Volkswagen wanted to attack the Duck with this car

‘Gray mouse’, that’s what Autostadt technician Pablo Rother calls the car. A fitting nickname. Gray and inconspicuous, the EA 48 first stood in the Volkswagen AutoMuseum and now as part of the collection in Autostadt. Hardly anyone notices this car. Yet it is the first car that was developed completely internally at Volkswagen. And the first VW with a self-supporting body. The first with front-wheel drive. It is even the first car ever with a McPherson front axle and front-wheel drive. So from a historical point of view it is a sensation. And technically comparable to a 2CV, due to its air-cooled two-cylinder boxer engine for the front axle.

Now there are two pieces of news to report regarding this car. Firstly, Pablo Rother (48), who works as a technical expert at the ZeitHaus in Autostadt, made the unique car ready to drive and entrusted us to drive it. For the occasion, we went to the archives of the Volkswagen group – and the specialists there (as a second piece of news) selected the development folder from 1956 for us. It has finally surfaced again. The thick folder full of typed pages and pasted photos with a gray-brown cover shows the assignment that the development engineers received at the very front: “Development of a four-seater, two-door compact car with a maximum curb weight of 550 kg. Top speed approximately 80 km/h. Air-cooled engine with approximately 18 hp. Front-wheel drive. Cheap car for mass production.”

Would probably have been called Volkswagen 600

The project name was EA (‘Entwicklungsauftrag’, or development assignment) 48 and the production car would probably have been called the Volkswagen 600. On October 1, 1953, the engineers got to work. An important role was played by Gustav Mayer and Heinrich Seibt, who had previously worked at the inventive small car manufacturer Gutbrod. Probably the most modern detail of the car is the front axle: wishbones at the bottom, struts with a hydraulic shock absorber in the coil spring at the top – pretty much exactly what would later be called a ‘McPherson strut’. This type of suspension first went into series production with the arrival of the British Ford Consul in 1950/1951 (which did not yet have front-wheel drive), and on the Volkswagen K 70 that appeared in 1970 and was developed by NSU. The principle has been the standard for front-wheel drive cars worldwide since the 1970s.

However, VW development engineers also had to find a suitable engine. The options were ‘boxer engine with two cylinders placed transversely, inline engine placed longitudinally’. Water cooling was not an option and Nordhoff rejected a diesel engine. Just like the Duck, it was a petrol engine with two cylinders and air cooling. The fact that something like this was developed by the manufacturer of the Beetle (boxer engine, four cylinders, air-cooled) may sound like a piece of cake, but it was not. The engine became “much too hot” and in November 1954 it suffered from seizing pistons on the test bench. A rather envious note was added to the logbook on January 18, 1955: “The Citroën 2 CV engine passes approximately 2.4 times as much cooling air as the EA 48 engine.”

Prototype was ready in September 1955

In September the prototype was ready to drive, test drivers put the first EA 48 through its paces “on bad roads on the factory site” for 2,600 intensive kilometers, plus 130 kilometers as a prototype on provincial roads – that is probably why there there is no VW logo on the outside. Construction of a second copy was started, but it never drove around. And the heat problems? The fan wheel of a World War II Porsche boat engine cooled so much that the carburetor nearly froze over in late 1955, and the heater “was not even sufficient to provide a defrosting effect on the windshield.” Despite this, the engine itself still got too hot.

The crankcase, which was not strong enough, also warped, causing the engine to run unbalanced. “Hard and rough,” the engineers criticized.

Jobs at Lloyd at risk?

