(first posted 4/7/2017) The fall of the Byzantine Empire, the 1929 Wall Street Crash and the implosion of the USSR have nothing on the collapse of Borgward. OK, perhaps they do, but the collapse of one of West Germany’s largest automakers is still a pretty interesting case study in how a personal industrial fiefdom can be turned to dust in record time. A fatal cocktail of Deadly Sins (much like General Motors) was the cause, though some of the facets of this story are still shrouded in mystery. This episode will be a tad longer than average, but then we are talking about the demise of four marques (Borgward, Goliath, Hansa and Lloyd) that composed the Borgward group.
Carl F. W. Borgward (right) posing with a Goliath Pionier, circa 1931.
Dr (Ing.) Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Borgward (1890-1963) came from a lower-middle class family in northern Germany. He got his engineering diploma in 1913. After the First World War, he joined an automobile parts supplier, Bremer Riefenindustrie. He soon took the place over, renaming it Bremer Kühlerfabrik Borgward; within five years, the company was producing three-wheel trucks, the Blitzkarren, soon followed by the Goliath vehicles, which sold extremely well.
In 1931, Borgward took over Hansa-Lloyd, another Bremen-based automaker. The Borgward Group developed into a major player in Germany, marketing an ever-widening range of cars under the Goliath, Hansa and Borgward names. Goliath made rear-engined three-wheelers and small trucks while Hansa focused on mid-market cars, the 4-cyl. 1100 (top left) and the 6-cyl. 1700 (top right) and 2000. A rather discreet Hansa 3500 Privat luxury car (bottom right) was also offered. The name “Borgward” only started to grace the grille of the Hansa 2000 / 2300 in 1939 (bottom left). The group’s range-topping cars started using a rhombus-shaped logo, notwithstanding the fact that Renaults had been using a similar one for decades.
Looking like a shrunken Kaiser-Frazer, the Hansa 1500 was noticed both at home and abroad.
The Hansa-Goliath plant was heavily bombed in October 1944, but at least the remaining machine-tools were not taken away by the Allies in 1945. Carl Borgward did a stint in an American jail, but his company continued producing much-needed trucks. To maximize his raw materials quota, Borgward decided to split his company three-ways in 1948: Borgward-Hansa, Goliath and a resuscitated Lloyd division were created, each with its own facilities, engineering staff and models. This would later have grave consequences, but it made a lot of sense at the time. The Hansa 1500 was launched at the Geneva Motor Show in early 1949. It was widely admired for its modern, three-box shape and integrated fenders, its all-independent suspension and spirited engine.
The Borgward Hansa 1500 was hailed as Germany’s first all-new post-war car (if one considers the Porsche 356 to be a souped-up VW made in Austria). Carl Borgward, as was his custom, had micro-managed the whole process from beginning to end, and he had done it very effectively. The car was a relative hit, with its sturdy and dependable mechanicals and wide variety of body styles: 2- and 4-door saloon, wagon, sports coupé and Hebmüller convertible.
Handsome one-off coupé on a Borgward Hansa 1800 chassis, made by Bertone in 1952.
A Diesel version was available from 1952, along with a larger 1.8 litre gasoline engine, changing the model’s name to Hansa 1800. Over 33,000 Hansa 1500/1800 were built in five years – a respectable number, but not a smash hit: most Germans couldn’t afford this type of car yet in the early ‘50s, and not every foreign customer was keen on one either, so soon after the war. But the 4-cyl. Hansa was only one prong out of the four that Carl Borgward had envisioned to re-build his empire.
In late 1949, the Goliath GP700 saloon and wagon went into production. It was aimed pretty squarely at DKW, with which it shared a small (688cc) two-stroke engine and FWD. The Goliath was particularly noteworthy in being an early adopter of the Bosch fuel injection system in 1952. A special GP700 coupé was also proposed, with a striking Rometsch body (only 25 units made).
In 1950, the new Lloyd LP300 was introduced, the infamous “Leukoplastbomber” (full history here). Its tiny 300cc two-stroke twin sat transversely in a wooden chassis, clothed in a bizarre lightweight faux-leather body. Both the Goliath and Lloyd, though FWD, featured a rear swing axle. Both models were successful, even though two-stroke engines were losing popularity.
Meet the Lloyds – above: the LC600 (“Lloyd Combi”); below: the LP600 (“Lloyd Personenwagen”).
The Lloyd was slow, crude and unsafe, but it was priced well below the VW Beetle and looked more like a car than some other “Rollermobilen” (bubble cars) that were coming out by the mid-‘50s: BMW, NSU-Fiat, Glas, Messerschmitt, Fuldamobil, Heinkel, Zündapp, Kleinschnittger, Gutbrod, Maico… Under attack from all sides, Lloyd carried on regardless, eventually gaining a 400cc engine and a steel body. A new 600cc 4-stroke twin arrived in 1955; the Lloyd 600 remained as the Borgward group’s entry-level car until the bitter end. Perhaps 3000 cars were built and sold in Australia circa 1958-60 as the Lloyd-Hartnett.
Above: the Lloyd Alexander TS and its distinctive grille; below: lovely 1957 coupé by Michelotti.
A more upmarket version of the Lloyd 600, the Alexander, was created in 1956. It featured added brightwork and a 4-speed gearbox. The Alexander TS had a more powerful 25 PS twin, but at over DM4200, it was competing with serious rivals, such as the VW Beetle or the new NSU Prinz.
As Lloyds became slightly bigger, Goliath gradually moved towards the 1-litre segment, having to deal with Volkswagen’s ever-cheaper Beetle, as well as the DKW 3=6, the NSU-Fiat 1100 or even the Ford Taunus 12M. To meet these challengers head-on, the 1957 Goliath GP1100 featured a brand-new four-stroke water-cooled flat-4.
