The Borgward Story

In 1957, Borgward was Germany’s second-largest auto manufacturer, right behind Volkswagen. By 1961, the company was bankrupt. But, as you might have guessed, that’s not the whole story.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the Wheel, under the Hood and beyond with
car Stuff from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hi, and
welcome to Car Stuff. I'm Scott, I'm Ben your you.
As always, we are joined by our world famous super
producer no nickname to be announced Brown and Dylan nickname

(00:24):
also tv A Facon. Yeah, we'll get to it. We'll
get to it. I think we will. I hope, I
hope we will. It's one of the situations where, you know,
like we said, it's it really is. Yeah, what a
time to be a lot. I think I think we've
been doing pretty good with them, though recently we've we've
had some some reasonable ones. We've had something, you know,
seem to make sense among the episode. Yeah, we have.
We've been doing all right with nicknames, and we've been

(00:46):
doing uh doing okay with listener mail too. I don't
want to jinxes. Yeah. Well, today's episode, as a matter
of fact, is a listener suggestion and it's a good one.
And uh, I'll have to um add a little disclaimer
here at the end. Uh you'll understand when we get
to it here, but this comes from a listener. His
name is Thomas C. Let's leave it at that scene. Uh,

(01:10):
dear Scott or dear Ben and Scott. Boy almost took
top credit there. I just meant almost said Scott and Ben,
But it says Ben and Scott on the email. Oh man,
Thomas was gonna be steamed at you. All right, dear
Ben and Scott. I am sure you did not have
too many hungarian listeners, but I am definitely one of them. Yeah,
I guess we do have one listener and hungry. Maybe

(01:31):
we probably have more. Maybe let's not I hope, let's
not be too well. Maybe Tamas has some friends. Yeah, yeah,
tell your friends about the show. But he says, I'm
a I'm a sales guy and I spent half of
my life behind the wheel, and it's a true petrol head.
I really like to listen to podcasts about cars. If
it's an English, that's even better because I can improve
my English language skills. So this is not his first

(01:53):
language English. That's super cool, man, really cool. So he
writes in and he has a bunch of things that
he likes about what we're doing, which is really nice.
But you also have some suggestions for shows, and one
of those suggestions was the story of borg Ward b
O R g W A r. D. Borg Ward and
it is a it turns out that's a German automobile

(02:14):
brand that I had personally never heard of. I mean,
I think we probably have run across them, maybe in
a museum somewhere, but it's just kind of one of
those things we maybe have walked past and didn't really
think much of. Where it was branded a different a
different well with a different name. Yeah, we definitely never
dug into it the way that we would dig into
say the origin of Dodge or Honda or something like that. Yeah, exactly.

(02:36):
And he goes on to say, I hope that you
can use some of my proposals and I look forward
to listening to a lot of car stuff in the future.
So um, well, cheers Thomas. And you know, I have
to I have to point this out though. This is
an important note if for those of you that know
the borg Ward brand, I guess this is not the
Thomas C that has recently been named to the executive

(02:57):
as the executive director of the Global mark Geting brand.
It's not him, And I checked because as soon as
I got to that, as I was reading the history
of the h of the brand itself, you know, on
their website and I was looking at the news and
and one of the items was this and this name
stuck out to me, and it's so close to his
last name as well. It's tamas Ci, and I thought,

(03:18):
oh no, this is the guy. You know, we've already
prepared this episode. This is like a marketing ploy, you know,
the guy that the guy from the marketing group has said,
I'd like you to talk about my brand. But that's
not the case. This is just a fan from Hungary
who who wants to hear about the Boardward brand. And uh,
we're happy to do that today. Uh. One quick thing
that I wanna maybe start with here, actually a couple
of things, and I've already violated this. Um, I've got

(03:41):
to note here that says slow down, and I'm gonna
I'm gonna look at this continually throughout the podcast because
I realized in that last episode that we did it
was a two part episode on Harry Miller Legends Harry Miller,
and I realized that I was trying to pack like
four hours of information into two hours of podcasting. Well,
to be fair, we had a lot of stuff to

(04:03):
do in that in those two episodes. Yeah, we did,
but I realized just how quickly I was speaking, and
sometimes things didn't come out right. I was just too fast.
I've been doing that for the last couple of months,
I guess. So I'm gonna try to make an effort
to slow down a little bit. And already you can
probably hear that I'm I'm excited about today's topics, so
it's hard to back it down. But I'm gonna try.