They were also not satisfied with the suspension. So they installed coil springs with a progressive adjustment. These responded smoothly to bumps and firmer under deep compression – very progressive. In tables, the Volkswagen engineers compared their baby with the Renault 4CV, Austin A30, Morris Minor, the now almost forgotten Standard Eight and – of course – the Citroën 2 CV. Was it the Lloyd LP 400 that ultimately became the VW’s fate? We find in the archives a report of the meeting of February 2, 1956, when Nordhoff decided: “The development of this model will be stopped immediately. The existing prototype is no longer used.” Had Lloyd boss Carl FW Borgward warned the Federal Republic’s Minister of Economic Affairs, Ludwig Erhard, that a small Volkswagen car would cost jobs at Lloyd? Had Erhard subsequently exerted influence on Volkswagen director Heinrich Nordhoff? Or did Nordhoff not want a small car anyway, because the VW factory was running almost at full capacity? None of that is in the files, so we’ll never know exactly.

Rebuilt exhaust

Today we can drive the special child, the prototype with chassis number VR-282. This is possible because Pablo Rother, a trained automotive technician, has recreated the completely rusted exhaust. “That took about a week and a half.” The rest was simpler: the seals on the tappet protection tubes had fallen apart and Rother made new ones using spare parts. He replaced the master cylinder and wheel brake cylinder and replaced the broken distributor cap with a modified Wanderer part… much more was not needed.

Before we set off, we of course first adjust the seat. The tubular steel frame chair is almost Duck-like, with snake springs instead of thick cushions. The longitudinal adjustment is very simple: we tilt the chair forward, lift it (it weighs almost nothing) and see five holes in the floor on the right and left. Depending on how far forward we want to sit, we insert the pins that are at the bottom of the seat. We sit down and close the door. That happens with a solid thud, just like with a series-produced car. Then we’ll finally get to drive it – probably as the first test drivers since 1956! We pull the choke to the left of the ignition switch and the starter to the right: the two-cylinder starts with a clear sound. The clutch (still the original one from the 1950s!) slips a bit, and off we go.

The engine sounds like a mixture of a 2CV and a Trabant. The tires, which Continental produced especially for the EA 48, are as old as the car itself. The prototype was not yet equipped with ‘details’ such as exterior mirrors, door locks, sun visors or interior lighting, but it drives almost like a production car. All gears are synchronized (second to fourth gear on the Duck). You sit a bit crooked behind the wheel, because the steering column points to the right and the pedals are placed far to the right. But it does offer about the same amount of space as the much longer and wider Beetle.

Mothers-in-law with wide hips

And how does it compare to the Duck? At the front, the VW offers 6.5 centimeters more shoulder width and eight centimeters more seat width; In the rear, however, the VW’s wheel arches protrude beyond the bench seat, so that mothers-in-law with wide hips can better sit in the front. The knee room in the back of the Duck is also half a class better: the Frenchman has eight centimeters more freedom of movement for the legs of his rear passengers. The EA 48 is 75 kilos heavier than the Duck, but it also has one and a half times as much power, which gives a noticeably better power-to-weight ratio.

With the 18 hp 600 cc engine (which runs at a maximum of 4,350 rpm), the VW manages to leave the French with its 12 hp 425 cc engine behind. The needle on the VDO speedometer, which continues up to 100 km/h, bravely creeps up. Driving up hills is quite possible with this car.

Then we park the VW, which now has 2,857 kilometers on the clock, and get into the Duck. We carefully close the door of the 2 CV, so that the raised side window does not close. We turn the ignition key from left to right, pull out the choke (‘S’) in front of the steering wheel and then press the starter button (‘D’). We then hear a kind of chattering – this car could well have been called ‘Duck’ if it had looked completely different. Where the Volkswagen turns tightly, the Duck waddles back and forth in a remarkably smooth manner. Almost everything we see or touch under its rolling roof is based on an ingenious or at least daring idea. Compared to this extremely innovative car, its intended German counterpart seems a bit boring, but underestimating gray mice is often a mistake.

Would Volkswagen have made a lot of money with the 600 in the early 1960s? Probably not. But he would have changed the culture at Volkswagen: namely the firm belief of the VW management that a car absolutely had to have a rear engine. A little bit of Citroën’s innovative spirit would have done Volkswagen some good.

The 600 was previously discussed in this article about possible successors to the Volkswagen Beetle.