Rumpler-Tropfenwagen

Rumpler Tropfenwagen in the German Museum of Technology Berlin

The drop cart is developed by Edmund Rumpler under aerodynamic point automobile. It was introduced on 23 September 1921 on the German automobile exhibition in Berlin.

Vehicle

After the First World War, the Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany the construction of aircraft engine, and as the aircraft manufacturer Rumpler let his experience in an automotive project incorporated. The project was financed in part by the Berlin publisher Hans Lachmann - Mosse. The vehicle was fundamentally different from the then usual models. Conspicuous was his supposedly a falling drop modeled windschlüpfige body style, with the first curved glass panels were used. This body owes the car to still good drag coefficient of only 0.28. All wheels were individually suspended. The driver sat at the front in the middle, behind it there was room for four more passengers. A trunk ( above the engine ) was inserted only at the later -built cars. The drop cart was one of the few car with mid-engine. First Rumpler endowed him with a six-cylinder W engine, then later with a four-cylinder in-line engine.

Had The water-cooled engine W6- six paired cylinders cast (the first series Bore: 74 mm Stroke: 100 mm), which were arranged in three rows with 60 ° opening angle. The engine had a displacement of 2310 cc and developed an output of 35 hp ( 26 kW). Thus, the drop car reached a top speed of 95 km / h Later, the displacement at constant power was increased to 2580 cc and the top speed increased to 105 km / h Finally, then line four-cylinder engines of Benz were built with a displacement of 2610 cc, developed 50 hp ( 37 kW ) and the car accelerated up to 115 km / h.

Due to technical problems - the six-cylinder engine was unreliable and the steering constructed deficient - and the lack of trunk space, the vehicle was not a commercial success, so that by 1925 only about 100 vehicles were built in the Rumpler -Werke in Berlin- Johannisthal. Most of them ran in Berlin as taxis. Fritz Lang used a large number of Tropfenwagen in his film Metropolis as props. During the filming of the cars were deliberately destroyed.

The last two vehicles are obtained at the German Technology Museum in Berlin and the Deutsches Museum in Munich. The car in Munich, was donated to the museum by Edmund Rumpler personally.