The Goliath 1100 also spawned a nifty sports coupé, the Goliath Tiger, as well as a wagon.
However, it was felt in Bremen that the Goliath marque, which had a 30-year history, was assimilated with two-stroke three-wheelers in the public’s eye. This could hinder the new car’s success, so it was renamed Hansa 1100 in 1958 and the Goliath marque only remained on light trucks.
The clear-cut success story of the Borgward group in the ‘50s was the Isabella. It reigned supreme in the 1.5 litre segment for years, thanks to its solid engine, pleasant design and superb build quality. The Isabella, essentially a modernized version of the 1949 Hansa 1500 / 1800, proudly displayed the name “Borgward” on its bonnet and is the car most associated with that marque – though it did keep Hansa badging until about 1957, when that name was reassigned to the 1100 range.
The Isabella’s monocoque construction used rubber-mounted rear and front subframes, endowing it a high level of comfort and rigidity. The engine provided a respectable 60 PS, though the sporty TS (Touring Special) version was later introduced with a 75 PS motor. The car’s 4-speed gearbox was also fully synchronized, which was still a relative novelty at the time.
Launched as a two-door saloon and wagon in late 1954, the Isabella was more sophisticated than the cheaper Ford Taunus and Opel Olympia, yet much better value than a Mercedes-Benz 180 – it was, in many ways, the BMW of the late ‘50s. Borgward’s rivals and the automotive press were puzzled by the Isabella’s incredibly low price. The answer, they thought, was likely hidden in cost-cutting somewhere within the car’s structure or production methods – no one knew for sure. The real answer was probably that Carl Borgward, as was his way, dictated the price without worrying too much about the profit margin.
Coachbuilder Karl Deutsch also provided small series of Isabella convertibles for those who could afford them. Once its initial teething troubles were sorted out, the car’s export sales were beyond any of the Borgward group’s previous efforts: the Isabella conquered new markets in Europe, the Americas and Asia with incredible ease.
A stylish TS coupé joined the range in 1957, allegedly so that Mrs Borgward could be dissuaded from buying a VW Karmann-Ghia. The coupé shared absolutely no panels with the saloon – even the platform was different, making this a new Isabella in more ways than one. It also drove costs up significantly, something Carl Borgward did not seem to be losing any sleep over.
The Isabella coupé could be ordered with extra fins in 1958-59, as well as a 2-seater convertible from coachbuilders Karl Deutsch or Autenrieth. These were expensive cars, but they had virtually no competition within Germany: Mercedes coupés were far more expensive (and arguably less glamorous) and neither Ford nor Opel had anything on offer that could approach the Borgward coupé.
The 2400 fastback was perhaps the last car ever to feature “double suicide” doors.
One segment that eluded the Borgward group was the luxury car market. The Borgward Hansa 2400 was launched in 1951, powered by a 2337cc straight-6 delivering 82 bhp, but was marred by a Hudson-like fastback shape that was already passé by the time it hit the dealerships a year later. Another influence may have been Czechoslovak, as Borgward’s special projects engineer since 1949 was Erich Übelacker, who worked at Tatra throughout the ’30s…
The 2400 was the first German car to propose a home-grown fully automatic transmission, the 2-speed Hansamatic. This box was underdeveloped though, and added to the list of issues that plagued the 2400, such as undersized brakes and unreliable power windows. Mercedes-Benz and Opel had the German big-car market all sown up, and BMWs were more prestigious. In 1953, Borgward introduced a longer notchback companion model, the Pullman, but the 2400 just never caught on.
A restyled 2400 Pullman was launched in 1955 (the fastback was dropped); Borgward sold a handful per month until 1958, by which time its engine had been completely redesigned, essentially becoming a 6-cyl. version of the Isabella’s 4-cyl. Displacement shrank to 2.2 litres, but output increased to 100 hp. With fewer than 1400 units made in six years despite a competitive price, the big Borgward was perhaps the company’s biggest flop, but the other car lines were successful enough to keep this fact well to the back of Carl Borgward’s mind.
The late ‘50s were proving to be the crunch time for Borgward. Out of the four main car lines that made up the group’s output, only the Isabella and the Hansa 1100 were fairly immune to change due to their outstanding success. Two new cars were in development: a new Lloyd and a new luxury saloon. The Lloyd Arabella came out in 1959. It featured a new platform and body. Strangely, the car had been planned with the Alexander’s parallel twin in mind, but nobody made a working prototype until the new car’s body and chassis had been finalized. The old 600cc twin would not fit in the new car, so completely new 897cc flat-4 (and a new gearbox) was hastily conceived as a replacement instead. The Lloyd flat-4 had no relation to the Goliath/Hansa 1100’s flat-4, which is symptomatic of the way Borgward ran his company.
The Arabella’s 23-month development time had been way too short and chaotic, so the car came out with quite a few faults and teething troubles: rain in the cabin (earning it the nickname “Aquabella”), weak gearboxes and shoddy workmanship were rife in the early models. Word spread very quickly and Borgward had to issue a costly recall procedure to address most of the issues. The damage to the car’s reputation was irreparable. Priced just below DM5000 at its launch, it made for very slim profit margins. In 1960, Borgward had no option but to push the price up by about DM250, mitigating this by introducing a “plain Jane” Arabella at a lower price, as well as a more powerful (and expensive) Borgward-branded deluxe version. A comparative table is worth a thousand words, so let’s have a look at one.
The Borgward cars may have been faster, but they were too brittle and expensive within their segment. The Arabella Deluxe was only about DM100 cheaper than a much bigger and more capable Opel Rekord 1200. All told, only about 47,000 Arabellas were built – a mediocre score in this segment: DKW shifted around 240,000 Juniors in the same timeframe.
