Established more than 150 years, by local entrepreneurs Christian Schmidt and Heinrich Stoll, in the picturesque town of Riedlingen on the banks of the River Danube.

The new company NSU Motorenwerke or simply NSU began as manufacturers of knitting machines that diversified into producing pedal cycles, graduating gradually to motorcycles and later motor cars.

With demand for his products booming, in 1886 Schmidt transferred his production facilities to the city of Neckarsulm. By 1892, NSU had wound down production of knitting machines and concentrated entirely on manufacturing pedal cycles.

The dawn of the Twentieth century 1901 witnessed the arrival of the first NSU motorcycle, with the first NSU four wheeled vehicle released just four years later in 1905.

NSU survived Word War One and its aftermath as well as most of its counterparts in the German car industry. However, the biting effects of the recession which gripped all of Germany in the Twenties and Thirties soon began to take their toll.

Under increasing pressure from their financiers to concentrate their production on motorcycles, NSU, against their better wishes, withdrew from car production, selling their brand new custom-built plant in Heilbronn to Italian auto giant Fiat- reportedly at a knock down price.

Fiat used the Heilbronn plant to assemble Fiat Cars for sale in the German market.

It soon came to light that the money people knew what they were doing. In the years up to the outbreak of World War Two, NSU grew to become one of the largest and best-known manufacturers of motorcycles not only in Germany but across Europe and across the World.

>Despite the NSU plant at Neckarsulm being partly destroyed by Allied bombers just a few weeks before the end of the war, it was soon knocked back into shape to be used as a massive garage/ repair- shop for use by the allied forces.

Motor cycle production recommenced at Neckarsulm a few months later with the launch of the 1000cc engined Fox.

In July 1946, a new board was appointed, headed by General Director Walter Egon Niegtsch, who initially curtailed his leaning towards producing four wheeled transport which he had gained having previously spent seventeen years with Opel.

Under Niegtsch’s guidance, by the Mid-Fifties, annual production had grown to more than 350,000 units, making NSU one of the world’s largest manufacturers of two-wheeled vehicles at that time.

This figure was boosted considerably by NSU signing a lucrative deal to produce motor scooters from Italian giants Lambretta under license.

With not a cloud on the horizon, by the mid Fifties, NSU, under the prompting of Walter Egon Niegtsch, NSU once again began to investigate the possibility of producing conventional four-wheeled motor cars, after a hybris of more than twenty years.

NSU’s original plan was to produce a three-wheeler car, popular in West Germany in the late Fifties. That plan was apparently scrapped when NSU announced that they would be launching a four-wheel compact, powered by a 600cc engine -taken from their top selling Max motorcycle.

Marketed the NSU Prinz, the new compact was commercially and critically well received, remaining in consistent demand for more than fifteen years.

By the early Sixties, NSU had once again established themselves as a producer of four-wheeled vehicles, a position they had relinquished in the mid Thirties

Their position as a car manufacturer was further consolidated with the arrival of the Prinz 1000 in 1964, powered by a 996cc, 4 OHC engine capable of generating 45hp.

Yet from that point onwards, NSU hit a sudden and difficult to explain downward spiral. The down turn began in 1963, when the company announced their decision to withdraw entirely from motorcycle production, instead to concentrate entirely on four wheeled vehicles. Vehicle that would be powered by the revolutionary Wankel engine.

By 1963 NSU had already produced the first single rotor Wankel motor and in September of the first vehicle to be powered it, the Wankel Spider was unveiled at the Frankfurt fair. Most motoring critics hastened to categorise the Spider as a convertible version of the Sport Prinz. The public were also less than impressed, as just 2,400 Spiders were sold over the next four years, till the Spider it was discontinued.

The Spider gave NSU more than its share of problems, leading industry experts to arrive at the painful conclusion that the engine having not been sufficiently tested before launch.

Undeterred, NSU unveiled the Ro80, a full-sized saloon at the Frankfurt Autumn Fair of 1967. The Ro80 was powered by a two-rotor Wankel engine, reportedly capable of generating 115 hp.

The NSU Ro80 was such a far cry from the Prinzes in terms of appearance, large, modern and streamlined.

The Ro 80 was the talk of the car industry in that year, even winning the prestigious award for “car of the year 1967".

Almost all the world's leading car manufacturers were reportedly beating a path to NSU’s door to sign up for development and production rights for the Wankel engine.

It soon emerged that the Ro80 it did have something in common with the Prinz- interminable engine problems. Initially put down as teething but soon emerged to be chronic, costing considerable effort and money for NSU to put right.

The Wankel engine was very inclined to over-rev and the transmission was reported to be very sluggish. Major engine failures became increasingly common. even at low mileage. Fuel consumption was also a major issue.

As a result, sales of the Ro80 were far from NSU’s expectations.

To add insult to injury, competitor automakers held back from marketing the Wankel technology, meaning that anticipated royalties did not materialise.

Soon NSU found themselves under increasing financial pressure, and just as in the mid-Thirties, NSU quickly folded, agreeing to be acquired by VW/Audi in 1969 for an undisclosed sum.

Sadly NSU is principally remembered today not as one of the World’s leading motorcycle manufacturers of the Twentieth century, but as the first manufacturer to fit their cars with the ill-fated Wankel engine.