(04:23):
And I look at that note ocays and maybe you
can touch it. Slow down, slow down. I'll give it
a shot. But here's the one way to slow the
program down. I've got one thing I want to mention.
It's something I saw the other day on the road.
If you've got a moment before we begin our you know,
podcast for the day for some stuff. Scott Sea's a
little bit yeah, alright, So I'm commuting the other morning

(04:47):
on the US. I guess b I St. Five that
comes through Atlanta going south. A lot of people are
familiar with. That road is the like the main artery
right through downtown at Land, the main clogged artery of
downtown Atlanta. If you're going to Florida, you're going to
drive through that area, right, Okay, that's that's the thing.
In this particular area, there's about eight or nine lanes
of traffic. It's where a bunch of lanes are coming

(05:08):
in and eventually that you know, narrows down just a bit.
But it's about eight or nine lanes there, so about
three or four lanes over to my left. Um, I
look over and there's a lot of traffic kind of
slowing down when everybody else is still kind of freely moving.
I learned what's going on. There's gonna be, you know,
a car wreck or something that happens all the time.
Maybe yeah, it was something in the road. It was,
but the debris looks so weird to me. It was

(05:28):
like it was scattered along the entire lane. And the
weird thing it was it was only in that one lane.
It was like evenly distributed throughout one lane. And I
looked really carefully as it drove by, because we weren't
going that fast at all. It was a what looked
like a huge drawer full of chisels and screw drivers
that had dumped out on the road. It looked like
somebody had maybe been hauling one of those great big

(05:50):
toolboxes on the trailer and a drawer had opened or
fallen out, but there's no drawer, just the just the tools.
And there's this asortment of all apes of of again
screw drivers, and I think there were big chisels in there.
They look like they had real broad tips on them.
I can't imagine the damage that that would cause your
vehicle if you were to hit that, because it would,

(06:10):
you know, of course with puncture tires, but not just tires,
would also hit the undercarriage in a pretty brutal way
and also fly up into other vehicles, you know, oncoming traffic,
traffic behind you. I guess that's like a super hazard
on the road. I just haven't never seen anything quite
like that. I've seen, you know, other weird stuff on
the highway of course, you know, like people, you know,
couch drops off or mattress or something like that, or

(06:33):
lawn chairs or whatever, But but I've never seen like
a whole drawer full of tools on the road like that.
What did you do? Well, I just drove on by.
I didn't really you know, other than just looking at
you know, the mess. I guess um, you know, there
was no temptation to stop and get them, because you
can't do that there's too much traffic. You don't want
to get locked up go up the river for screwdriver theft. Yeah, well,
I mean it looked like I mean, this looks like

(06:54):
a thousand dollars worth of equipment of tools there, and
there's a lot of stuff. Probably just fell off a truck,
well I think so. I think it probably dropped out
of someone's toolbox again on a trailer or something. Um,
there's no turn in that area though, so you couldn't
have just dropped out that way. It's really kind of
a mystery, like how did that end up there? Like, well,
if they're precariously packed, what time of day did you say?
This one in the morning, morning rush hour, morning rush

(07:16):
At the end of someone's heading there's probably a construction
vehicle heading to a site, and maybe they packed in
a hurry. But if that box was precariously packed, then
you don't have to be going that fast. Just the
act of slowing down abruptly and then speeding up again
and stopping go traffic could do it just slide it

(07:37):
right off the back end at some point. Yeah. But
the weird thing is there's no box. Well anyways, there's
no box or no tool chest or anything like that.
Just I would imagine that whoever you know, the owner
was was surprised to find and you know that all
of his tools are gone when he gets to the
job site he or she. I guess, well, maybe, and
I know this is a little bit of insight baseball
for people who have never visited Atlanta, Georgia. But maybe