Another missed opportunity was the Lloyd Frua coupé, which Pietro Frua had designed in 1958 on the 2-cyl. Alexander chassis. Only 50 cars were made, as Carl Borgward wanted the car to be adapted to the more powerful 4-cyl. Lloyd Arabella platform. A couple of slightly restyled prototypes were made in 1960 as per this request, but the company collapsed before production could go ahead.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if Borgward hadn’t launched another new car alongside the Arabella. And this new car, the P100, took aim at none other than the Mercedes-Benz 220 (W110). Carl Borgward spared no expense in developing his range-topping saloon. Brand new body, competent engine, but especially the optional “Airswing” air suspension, well before Mercedes-Benz got theirs ready – the P100 was a potent combination of the best of Borgward. The car’s development costs were substantial: DM30m were spent to get the P100 into Borgward showrooms by 1960.
Carl Borgward, as was his custom, was the sole chief designer, engineer and CFO of the whole affair. Perhaps launching two cars in parallel while tending to the daily business of running a 20,000-strong workforce and several factories was a bit much for a man in his late ‘60s who refused to delegate?
While the Big Borgward’s suspension was pretty cool, its dashboard was a tad pedestrian…
Not unlike the Arabella, the P100 also displayed a few niggles that did not do it any favours in a highly competitive segment of the market. The sensational air suspension – as GM and Ford also found out around the same time – was prone to leaks and very tricky to manufacture, operate and service properly. However, the Airswing was optional, so at least Borgward hedged their bets, and the motoring press were rather impressed by the new Hanseatic flagship, with its up-to-date styling and comfortable seats.
Above: few P100s crossed the Rhine – they cost 65% more than a Citroën DS 19, or as much as a 2.4 litre Jaguar Mk 2. Below: in the UK, the big Borgward retailed for £200 more than a fully-optioned 3.8 litre Jaguar Mk IX!
Full-scale production of the “Große Borgward’s” only got going in the summer of 1960; about 2500 were sold until mid-1962. Competitors were nonplussed: even the expensive (and outdated) BMW “Baroque Angel” did a bit better; the Mercedes-Benz W110 and the Opel P2 Kapitän were in a different league altogether, well into six figures over the same timeframe.
With an ailing Lloyd division and massive debt, the Borgward group entered the ‘60s in a precarious position. Still, it seemed in better health than BMW. However, Borgward fell victim to a pernicious attack from an unidentified party that brought the entire structure down like a house of cards. In December 1960, Der Spiegel published a very detailed and unnerving 14-page dossier relating the troubles happening at Borgward: dangerous amounts of debt, recalls, a lackluster 1959-60 year in terms of exports, Carl Borgward’s dictatorial approach to management – the article laid bare all of Borgward’s problems and concluded that the group’s future was in jeopardy, as it was probably insolvent. More articles were published in January and February 1961, as the panic snowballed.
Being “#1 in [medium price] US sales” didn’t last long…
The source(s) of the Spiegel hit job was never revealed. It didn’t matter a great deal, as most of the article was pretty much true – except the insolvent bit, the one that hurt confidence the most. Investors and creditors naturally started to show deep concern. Carl Borgward’s assurances that the temporary downturn and high debt were not a cause for concern had no effect: he was now portrayed as being part of the problem, not the solution. He was now 70 and many wondered who could succeed him at the helm, given his pivotal role in all aspects pertaining to the firm. Sales figures for 1960 were worse than 1959: the Arabella wasn’t selling, the Hansa 1100 was on its way out and the P100, which was only getting started, did not set the luxury segment ablaze. Only the Isabella remained strong (except in the US), but it was now six years old – how much longer would it last?
“Crisis? What crisis?”
The whispering campaign amplified and Borgward’s enemies took action, especially the Bavarians. The Quandt family, which had just taken control of BMW, used their considerable influence to ensure that the banks that had so far propped up Borgward would now close their line of credit. By 1960, BMW also actively started to poach Borgward’s engineering staff, which has led some automotive historians to dub BMW’s revolutionary 1962 Neue Klasse as the Bavarian Borgward, though its development was started years earlier. The State of Bremen and the Federal authorities started to take an interest in Borgward, and the more they investigated, the more they were convinced that the company was in a death spiral.
A Bremen rig sampler: 500cc Goliath Goli and 1100cc Express (top); B555 4½ T 4×4 and B661 minibus.
Carl Borgward was in over his head. The political and legal machinations he was subjected to were too strong even for him. In February 1961, he stepped down as president of the Borgward group. The courts appointed a liquidator to manage the winding down of the Bremen automaker’s operations – or its sale to a competitor. BMC apparently showed interest, but no decision was taken. Production of the Lloyd Alexander and the Hansa 1100 were halted immediately; the myriad of truck and engine lines made under the Borgward, Lloyd and Goliath marques were mothballed, though there were enough stocks to last through to 1962.
The last projects Borgward were working on was the Hansa 1300, which would have gone into production circa 1962. Its crisp styling, courtesy of Pietro Frua, would probably have been a terrific selling point. It did not go to waste: Frua soon partnered with Glas, who were also sensing that the Isabella’s demise left a large gap in the middle of the market, and the Hansa 1300’s pleasant body ended up being the 1964 Glas 1500. A 4-cyl. version of the P100 (the P90) would have been ready for about 1963 and the Isabella’s successor was also on the drawing board when Borgward collapsed, but that project was still at the paper stage.
