NSU Prinz
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The NSU Prinz was an automobile produced in Germany by the NSU Motorenwerke AG. The car was built from 1957 to 1962, and received two updates throughout its life.
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The NSU Prinz 4L replaced the original Prinz in 1964. It was shorter than the NSU 1000 (all in the rear, engine compartment and rear seating area). It was powered by a 2-cylinder, air-cooled engine in the rear.
The NSU Prinz evolved into the somewhat larger NSU 1000 and the NSU 1000 TT. Both NSU 1000 and NSU 1000 TT had 4-cylinder aircooled OHC engines and were frequently driven as sports cars, but also as economical family cars as well. The engines were very lively, and highly reliable. Paired with the low total weight, excellent handling and cornering, both the NSU 1000 and the much higher powered NSU 1000 TT outperformed many sportscars. Even today more than thirty years later, it remains difficult finding an economical car for seating four to five adults with such high levels of performance, handling, reliability and robustness. When NSU was acquired by Volkswagen, the name was changed to Audi-NSU AG, and the small, rear-engined NSU models were quickly phased out, as they were far too competitive against Volkswagen's own Beetle. It was after acquisition of NSU that the VW organisation became known for making affordable modern front-engine cars.
In 1967, Soviet manufacturer ZAZ created a virtual copy of the NSU Prinz, named ZAZ-966. However, the engine an air-cooled V4 with 900 cc and 30 hp (1200 cc and 39 hp in later years), totally different from the NSU's unit.
External links
- http://bimbo.fjfi.cvut.cz/~sivak/obr/galerie/1965nsu.jpg
- http://www.nsu-ig.de/
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