(07:57):
this feeds into a theory that I used to have.
It totally didn't take seriously, but you have to think
about sometimes. Atlanta is one of the cities that is very,
very fond of more or less arbitrarily putting down metal plates.
And these can be very dangerous because they can shift

(08:18):
when a heavy vehicle goes over them right like a
tractor trailer. Uh, and then they'll have an abrupt drop
in the asphalt. And I don't know what comes first.
I don't know if they're supposed to cover up the
potholes or if they dig the holes to like set
the plates. But this is a continual problem downtown. And
I get to the point where somebodies and I were

(08:40):
driving and um, he had messed up his oil pan
on his car because he knocked one of these wrong way.
And so yeah, he was living. He was he was
not a happy camper. And then we came to the
conclusion that because we see so little actual road construction
on surface streets in Atlanta, that maybe there's a different crew.

(09:04):
We called them, like the night crew who go out
and make the potholes and lay the plates just to
keep stuff interesting and like throw things in the road
because you know, Mattris well, like you see all sorts
of stuff on the road in this town. And I
don't know, ladies and gentlemen, maybe your town is just
as bad. But I've seen the following. I've seen mattresses,

(09:25):
every imaginable tire, uh emblems. One time I saw a
box of hats and the wind picked up some of
the hats I've seen. Um, you know, of course the saddest,
the stray animals of every ilk. Actually, a number of
years ago, you can check this fact, folks. Number of
years ago, a zebra got loose in Atlanta. That was

(09:45):
right near our office. Yeah, that was was the bucket
area and the circus was visiting visiting town. And and
when a zebra escaped the train or the procession, I guess, yeah,
he was just done with it. Or maybe maybe the
night crew of Atlanta Road Maintenance took him out there
just to spice things up. Hey, you know this is
a good way to plug our old show on Circus Trains.

(10:07):
Oh yeah, we do have a show on Circus Trains.
It's a golden oldie man. Sure you can check out
that show as well as all of the other audio
podcast we've ever done, and oh brother, there are a
lot of them by going to our website car Stuff
Show dot com. Also Scott speaking fantastic segues one. Huh
board Ward Yeah, board Ward. All right, so I'm gonna

(10:30):
talk about board Wards today for Thomas right or th
and uh, And I gotta tell you like he he
wrote it and said, you know, it's got an interesting past.
It's a it's a it's a neat story. And I
looked at it and I didn't really quite get it
at first, but I got it later. I understand there's
a lot of twist to this story. Yeah. In fact,
this a lot of the articles that you'll read will
start out with the mention of a guy that we've

(10:50):
talked about in the past, Preston Tucker. Um, we'll say
it's a little bit Preston Tucker like I guess in
the way that things kind of played out. But um, yeah,
there's there's more than one twist to this story. Really,
there's a lot of of of meandering going on in
the history of this company. So, um, I guess maybe
we should talk about why they Hey, you know, let's
it's not gonna give anything away if we just read

(11:11):
this quick little summary from from the Car and Driver article,
I don't think. Oh no, I think that's great. So
there's a fantastic article about bourg Ward from Car and
Driver and it starts with the following. The story of
Preston Tucker and his car is well known, and I'm
paraphrasing here. The gist of it is that the forty
eight was better looking and technologically superior to the competition,

(11:34):
but was brought down by uh mean spirited competitors, government
officials and the author here, by the way, is too
polite to say corrupt, but I believe they were corrupted. Well,
and they say, of course, you know, the Tucker car was,
of course in the cut Tucker brand. I guess Preston
Tucker was very forward thinking. He had, you know, stylish
vehicle that was real cutting edge. Um, you know, had

(11:55):
a lot of technology that you know, the other manufacturers
just weren't able to catch up with at the time
with out spending a pile of money, and some that
no manufacturer thought to try, like that that third headlight. Yeah, yeah,
a lot of things like that. I mean at the
rearmounted enery. Remember the helicopter engine in the in the trunk. Yeah,
so so strange things like that, right. But and this
isn't quite that wacky, but they're saying that Germany has