Soon to be renamed “Henschel”, then “Hanomag” and finally “Mercedes-Benz”…
The company was unravelling, yet car production continued: in 1962, the Arabella and the Isabella were still being put together (as well as a few P100s) on a redoubt assembly line in Bremen. A cooperative had been set up by Borgward staff, dealers and enthusiasts to continue making the cars, but this was to no avail. By the summer of 1963, around the same time that Carl F. W. Borgward passed away, the last cars bearing his name left the factory. The machine-tools were bought by various competitors (Barreiros ended up with most of the truck-related ones) and the real estate was taken over by Henschel. The Bremen factory, now owned by Daimler AG, remains one of the most important car plants in Germany. Oh, and all creditors were paid in full. Borgward had never been insolvent – Der Spiegel recognized and publicized this fact a few years later.
Unsold Isabellas awaiting shipment in 1961. Over 200,000 were built from 1955 to 1963(-ish).
It seems at least two places kept the Borgward name alive despite the Bremen factory’s closure. The Isabella was manufactured in CKD in many places around the world, including Argentina, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, etc. One Borgward factory in Surabaya, Indonesia, churned out RHD Isabellas for the Southeast Asian and Australian markets. The factory had gradually increased the amount of locally-sourced parts to over 80%, even 95% for the engines. With no orders to shut down production, the independently-financed Surabaya factory continued to churn out Isabella saloons for the Indonesian market well into the mid-‘60s, though it was impossible to export them any longer. The factory continued to manufacture Borgward engine blocks and parts for at least another decade, as demand for these was still strong and it was the only supplier left.
The last Isabella made in Bremen. The sign reads: “You were too good for this world”…
In Germany too, the Isabella kept trying to make a come-back. In 1965-67, former Borgward dealer Walter Schätzle got his hands on the remaining stock of Isabella parts left over in Germany and built about 140 Isabellas, but was prevented by court order from making any more, as he didn’t hold the Borgward marque’s property rights.
“South of the border” did not mean Switzerland for this Borgward.
The last ”true” Borgward ever made, though, was not built in Indonesia or Germany, but Mexico. In late 1961, as production stopped in Bremen, Mexican entrepreneur Ernesto Santos Galindo dispatched a delegation to Germany to rate the group’s assets. The delegation came back empty-handed, but Galindo got a small group of investors together to buy out the Isabella and P100 assembly lines and ship everything to Mexico.
The 230 range included a base model (above), the deluxe “GL” and even a limousine (below).
A new company, FANASA (Fábrica Nacional de Automóviles S.A.), was created and a factory was built near Monterrey to manufacture Borgwards for the Mexican market. The project stalled and production was pushed back several times – Galindo got cold feet and sold the company and the factory to his Vice-President, Gregorio Ramírez, who managed to get the P100 production line going in 1967. The car was virtually unchanged, save for the low-spec version’s de-finned tail and non-panoramic rear window.
The FANASA Borgward 230 was a dismal failure: the car cost FANASA MXP100,000 per unit to make, but it was sold to dealers at MXP45,000; customers usually paid MXP55,000 for the car. The market was very small for this type of car, so production never took off and economies of scale never occurred. After two years of red ink, FANASA was repossessed by its main creditor, the State-owned SOMEX bank, which gamely continued production until the end of 1970. It is worth pointing out that FANASA managed to build and sell about the same amount of its 230 model as Borgward did with the P100.
Borgward’s Mexican saga wasn’t over yet. Details are hazy, but it seems someone got a hold of a stock of FANASA-made 2.2 litre sixes and had the bright idea of putting them in VAM American (AMC Concord) bodies. The “Borgward Isabella 23” seems to have only been made (if at all) in 1979 – though solid info and photographic evidence on this bizarre bitza are elusive.
The Borgward marque was now dead, or would it do another encore, Lazarus-style?
In 2015, one of Carl Borgward’s grandchildren, Christian Borgward, announced that he was teaming up with Chinese truck-maker Beiqi Foton to market a new electric SUV under the Borgward brand. The Borgward BX7 is currently in production in China, but a new assembly line in Bremen is apparently being set up. Personally, I’ll believe it when I see one on the street – stranger things have happened, but I can’t think of one at the moment (Bugatti, perhaps?).
It is difficult to single out one Deadly Sin in particular to explain the collapse of Borgward. The rushed development of the Lloyd Arabella, as well as the underperformance and massive development cost of the P100 are two automotive Deadly Sins, for sure. But the structure of the business, with its siloed brands preventing economies of scale, as well as Carl Borgward’s overbearing micro-management, abrasive personality and unwillingness to face certain realities (or accept his limitations) were perhaps the group’s weakest point. Confusing marketing, with the group’s four marques being endlessly jumbled around in a puzzling ballet of logos and nameplates throughout the group’s life, probably did not help matters and can be compared to the worst badge-engineering excesses of BMC, Chrysler Europe or GM.
Carl Borgward: great engineer, gifted designer, competent publicist – terrible business executive.
Once Borgward’s rivals saw the old man was losing his touch, they went for the jugular – and it was nothing short of a coordinated assassination. Carl Borgward died of a myocardial infarction (a broken heart?) in July 1963, his company scattered to the four winds and his reputation as an automotive genius in tatters. Those who profited from the deed included, first and foremost, BMW and, to a lesser extent, VW, Daimler-Benz and Glas.
And tomorrow, we will look into that last automaker’s spectacular rise and downfall in the final episode of this edition of the German Deadly Sins.
“1st In Sales In The Medium-Price Field (of all imported German cars)” is the finest example of an overly narrow superlative I’ve seen in a long time. I assume “Medium-Price” was drawn narrowly enough that it excluded even the most expensive VW and cheapest Mercedes.
Great article, I never knew much about Borgward. Carl sounds like your stereotypical control freak genius engineer, although he also sounds more successful than most. Kind of like Hub van Doorne of DAF.
Although I’ve never seen a Borgward in person I have heard of them through Murilee Martin’s Project Car Hell series and his hope for someone to enter one in a 24 Hours of Lemons race. Don’t think that’s happened yet though..
