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1931 Rumpler RuV31:

The Rumpler RuV31 was an experimental streamlined newspaper delivery van that served in the rural outskirts of Berlin, Germany at least once each week in the early 1930s. The Rumpler RuV was a revolutionary machine that ushered in a new era of automotive design.

The 1931 Rumpler RuV31 was a six-wheeled teardrop-shaped commercial delivery van. It was approximately 28 feet long, 8 feet wide and 9 feet high. It was painted a deep navy blue with raised silver lettering stamped in an arc down the side.

The full technical name of the Rumpler was Rumpler Versuchswagen Stromlinien-Lastwagen. The RuV label was abbreviated from Rumpler (Ru), and Versuchswagen (V), which translates roughly to “experimental vehicle”; Stromlinien-Lastwagen translates to “streamlined truck”. Although it is rumored that two such vehicles were built to be identical in appearance but different in their sources of power, it is possible that only a single van was constructed and the original 6-cylinder replaced at some point with a more modern and imposing V-12. Since no images of the two machines together seem to exist, the available evidence suggests only one machine was modified; it is not unusual for experimental and show vehicles to experience re-constructions for a variety of reasons. The two machines – or two versions of the same machine - are separately referred to as RuV29 and RuV31.

The brief existence of the Rumpler RuV(s) can be credited to the cooperation of multiple commercial vehicle designers and constructors, at the request of the founder of Ullstein Verlag, one of Germany’s largest publishing enterprises. An antique news article notes that the goal of the project was to get the newspapers to the stands ahead of their competitors, and the streamlined truck (or pair of trucks) was designed to make rapid deliveries while drawing attention to this achievement through advanced and dramatic aerodynamic body design. In short, the delivery of the news itself became a newsworthy item, doubling the purpose of this utility vehicle as a marketing exercise.

The most important figure in the development of the Rumpler RuVs was Austrian engineer Dr. Edmund Rumpler, the obvious namesake of this vehicle. Dr. Rumpler, who was born 4 January 1872 in Vienna, Austria, was an automotive engineer and designer by trade, but diverted his attention to aircraft design in the early 1900s after being inspired by the Wright brothers’ trials in the United States in the first decade of the 20th century. Dr. Rumpler became the very first German aircraft manufacturer, but remained primarily interested in automobiles. He returned to automotive design by applying streamlining techniques critical to aircraft design in his first streamlined car, the Tropfenwagen (literally: drop-car, because of its water-droplet-like form), which debuted at the 1921 International Auto Show in Berlin. Although the Tropfenwagen was not a commercial success, it did serve as a streamlined styling inspiration for many others that followed. Only two such vehicles remain in existence today, and a handful were used for the futuristic 1927 movie Metropolis for many of the highway scenes. The unique Tropfenwagen foreshadowed Dr. Rumpler’s later efforts on RuV streamlined newspaper delivery truck(s), which were introduced formally in 1931.

The architecture of the Rumpler RuV was based on a 5-ton commercial truck chassis featuring Dr. Rumpler’s front-wheel-drive design, which was manufactured at the Plauen plant of VOMAG (the acronym representing Vogtländische Maschinenfabrik AG, 1866-1948), a company which originally manufactured sewing and embroidery machines and associated parts until World War I transformed the company into a massive defense contractor building trucks, printing machines, tanks, and other items for Germany. When production for VOMAG slumped (along with the German economy) in the later 1920’s, Rumpler would sometimes contract with VOMAG to build vehicles featuring his own designs.

The Rumpler RuV streamliner was preceded by a variation of the front-wheel-drive two-axle bus chassis that was introduced at the Prague Auto Salon in 1929, and became one of the most exciting attractions at the event, which ran 23 October thru 31 October of 1929. There was even a scandal resulting in the Rumpler chassis being confiscated on the basis of a patent violation of Czech manufacturer Tatra’s swing-axle construction (Rumpler had patented his own swing-axle construction as early as 1903 while working for vehicle manufacturer Adler). Ultimately, the Rumpler vehicle was returned and the dispute resolved. The advantage of the Rumpler front-wheel-drive configuration, something Dr. Rumpler had been developing since approximately 1906, was that with the engine and transaxle mostly forward of the front driving wheels (resulting in the distinctive pronounced nose), the steel frame for the body could be continued through to the rear of the vehicle without being interrupted by a rear driving axle or driveshaft, allowing for flexible supports for a variety of body and cargo configurations and chassis lengths.

