Lord_k's Article – September 2011 Archive (5)

Lord K's Garage #106: Voisin C25 Aérodyne

French proto-Batmobile:

Built by Avions Voisin, a great small company blessed with unique vision, innovative solutions and extreme nonconformism. Unfortunately, these blessings were not enought to make it into a really successful business.…

Continue

Added by lord_k on September 30, 2011 at 6:30am — 3 Comments

Knights of the Air: Austrian Wings

Another forgotten chapter of the air war history:

The Lohner company Series 111 aircraft was an Austria-Hungarian prototype single seat biplane built in 1917 by Lohnerwerke GmbH. The fuselage was a laminated wood construction. The wing struts were an "I" requiring no wires tor structural stability. Power was provided by an Austro-Daimler engine generating 185…

Continue

Added by lord_k on September 29, 2011 at 6:30am — 3 Comments

Lord K's Garage #105: 1934 Tatra 52 Sodomka

An elegant semi-streamliner and its coachbuilder's story:

The Sodomka company was established by Josef Sodomka in 1895 in Vysoke Myto in what's now called the Czech Republic*. Within a surface area of 92 square meters and with only five workers he began production of all kinds of coaches, both sleighs and horse drawn carriages. They became the largest and best known coachbuilding company in the Czechoslovak Republic.…

Continue

Added by lord_k on September 23, 2011 at 6:30am — 6 Comments

Knights of the Air: Manfred & Moritz

The greatest WWI ace and his friend:

Here's an extract from Manfred von Richthofen journal and some pictures of his Jasta 11 squadron - with and without Moritz:

The most beautiful being in all creation is the genuine Danish hound, my little lap-dog, my Moritz. I bought him in Ostend from a brave Belgian for five marks. His mother was a beautiful animal and one…

Continue

Added by lord_k on September 22, 2011 at 9:30am — 5 Comments

Lord K's Garage #104: BMW Bügelfalte

Ladies and gentlemen, here is the most exquisite car of the Future that Never Was: the 1937/1940 BMW 328 MM Bügelfalte! Today the 328 is considered to be one the most modern pre-war cars. Its advanced chassis and light weight of just 830 kg makes a well driven example hard to catch even for much more modern machines. The design of the chassis was unique to this model. It used a tubular frame, with traverse strengthening, while suspension consisted of a transverse…