(12:17):
its equivalent to Preston Tucker. Actually, yes, someone who in
some wings is even more Tucker than Tucker in terms
of scale. Because while while Preston Tucker and the Tucker
Car Company may or Tuckermood Company made uh about fifty
one units before they folded, borg Ward was the fourth
largest car company in Germany by the end, by the

(12:42):
end that there like heyday, and we're not giving anything
away by saying that by the end, no, uh, And
they employed more than twenty thousand people. They were sold
under multiple brands, not just boord Ward, but also Lloyd,
Hanza and Goliath. Yeah. So this is this is started
by this charismatic industrialist. His name is car Arle board
Ward and again these cars were really stylished. They had

(13:03):
lots of cutting edge technology and a lot of people
have said that the the Isabella line, which is the
line that came about. I want to say the Isabella
was around nineteen fifty four and they that was sold
until the end of this company again in nineteen one,
which again not give anything away. There's a lot of twists,
but the Isabella was considered by a lot of a
lot of people to be one of the most beautiful

(13:24):
cars of its era. UM so there were other things
to the board Ward hundred. They say it was an
early fast accedan um had an an in house built
automatic transmission. Uh. There was a successor of that car,
the P one hundred, the boord Ward P one hundred,
which was one of the fastest cars in its segment,
and it was fitted with an air suspension including an
innovative anti role and anti drive anti dive system. That

(13:48):
anti drive you wouldn't want that in your car, anti
dive system, so you know, when you hit the brakes,
it didn't it didn't nose down right. And uh, let's
let's introduce everybody to the guy responsible. UM. You know
a little more detail as we get into what he did, certainly,
because one thing that he did that is very in

(14:09):
that I think is is very important here is he
was not born on third base. This was not a
guy with a what do you call it silver spoon
in his mouth? Born on third base. I've never heard
that one uh started on third base? That I think
I can't remember. It's good saying, well you and I get,
I get what you mean, but like, let's be honest.
That's because we both are not the best at idioms.

(14:33):
No we're not, But I understand born on third base,
that's a good one. So what we mean is that
he came from very modest means. It was the son
of a coal retailer. Coleman called him, uh named Wilhelm Borguard.
He had twelve brothers and sisters. Scott twelve twelve. I

(14:54):
got to do something to stand out, and you sure do.
He undertook some engineering studies and he got his diploma
in engineering nineteen thirteen. He served a World War One
where he was wounded, and he became a partner in
a company called bremer Rife in industry. Yeah, and that,

(15:14):
by the way, that's all right, that's it's understandable. There's
a there's a story behind that. I guess that's kind
of his beginning, right, that's this is a company that
was an automotive radiator company, and this is in Bremen, Germany.
This is around what I think it's nineteen nineteen, nineteen nineteen, Okay,
I think it was around nineteen twenty one, maybe a

(15:36):
couple of years later, when he decided that he's going
to branch out on his own and he's going to
uh gonna build his own vehicle. He's going to make
this this it's sort of like a utility motorcycle, I
guess is what you call it. It was a three
wheel vehicle, and we know why it was three wheel,
probably because of taxes at theme. So it got around
that the car taxes, and um, this first vehicle was

(15:57):
kind of a what would you call a three we'll
curry your motorcycle, I think that's what they called it. Yeah,
we're talking about the blitz count in right. Yeah. The
blitz Karen means lightning cart in English, which is a name. Yeah,
it is a really cool name. I would have stuck
with lightning car, but I guess it's the same thing. Right.
So that's the very first vehicle that carried It didn't

(16:19):
didn't necessarily carry the Boardboard name. It was built by
board Ward Rights. Yeah, so this was you you can
find pictures of this. It had to horsepower one point
five kilo watts. But it was an enormous success because
it filled a specific market niche which was, uh, there

(16:39):
were a lot of people who were maybe I don't
want to say small time but local traders, merchants, right,
green grocers, etcetera. And they would have delivery needs for
their town, their village, their municipality. This was perfect because
this little three wheeled van had room for a driver,

