changed once again, and now consisted of a winged globe, also the work of Ernst Böhm.
This car was the culmination of Paul Daimler’s creative efforts. Initial difficulties with the eightcylinder engine had long since been overcome, and it now ran with impressive smoothness. The chassis and body were fully its equal, and set new standards within the German automobile industry, with unsurpassed quality of workmanship and an air of restrained luxury. When Paul Daimler retired in 1929, more than 7,000 Horch eight-cylinder cars had been built, a figure of which other German companies could only dream.
Daimler’s successor Fritz Fiedler, who came from the Stoewer company in Stettin, revised the sales programme. The straight-eight engine, in future with a single overhead camshaft only, was offered in three sizes: 4 litres with an output of 80 hp, 4.5 litres with 90 hp and 5 litres with 100 horsepower. Each was available in a short- or long-wheelbase chassis. The manufacturer was able to supply eight different body styles, though Horch customers were welcome to purchase a chassis only and have their preferred body built on it by coachbuilders such as Gläser or Erdmann & Rossi.
At the 1931 Paris Motor Show it was once again Horch that created the major sensation. Its stand featured a yellow-painted convertible with a brown soft top and green kid leather upholstery, flanked on one side by a Type 500 in steel blue with a grey soft top and on the other by a Type 470 sedan cabriolet with grey paintwork, a lighter grey soft top and blue leather
upholstery. The bonnet of the main attraction, the yellow sports convertible, was open to reveal the Horch company’s latest and most dramatic development: a 6-litre V12 engine! Fiedler had spared no effort or expense to achieve the highest levels of refinement. To safeguard against vibration problems from the crankshaft, despite its seven main bearings, he had given it twelve balance weights and a front-end vibration damper.
For this impressively quiet car, only the ZF company’s “Aphon” gearbox was considered good enough. This was incidentally one of the first in Germany to have a low-noise second gear as well as the higher ratios.
The new flagship of the Horch fleet was available as the two or four-door Type 670 convertible and as the Type 600, a Pullman saloon or convertible. A striking feature of the Horch 670 was its threepiece windscreen, the centre section of which could be
opened outwards. The fascia, with its fine wood trim, included a map reading lamp and various warning and indicator lamps. The luxurious interior specification included fully reclining front seats as standard equipment.
The new model reached the market early in 1932, and cost between 24,000 and 26,000 Reichsmarks (RM), depending on the version ordered. The luxury car market in Germany was more vigorously contested than in almost any other country, with up to 17 eight-cylinder cars in 47 versions contending for the wealthy customer’s business. Horch’s success in the face of such competition was all the more impressive: in the over 4.2-litre class, the Zwickau company’s share of the market in 1932 was 44 percent.
Company chronicle
From 1920 until liquidation took place on 29 June 1932, Horchwerke AG belonged to Argus-Flugmotorenwerke of Berlin. During this period the Horch Board of Directors had its headquarters at Mittelstrasse 15 in Berlin. The company’s capital was 5 million Reichsmarks.
About 15,000 Horch cars were produced between 1922 and 1932, including from 1927 onwards about 12,000 with eight-cylinder engines. These figures represent an average annual output of 1,300 cars. Between 1925 and 1930, the company’s annual turnover averaged 23 million Reichsmarks. The workforce fluctuated between 2,200 and 2,400 employees.
In 1932 Horch achieved a market share of more than 44 percent in the engine-size class above 4.2 litres in Germany.
The 10/50 hp tourer cost 12,876 Reichsmarks in 1926. The eight-cylinder cars were often more expensive than their competitors. 11,900 Reichsmarks were charged in 1927 for the 303 tourer, and 14,000 Reichsmarks for the same version of the 350. The twelvecylinder Pullman saloon was listed at 24,500 Reichsmarks.
Just-in-time production at Horch in 1928
“When calculating the time needed for deliveries of raw materials, the starting point must be when the finished car leaves the assembly line. Working backwards from this point, a precise “manufacturing timetable” has to be compiled, showing every work stage and the time needed to complete it. Specially appointed “progress chasers” must supervise this timetable in the central office and ensure that it is complied with.
The engine and rear axle must leave the “listening rooms” (the final stage in their production cycle) and reach the chassis assembly line at precisely the moment when their installation is due to take place. Each engine and rear axle should only be completed in sufficient time to reach the designated installation point when needed. The body should have been fully painted just before it is installed on the completed chassis: the process should then continue until the car has been thoroughly inspected under powerful spotlights and leaves the factory.” P. Friedmann in the magazine “Deutsche Motor-Zeitschrift”, 1928, No. 6
Ernest Friedländer: Auto Test Book, 1931
“The car has exceptionally flowing lines. Although it has clearly been styled with more of an eye to current fashion than the standard products from Daimler-Benz, it is superior to them in
elegance and sublime expression. Horch today gives precedence to formal matters, with even questions of design rendered subservient to this overriding principle. Not surprisingly, the results of this concept are of a delicacy scarcely to be surpassed. Despite their size, the current large Horch convertibles and saloons are among the most inspired, dramatic creations that automobile technology has to offer.”