I sure appreciate 50’s models in the ad shots, but what the heck is that tortoise doing in the one?
An Isabella has been entered in a Lemons race, a few times. I believe the name of the team is Ragged Racing. It’s a coupe, and may have have a Miata engine swap.
You’ve fulfilled a long-time wish (and need) to have the story of Carl Borgward told here. And you’ve done it in your typical superlative way. Thanks again!
The Isabella was the real hit (obviously) of the family. As a kid in Austria in the late 50s, I was quite aware of what an attractive and desirable car it was, and it was a big deal when I finally got a ride in one. In just about every way possible, it was the BMW of its time.
By spreading himself so thin, Borgward screwed himself because most importantly, there was not going to be any money left over for a new Isabella (or major refresh), which was so key to the company. Too many irons in the (hellish) fire.
Note how BMW took its time moving back into the luxury car field. They learned a lot from Borgward’s mistakes.
Great article.
When I was a child in Greece in the early-70s, my aunt’s husband, (supposedly) a man of taste had Borgward. I liked and knew cars, but I always wondered about “Uncle’s car. It looks so old-fashioned”.
Around 1976 or so, he replaced it with a Ford Escort, a real car in my opinion. Yet at least once, I recall him fondly reminiscing about the Isabella, and I wondered, “why? old people are so old-fashioned”. After all, his Escort had the more modern body (ours had the original body, but it was “GT”–complete with 1300cc and tachometer!).
Decades later, thanks to Google, I finally learned about Borgward, and the relationship between Mercedes-Benz, Borward, and BMW (and I do remember BMW 800s in Greece!).
So, if Paul says the Isabella was good…well, maybe my uncle as not as crazy as I thought when it came to cars.
From what I’ve read, the Neue Class BMW 1600 that came out in 1962 was the car Borgward meant to make.
Details make a difference. Apparently, for the Neue Class, BMW’s engineers and designers worked in unison, oars rowing the same way.
As a kid, I thought the BMW 1600 was cool. I even liked the tail lamps more than the BMW 1500/2002 (until about 5th grade).
The Isabella, on the other hand, was nerdy and old fashioned, like a smaller version of an ‘old’ (early 50s) American car.
For a brief moment I instinctively thought the lady next to the tortoise was on her cell phone…
This is a great write up of auto brands I have heard of but never knew much about. This is a keeper for me as I will be re-reading it and referring to it for some time to come.
Yeah, it’s a lovely pic, that one. The tortoise thing is so weird, why would anybody do that? And it reminded me on the Gordon-Keeble badge story…
I have heard of auto companies that were personal fiefdoms at some point in their history but those run by salesman (William C. Durant, Lee Iaccoca) tend to get more press than the one’s run by engineers.
Interesting story and it would be interesting to know who Carl had emotionally wounded so badly they felt the need to do that.
As I understand it, Carl Borgward, being a self-made-man who knew he was a gifted engineer and designer, looked down upon the Nordhofs (VW), Koeneckes (M-B) and other automaker executives as mere managers, and wasn’t shy about letting them know it. He was, by most accounts, quite an opinionated and parochial man, and his success irritated the hell out of almost anyone else in the automotive field. The kind of guy you love to hate. Think Elon Musk without the charm.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! During last summer’s visit to the Lane Museum, I fell hard in love with the Borgward Isabella that I saw there. And such a fascinating story. that P100 may be my new favorite German car of the early 1960s.
Borgward’s setup reminds me just a little of Chrysler, in which Walter Chrysler had played the lead role. Chrysler was a better manager and set things up to continue on after his incapacity and death, but the company has always been held captive to the personality and management style of the man at the top and has never been as successful as it was when Walter P was running things.
That 59 Lloyd Arabella is a fascinating design – it looks very much like a shrunken 1956 Studebaker, which was not an unattractive car in my opinion. Only the Lloyd carries the look off even better, particularly in the light and airy greenhouse area.
Here’s the Lane Isabella. Took this with an old Kodak Reflex III, ISO 400, f 1.9.
Oh yeah! There was a black 1950s Goliath nearby that was also really appealing.
Thanks for your kind words, JPC!
The P100 is very attractive to me too — kind of like a fintail MB from another mother.
Not as keen as you on the Arabella (I’d rather go for the Stude myself), but it is one of the few Borgwards I managed to see up close in person. I saw one as a teen in France, about 20-25 years ago, in a local bone yard. It was a cash for clunkers time back then as Ii recall, and a lot of sound-looking old metal was ending up in places like that. Stuff you’d expect, like 504s or CXs or Talbots were one thing, but an Arabella??
Very interesting point about the Chrysler parallel. I agree Walter P seemed like a much better industrialist than Carl FW… Dr Borgward is one of the few examples of an automaker that built up, ran and saw his creation disappear within his lifetime. Another example of course, as we’ll see tomorrow, is Hans Glas.
Great article! This is one of gazillion reasons why Curbside Classic is a mandatory daily reading for me and one of a very few that I chose to switch the Ad-Blocker off.
My youngest uncle owns a lorry repair centre in southern Germany. I was a budding petrolhead and was very curious about the German cars in the 1950s and 1960s. My uncle and I had this conversation with him about them because he grew up during those decades. When the name, Borgward, came up, he expressed his opinion by flipping a bird at me…and warned me not to mention the name-that-shall-not-be-mentioned. That pretty summed up the whole thing about Borgward.
Borgward was the only truly big and truly “Norddeutscher” automaker after the war.
Most carmakers (Ford and VW excepted) were the lower 3rd of the country: Baden-Wuerttemberg (NSU, M-B, Neckar), Hesse (Opel) or Bavaria (BMW, DKW, Glas). And those were the guys who probably ganged up against Borgward….