(17:02):
but it was mainly built the whole stuff. Oh wait
a second though, you said van, that's the that's right,
but you know what, you're right in that the first
one was the same thing with the you know, it
had more of a platform, I guess. The second one
was more of a van type vehicle. It just had
a body surrounding really the same vehicle. It looked like
the same vehicle the shape anyways. And that was called
the Goliath Goliath Pioneer, and that was produced from about

(17:24):
nineteen thirty one to nineteen thirty four, but that is
based on the success of the Blitz car, and which
was the one that Again, those grocers and those those tradesmen,
the people that needed to carry boxes and nails or
wood or drivers or fresh vegetables or you know, whatever
it was, whatever you're selling in the market. Uh, this
thing had room to carry it. It It was. It's a
it's a really strange vehicle. It has kind of a deck.

(17:45):
It almost has a boat like look to it. Yeah,
I it must confess. I did get a chuckle when
I read when I read Goliath Pioneer, and I was
looking at the specs before I looked at a picture
of it and I thought, oh, okay, well, well Ben
be cool. It was a different time and I pulled

(18:06):
up the picture to his chuck. Later it was like,
I wonder if this is good, We're going to be
a giant vehicle. Yeah, Goliath. Well it's called Goliath Pioneer.
Sure it sounds very impressive, right, but you look at it,
this three wheel I guess cycle car type thing, and
it's it's got an air cooled one cylinder engine, which
is a little bit less than point to of a
of a leader umcs about six and a half horse power,

(18:31):
maybe a little bit more six point seven horse power. Um,
so it's a it's a diminutive vehicle, but it fit
a purpose, and that purpose was mail delivery. A lot
of a lot of the German Postal Service would use
these vehicles to deliver mail, you know, to whatever distant
location they had to out in the country or you know,
even within the city. It was just a perfect vehicle

(18:53):
for mail delivery at the time, and that's what they
used it for. Tom speed thirty four miles per hour.
What if you're stopping through every mailbox, it doesn't matter,
it doesn't matter. It's it's like it's that version of
a city car. I guess maybe you know in the
nineteen early nineteen thirties. Alright, so we're kind of buzzing

(19:13):
through the early thirties here, but um, there were some
four wheel cars that we need to talk about. Absolutely so. Um,
but let's stay just for a moment. I always said,
we need to move on, but let's stay for a
moment in the nineteen thirties, or maybe even one year prior,
because something happened that we do need to mention. Yes,
this is when board Ward, along with his business partner

(19:35):
Wilhelm Tecklenborg, which is such a cool board. Yeah, it's
cool name, sounds like he does, look at the photo, um,
but he Those two acquired companied by the name of
Bremer Hans A. Lloyd Work and together they developed the well,
they I guess, developed small trucks and in nineteen I

(19:56):
think it was one right when they came up with
the Goliath pioneer that just talked about. And then they
also renamed the company. I don't know exactly when the
rename happened. It was probably right around this time, early nineties,
midnight thirties when they renamed the company. And this is
a long one, but I'm going to try to get
through this in one in one shot here I believe
in Okay, this name is the They renamed the company

(20:17):
Hans A. Lloyd and Goliath work Board Ward and Techlenborg.
Oh g hey, Dylan, can we put in uh an
applause and ovation noise? It was great? Well, what they
don't know is it took me seven or eight tries
to get through. Well, that's just the magic of editing man,
all right. So anyways, this the three wheeler that they had,
you know, under that new name that new incredibly long

(20:39):
named this tiny little vehicle was very popular. Yes, yes,
and uh five years later they said, you know, let's
introduce some four wheels cars. What what I love about
this point, Scott, is that this evolution occurred in a
very smart way. First two vehicles the board or makes

(21:00):
are very very specific, very niche um. They're inexpensive to create,
and they're inexpensive to purchase and probably inexpensive to maintain.
But now it's an expansion point. Now the game is changing,
and we'll tell you how after a word from our sponsor,

(21:29):
and we're back. Yeah, and we are in. We're still
in the nineteen thirties as a matter of fact, because
I'm checking out when they when they made these first
four wheel vehicles under the Hansa brand or Hansa UM
and this is the production period for this vehicle, that
the Hansa four D five hundred was between nineteen thirty
three and nineteen thirty five. So again, this is right