The two-axle Rumpler/VOMAG omnibus chassis ultimately served both the Berlin Polizei (police) as 31-seat personnel transport, and the Deutshe Reichpost (the German postal service from 1866-1945), along with a variety of other bus clients. The postal van is probably the closest mass-produced execution of the concept behind the RuVs. The debut of the front-wheel-drive Rumpler design in Prague also more or less coincided with the introduction of front-wheel drive automobiles in the United States by E.L. Cord with the Cord L29 in 1929, which is recognized as the first front-wheel-drive automobile available for public sale in the United States.

At the time of the unique commission from publisher Rudolph Ullstein of Ullstein Verlag, Rumpler did not have his own workshop in which to execute the project, so he had the chassis constructed by VOMAG based on a triple-axle variation of the 1929 show model (the author assumes the additional rear wheels were intended to better distribute the anticipated weight of cargo at speed), and formed his own company (Rumpler-Vorntrieb-Gesellshaft m.b.H.) to assemble the complete vehicle. The streamlined body was produced by the collective of German coachbuilders Luchterhand & Freytag and Gottfried Linder, with the assistance of the Ambi-Budd stamping plant https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumpler_Lkw. Reportedly the original design penned by Paul Jaray was to be much more round (similar to Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion vehicles), however Rudolph Ullstein preferred the more severe slab-sided wing-section look, which was ultimately the version constructed.

The Rumpler made its formal public debut at the 22nd IAA (Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung, or “International Motor Show”) in Berlin, Germany in 1931 to an audience of nearly 300,000 people. The Rumpler also represented the very first commercial vehicle (or vehicle of any type, including passenger cars) to demonstrate a front-wheel-drive configuration to be presented at the International Motor Show, which was held from 19 February through 1 March of 1931. The Rumpler was not just a fancy body for display however – since it was built over a commercial bus chassis, it had a cargo capacity in the realm of 11,000-lbs. After the show the extraordinary truck was put to use in the highly competitive newspaper market in an effort to beat competitors to the news-stands running routes around Berlin and to other nearby municipalities - and they received a fair amount of attention in carrying out their mission.

There are multiple and sometimes conflicting reports regarding the original powerplant(s) for the Rumpler RuV. It is consistently noted that the first Rumpler (RuV29) featured a Maybach I-6 engine, and the second Rumpler (RuV31) boasted a Maybach V-12. If these two engines were in fact production-spec Maybach automobile engines, then it can be assumed that RuV29 was served by the approximately 100-hp Maybach W5 inline-6 engine, which was replaced by the Maybach DS7 and DS8 V-12. It is unclear which engine was utilized for RuV31, but the Maybach DS7 V-12 introduced in 1929 was a massive 6,971cc (7 Liter, or 425 cubic inches) and rated at approximately 150-hp. If instead it is assumed that the most recently available engine was installed in the Rumpler, then it is possible that RuV31 was powered by the even bigger 1930 Maybach DS8 V-12 that debuted as an upgrade from the previous model year – this time at 7,977cc (8 Liter, or 486 cubic inches) and rated at 200-hp. Although it is probably less likely, it is technically possible that RuV29 was powered by a version of the engine that served Rumpler C4/C5 aircraft from the same period: the absolutely monstrous Maybach 20 Liter (1,228 cubic inches) I-6 200-hp engine that weighed 990-lbs, like the one in the collection at the Smithsonian Air & Space museum pictured below. Either way, a Maybach sedan could attain speeds of just over 100-mph when served by the DS8 V-12 engine, and that is no small feat for a several ton vehicle in 1930.

It is also reported that the powerful and speedy Rumpler required special tires, and so the distinctly extra-large front wheels designed to transfer power to the road were wrapped in specially designed Continental tires, which were purpose-built for high speeds over 60-mph.

With the onset of the Second World War, the RuV streamliner was packed away in storage in Berlin, although it is not clear where. The Rumpler was not spared during the devastating attacks on Berlin; the RuV (or both, if in fact there were two distinct vehicles) was reportedly obliterated in the course of an air raid during the 1942-1943 bombing of Berlin. Outside of the few photographs available online – almost all of which have been featured in this article – and with most of the vehicles and Dr. Rumpler’s records destroyed, little concrete evidence remains of Edmund Rumpler’s legacy. Regardless, there is no question that his technical and stylistic exercises benefitted the automobile industry a great deal, and it would take another 30-40 years for the industry to catch up with his forward-thinking ideas.