Ah, that explains! of course, the rivalry between different regions, states, and countries is as old as human civilisation. Germany is no exception.
Thanks!
The rivalry between the German states and city-states was generally much more intense than it was in other countries. Bremen is a northern industrial city, and culturally, occupies among the lowest rungs of the German social pecking order. The people in Bremen typically always considered the Bavarians among the most snobbish southern Germans, well before the Borgward fiasco. German license plates used to have a city code in the first letter sequence (“HB” for “Hansestadt Bremen”, for example). Where you were from in Germany was always a very big deal. Especially if you were from Bremen.
Borgward used the Bremen city-state emblem, the “key”, as the steering wheel center emblem in many of his cars. That was a statement of sorts. As Porsche uses the Stuttgart crest superimposed on the Wurttemburg crest to this day. The Bavarian state coat of arms prominently features light blue and white repeating patterns. VW used the Wolfsburg city coat of arms on many of its early cars. The regional pride was how it was done. In fact, back in the 50’s, in Germany, you could buy your city-state’s crest in the aftermarket, sized and proportioned to substitute for the Wolfsburg crest on the lower front center of the (front mounted) Beetle trunk lid.
Living in Bremen for a while in the late ’70s, there were still some small number of Borgwards here and there as daily drivers. The locals would make a big deal about them, stop and point, tell their kids and companions about them, and the cars were still the pride of the city. Taking visitors over to see Borgward’s mansion in town was a thing, too. Not too many fancy homes in Bremen.
It was doubly irksome to the people of Bremen that the Quandt family, those Bavarians, seemed to be involved in the takedown of Borgward’s empire. One saw few BMWs, but quite a few (low end) Mercedes, on the streets of ’70s Bremen.
Thank you for articulating this German regional divide — it’s only something I understood in theory, as opposed to your personal experience. This puts it in much better perspective!
There are other examples in other countries, such as Jowett or Gilbern in the UK. Also Peugeot in France: they were definitely not Parisian, unlike thd vast majority of French automakers — plus, the Peugeot family is Protestant, a very rare denomination in Catholic France.
Peugeot managed to overcome these “shortcomings” by being one of the first in the car-making game in the country, and by making damn good cars. But when Panhard found they needed a bigger firm as an “ally” in the ’50s, the cultural/religious and geographical isolation of Peugeot made them prefer Citroen instead. These things are important (or were back in the day).
Getting back to Borgward and BMW, it’s interesting that both of these automakers used regional flags (blue & white BMW badge) and other symbols (the Bremen key, the “Hansa” moniker) on their products. Not many automakers have tended to do that — another couple of obvious examples being Gilbern (Welsh dragon logo) and Alfa Romeo.
So many European emblems incorporate some historical elements into them (The heraldic Peugeot lion is from the coat of arms of the birthplace of the Peugeot family-or so the company says). What makes me laugh is all of the U.S. car manufacturers who felt the need to adopt fancy emblems–think Willys-Knight or Hudson. Also Tucker. Many of the Detroit names. The Ford crest of the 50s (good old red, white, and blue). Cadillac (which has a murky but likely real historical link). It was an image building thing for the American manufacturers in early to mid-century, and much of it was simply conjured up from whole cloth. At least the Europeans often drew from real historical heraldry.
Peugeot’s lion logo was created by Peugeot back in 1847 (and registered in 1858) to symbolize the strength of their metal products — mostly pepper mills, saws and other woodworking tools, in those days. It was, for a very long time, on its four legs, standing on an arrow. The lion only appeared on Peugeot cars circa 1905, and became just a lion’s head embedded in the grille by the ’20s. When they launched the 203, Peugeot changed their logo to a heraldic lion (on its hind legs), which is the coat of arms of Franche-Comte , the region where Peugeot have always been based.
http://les-peugeot-mythique.com/logos-peugeot/
http://www.auto-pedia.fr/histoire-lion-peugeot/
The Peugeot heraldic lion is a bit after the fact, isn’t it? Nevertheless, it establishes a sense of place for the marque (even though the Peugeot lion itself comes from a different original source). As you said, well away from Paris. While some of the American heraldry (Tucker and Cadillac, for example) have a sense of name, the European heraldic references often give a very specific sense of place, which is often significant in telling the story of the marque. Had Borgward been a southern German marque, many elements of the Borgward story could have turned out very differently. For example, 1950s Lloyd 400s and 600s had a general size and feel of a later East Gernam Trabant, yet were locally popular. That is, in part, because much of the northwestern German population was a very poor, blue collar working class. The Lloyd was all they could reasonably afford. Borgward was filling a product niche he was intimately familiar with, as he lived in a poor part of the country.
A great and informative article. Well done.
What a beautifully put together article! The story is compehensive and crisp, and what a feast of pictures of cars, many new to me. I have to remind myself the Isabella was introduced in 1954, it looks much younger than that.
That’s an outstanding article, as is the article about BMW. I learned a lot of new details of the Borgward story. The quality of your research is amazing. You don’t seem to care how much time it takes to get the article right. Very much like Borgward did not care how much money it took to put a car on the market.
Not a common car here in the US. In my life I have seen exactly one Borgward. It was a white Isabella that I used to see parked in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood. This was back in the 1980s, long before I got my first digital camera, so no pictures to share, unfortunately! Great, great write-up, BTW. Much appreciated.
You make me wonder how I managed to miss it.
If I’d been old enough to buy a car ca. 1959, the Borgward Isabella would have been on the short list.
Fantastic write up. I knew the bare essentials of the story but this really helped fill in the details.
I’ve only ever seen a handful of Borgwards but they are a great looking car. The grill badge is a bit overbearing but otherwise great detailing.