(21:49):
around the time when the Goliath was still UM still popular,
vehicles still being produced. But this is an air cooled
two cylinder rear engine, rear engine vehicle either four dred CC.
Obviously you know, for the hats of four hundred and
the five hundreds CC for the hats of five dred
horsepower was somewhere between twelve and fourteen, depending on which
model you had. But again, this is their foray into

(22:10):
four wheel vehicles, a more I guess, proper looking car
if you want to call it that. Yeah, and Scott,
you made a you made a great point when you
alluded to the taxation situation and how it would determine
what the number of wheels of vehicle had. Could you
could we talk just a little bit about that so
people know where he's coming from. Yeah. Sure, if you

(22:31):
have three wheels versus four wheels, it's considered a motorcycle.
And uh and the taxes that go along with motorcycles,
even though you can carry multiple passengers just like you
can on a motorcycle. Um, you know, if you have
a cycle car, maybe that's what I'm trying to get it.
That's something that you know has multiple seats even side
by side. Your taxed as a motorcycle versus being taxed
as a car, which was a much higher tax at

(22:52):
the time. Uh. So you know a lot of the
manufacturers would get around that by creating the three wheel
cycle cars, and we have a full episode on three
wheel cycle cars or three three wheelers from a long
time ago. It might even be a high speed stuff show. Um,
but there's so many I just forget about those oftimes. Yeah,
well there's a long long time ago, years and years ago.

(23:13):
But um, we'll we'll tell you all about how that
kind of came about, in the differences in the taxes
and everything. But it was a popular choice among manufacturers
around this time, you know, post World War One, pre
World War two, to build these three wheel cycle cars
because you know, it's just a way to skirt the
taxes that the government was going to charge. And they
did it very effectively. I mean, they had some interesting designs.

(23:34):
People really like them. They were popular, sure, especially if
we're talking about, uh, the urbanization of Europe at the time.
Europe was already a much more urbanized um area of
the world in comparison to say the United States, which
led vast swall today has vast swalls of wilderness where
there's just nothing there but a couple of you know,

(23:58):
irritated and lazy bears. And then I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
Do imagine that where we live, right, we have diverse psychology,
amazing wildlife. We have bears here, odly enough, we do
have bears. Occasionally there'll be a tie up on a road,
you know, I mean hyway because there's a bear in
a tree and everybody has to slow down to look
at it. Nobody's gonna mess with the bear, I guess.

(24:18):
I mean, it's just strange that, you know, in a
in a city of what seven million people, they're still bears. Well, yeah,
but we have a lot of forest. This is a
different show. It's I would I would love to do
a show about that. But here's an important point. Yeah,
they were very successful. Yes, not only were they very
successful in this um in in this iteration, but they

(24:43):
were riding the wave of change. So Germany at this
time was working on UH, working on creating an increasingly
powerful and sophisticated industrial base. Right, But we got to
remember this is after World War One, so this is
a very difficult thing in many ways. It's even more

(25:06):
impressive in that case that Boord Guard was able to
UH was able to play the game, the political aspects
of the game so well. Because we said that they
had the hans of four hundred and five hundred, and
we talked about the taxes for three will vehicles being
considered motorcycles versus four wheeled vehicles. Well, even once you

(25:27):
get into four wheeled vehicles, there were different tax uh
systems or structures. So the hans Of four hundred and
five hundred there were smaller vehicles because tax rules were
favorable for them. But in nineteen thirty three those tax
rules were abolished and this triggered boord Guard's decision to
make a new series of Hansa's. Yeah. They I mean

(25:49):
they have the eleven hundred series. Uh, they went on
to make with D series I think, which is a
six cylinders Yeah, and the convertible versions of those. I mean,
it's just that there's a lot of variety. There's a
the hans Of two thousand that comes out as well,
the hans of There's there's multiple Hansa models and I've
printed out several of them here, I've got ben I
shove been earlier. I've print out just the models and