Perhaps twenty years ago we drove out to a middle Tennessee farm to look at an Isabella sedan. When I saw its resting place, a very grassy field in a well-shaded valley, I was almost ready just to turn and go home, but the guy – tall, bearded hippie dude – had taken the trouble to cut the grass around it down well below the rockers, so I took the tour. I was amazed to find no rust-through anywhere I could see, though a good bit of surface rust under the floors. The interior was well mildewed, of course, but the glass was all good, and the engine compartment mostly seemed to need wiring and new rubber, as the hoses were all cracked.
The owner turned out to be a Mercedes guy, with two nice-looking early-’70s examples parked nearby. He told us he’d gotten the Borgward mostly out of curiosity, and (we gathered) because it had been free or close to it. He also mentioned, with a note of wonder in his voice, that his much-newer Mercs were suffering much more from rust than this derelict was! But he had no interest in chasing down Borgward parts, nor in learning to work on one. I don’t remember the price he wanted, but it included only his pulling the car out to the road with his tractor. Nor were we sufficiently interested in having this in our back yard, so we thanked him and left.
A high school mate had an Isabella TS in 1966-67. I never drove it, but it was a well made, handsome little hardtop coupe, dove grey with red leather, or perhaps vinyl. It spent a lot of time parked because he couldn’t get spares for it in the pre-internet era. Finally he sold it on and bought a ’69 Sunbeam Alpine GT coupe, which provided him with a lot of drama.
The Borgward article that I was looking for! Thanks CC.Sure answered a lot of questions about this almost forgotten auto maker. I remember when I was a kid that someone had a Borgward Isabella coupe , the Karman Ghia inspired one in my neighborhood.Even at a young age [10 or so]I loved the styling of this car, and the color. It was an ivory white with brown leather seats. It seemed to be a high quality car and somewhat bigger than those small-ish sedans. Unfortunately, it was the first-and last one I`ve ever seen.
It sounds like Borgward might have been able to hang on, if not for the Arabella fiasco.
In my lifetime, I’ve seen maybe 4 Borgwards in the US. In the early ’80s, an elderly gent that used to live near my neighborhood owned two – a ’58 Isabella sedan and a ’60 Isabella wagon. Neat cars. Reminded me of a slightly smaller version of the Ponton Mercedes 180 I drove back then.
I remember reading a story claiming that after Daimler-Benz took over the Borgward facilities, they took a warehouse-full of new Borgward spare parts, bulldozed them into a huge pit, and concreted it over!
Happy Motoring, Mark
I’m sure I’ve mentioned this here before, but in the early ’60’s our next door neighbor sold Lloyds out of his house (I don’t know if he ever actually had customers), and kept an Alexander in his garage until I was in junior high … it disappeared around 1970. The man across the street had an Isabella coupe, also until about 1970. We had a Borgward dealership in town for a while. So growing up I didn’t think these cars were that unusual. All this in Berkeley, California. Thanks tatra87 for a comprehensive and interesting history of the cars, the company and the man.
“The Isabella coupé could be ordered with extra fins in 1958-59”.
The picture of it, it looks kind of like a shrunken Studebaker Hawk to me.
Interesting and informative article
That new Chinese Borgward BX7 sure looks rather Buickish. It’s not an exact copy of any one Buick model, but in a country where people snap up Buicks like crazy, I guess it’s understandable to try to trade a little on the overall look.
The Hansa 1300 was to feature an enlarged 1300cc version of the 1100 Goliath Flat-4 engine that with fuel-injection put out around 90 hp on the testbed.
For the Isabella successor meanwhile, an OHC 1600cc engine was thought to be in development prior to the collapse of Borgward that might have spawned a 6-cylinder to update / replace the P100.
It is amusing how Suzuki and Subaru made use of cars / componentry derived from Lloyd LP400 and the Lloyd Arabella (or Goliath 1100?) respectively.
One of the more baffling things surrounding Carl Borgward I diddn’t see mentioned really highlights how obsessed with control and out of his depth he became. After the negative press really picked up in 1961 and the situation was getting grim, Chrysler Corporation approached Carl to purchase the business for 200 million Marks, and he promptly refused . From there, it only took until July 28th of that year for the company to be ordered into appointed receivership. Incedently, the man died two years to the day of this same announcement.
If he did sell, just think of all the potential what-ifs to that…
It appears I may be wrong regarding the timeline of the proposed Chrysler acquisition after some further research. The Der Spiegel piece seems to state this occurred in 1960-1961, but I found other reports that peg this as occurring in 1955, and only as a 51% shareholder. I’m more inclined to believe 1955, as it makes the refusal understandable, and fits within the context of Chrysler then slowly aquiring into Simca beginning in 1958.
I’ve always heard that there was the suspicious appointment of a guy, Johannes Semler, from the BMW board to Borgward’s board by the Bremen Senate, and that it was considered sort of like letting a fox in the henhouse. Supposedly Semler had it in for Borgward and pushed for its bankruptcy so that BMW would benefit from less competition.
I’m not sure where I heard it but the Borgward flat four has allegedly been studied by Subaru and served as the basis for the company’s first engines.
It was studied by Subaru, as well as some other flat fours, and they used that to develop their own flat four. But there are some very decided differences between them too.
The Hansa 1100 was built under license by Subaru , there was money exchanged .
read the German book on Borgward.
The Hansa 1100 is a beautiful little engine , modular in construction , i have seen one in bits and it is a lovely simple engine . “Tiger ” variant has twin carbs.
The Lloyd 600 is another superb engine a bit like the NSU, beautifully made.
The Goliath GP700/900 puts some more modern engines to shame like Subaru Sherpa .
I had a Goliath GP900!
Also Hansa 1100 van.
BMW and MBenz destroyed Borgward for their own gain.
Oh, and all creditors were paid in full. Borgward had never been insolvent – Der Spiegel recognized and publicized this fact a few years later.
I looked into this Subaru-Arabella flat-four thing, and I don’t buy it. Take a close look at both engines, and you’ll see some quite obvious differences. Subaru publicly acknowledged that they looked closely at several European flat fours and designed theirs with what they had gleaned form these various engines.
Lotus rebel,
as you say.
“It is amusing how Suzuki and Subaru made use of cars / componentry derived from Lloyd LP400 and the Lloyd Arabella (or Goliath 1100?) respectively.”
I saw a Hansa 1100 station wagon at a gas station in San Francisco ca. 1976.
Are “Hansa” and “Hanseatic” (as in “Hanseatic League”) from the same root?
Definitely.
And the red and white in the Borgward company brand emblems represents the red and white symbolism common to the 19th Century Hanseatic states (Hamburg, Lubeck, Bremen).
I’d heard of Borgward but never knew much about it. What an interesting story (I’m surprised a book/movie haven’t been made). Thank you for the excellent article.
Borgward is back from the dead again, it’s been resurrected as a Chinese auto brand, currently only in the Chinese market, which is odd, but hey.
In the late 50s and early 60s a Dutchman named Bill Blydenstein had a lot of success in the British Saloon Car Championship, racing a well-used Isabella that he had tuned himself in his kitchen.
https://www.borgward.org.uk/misc/bill%20blydenstein.pdf
interesting to hear of New Zealand and its CKD import of these – my dad had 1 red saloon and 1 red and 1 white estate which he restored in Auckland in the 1980’s – not sure why he liked them – i guess being ngish he might have sen these in the u.k. and picked them up on the cheap -sadly no pics exist or plate numbers …….
There are very few brands that werent assembled somewhere in NZ Campbell motors assembled anything they could get their hands on and a similar outfit existed in Christchurch last seen assembling Prince Glorias.Local assembly ability was nearly the only way to get an import licence for real quantity of cars Dominian motors the BMC crowd had the Pontiac licence not GMNZ for instance.
An excellent and extensive article, with good timing. Our Borgward exhibit is coming to an end next week. Business law students still study the Borgward case in school. It’s really very sad. We still have the Lloyd van we got from American Pickers on display, but we JUST received this restored 1959 Lloyd LT 600 from Europe on Friday!
What an excellent history of the long and tragic story of the Borgward empire. I’ve never seen one on the street here, but I know of their existence from a British car encyclopedia I had a few volumes of as a kid. Always thought the Isabella TS coupe was quite the stylish car, and the P100 does have a fintail-esque quality about it.
One thing I do wonder though–the P100 was attractive, modern, and it seems as if the press liked it also. I wonder why it couldn’t make any inroads in the luxury class? Lack of badge snob appeal? Or was it just that, by the time it would have gotten some market traction, the company was already in trouble?
A fascinating tale, some of which was aware of and much that I really appreciate your detailed work on.
I can see some parallels with the British Rootes Group – a collection of brands brought together by a strong leader (Carl Borgward or Billy Rootes), taking on the big boys (VW, Mercedes, Opel or BMC, Ford, GM-Vauxhall) , using style to sell, building cars based on parts of others but always have to bet on higher stakes to try to keep up or convince others he could, and finally losing out when ambition got the better of them, leading to cars with technical advances and teething problems in similar quantities (Arabella, Hillman Imp) that the market wouldn’t accept.
In those circumstances, the semi-orderly closure of Borgward and absorption into Henschel/ Daimler-Benz seems a soft landing com[pared to Chrysler, a government bail out, Peugeot and closure.
They must have sold some Goliaths here at the height of the ’50s import craze.
Many yeas ago, there was a Goliath chassis & engine on display at the Summit Point.racetrack. I remember wondering if there was some connection to the original flat-four Subaru mill. At the Carlisle Pa Import Show a few years later, I spotted a tiny silver Lloyd wagon for sale.
More recently there was a red Goliath van for sale at the Carlisle show.
Sadly, that Goliath’s windshield was broken — good luck finding a replacement!
It reminded me of an old Adam 12 episode where some Jewish shop-keepers were victimized by vandals, who smashed the glass in their delivery van – which I’m certain was a Goliath.
Happy Motoring, Mark
This was terrific. It spurred me to buy a 1/43 Borgward P100 by Neo! A now retired friend of mine grew up in Chicago and his dad had a Borgward dealership. He told me this back in the late ’90s. I’d never heard of the marque before and it was years before I saw a picture of one. So much potential. Oh well. 🙁
Strangely enough Ive seen a lot of Borgward products a teacher at my primary school though British loved german cars when his oval VW Beetle got tangled with a 38 Ford V8 one morning ad went away to be panelbeaten he turned up in an Arrabela the only one Ive seen live,
The cavemans wrecking yard in Riverstone NSW had a Hartnett Alexander section with at least 6 complete cars lined up and several wrecks, This guy was adverse to wrecking cars for parts and collected odd things like VWs and anything else European there was at least 2000(His estimate) cars stacked around his yard.
An American guy has a junkyard in Hinds south island NZ and has a small collection of Borgward several Issabellas and Hansa flat four wagons, I kinda like those they are Hillman tough a mate way back at the dawn of our driving 70s had a Hansa wagon that he thrashed mercilessly yet it gave no problems rust had ruined its crash worthyness and a steep bank took it out.
Borgward cars keep being found over here you know the mythical barnfind these things keep appearing,
I strongly suspect that the Trabant was a reverse-engineered Lloyd.
There are at least two P100’s left in the states. One, a “field find ” needing a total restoration, and the other in very good condition painted bright red. I suspect there are more waiting to be discovered.
As predicted in the article, the revived Borgward went pear shaped. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borgward_Group