(26:11):
it's just the the boord Woard models that you know
en Compass Goliath and Hansa and Borgoard and all that stuff. Um,
thirteen pages of material and there's no way we're gonna
go through every model that they made by any means.
But I just know that in you know, the early
part of the late part of the nineteen thirties and
early nineteen forties, this was such a popular line of vehicles,

(26:32):
so so so many people wanted these that there was
a six month waiting list. And you guys know, I'm
a sucker for some of these older classic cars, the
very streamlined um roaring twenties, angry thirties look. Uh. Bourguard
was nailing this. At the same time, they also began

(26:53):
to phase out the Hansa name and and just focus
more more on board Wards. So the name they made
the two thousand, like Scott said, um, they began to
call them Hansa borg Wards and then borg Ward Hansa
and finally they said, uh, why are we standing on ceremony? Well,

(27:14):
the badging thing is a little bit tough to to
grasp rerillly unless you see the history laid out in
front of you. So so that's a tough thing. But
you gotta remember that they're also competing with other you know,
leading German automakers of the day, which included Opal and
Ford and Adler. Uh, there's also um Wanderer. UM, there
were others. I They've got another list of of competitors
here somewhere. But oh, BMW is one that they were

(27:35):
competing UM in the early days. UM. And that's an
important thing to note too, because we'll get to that
in a minute. That that is part of one of
the twists. You gave a little clue it's coming up,
all right, So here's the oh and here's the other thing. UM. Okay.
So they were also really passionate about their engineering, about
their design, about their UM. You know, as we said
in the early part of this podcast, we said that, uh,

(27:57):
they were UM on the leading edge of technology. They
were really trying to bring in some new technology like
the air suspension, and they were also working on just
making the cars stylish and and cutting edge, and the
cars that the people wanted to buy. People wanted to
be seen in the board board Ward or Hansa or
whatever it was badged at the time. UM. But the

(28:18):
thing is that, you know, maybe that passion for engineering
is what also led to the company's downfall, according to
according to this Car and Driver article, because UM, as
they point out, each of these brands so you're talking
about the Lloyd, the Hans Lloyd, hansa, UM, Goliath, and
board Ward. They each had their own engineering and purchasing department.
So there's very little commonality between cars. A lot. This

(28:40):
is very unlike what we see today and that you know,
a lot of parts are shared among you know, different
brands that are owned by the same parent company. UM.
I guess maybe a case in point would be like
you know, where you have a Volkswagen and you see UM,
I think, I don't know if I have this backwards maybe,
but on the seat belts there might be a tag
that has the OUTI logo because it's just shared part

(29:00):
between that brand and you know, this brand. So UM,
there was very little commonality between these cars, and sometimes
the company find it would find itself short on cash
because it was having to develop all these different models
independently of one another. So getting back into it, you know,
and then in the late nineteen thirties, I guess around
nineteen thirty eight, UM board Ward opened a brand new

(29:22):
modern factory in Bremen, Germany, of course, and UM by
nineteen thirty nine, UH they were forced to shift their
production into trucks and military vehicles for the war effort
for Germany. And now we're entering into something that is controversial.
Doesn't cover it, Uh, we're entering into a just a fact,

(29:44):
the historical fact that Boordguard's company was mandated by the
National Socialist government of the time more probably known as
the Nazis to build hardware and machines or vehicles typically
for their war effort. This is in some ways similar
to what was happening with US manufacturers, but the differences

(30:09):
that a lot of these US manufacturers willingly turned their
efforts towards building weapons of war for the Allies. Yeah,
where it's likely that bord Ward boord Ward was forced
to do this. He was he was told that you
know you need to do this, um, you have to
make these trucks in these military vehicles for us. So
the Bremen factory UM was put into use for again

(30:30):
making you know, machines of war and and and of
course then it became a target. So in ninety four
the Bremon factory was destroyed by Allied bombs. And of
course we all know what happened during the war. And
in nineteen forty five when the war ended, UM Carl
boord Ward was arrested and served three years in prison
for aiding the Nazis. And I feel like it would

(30:52):
be dishonest if we glossed over the fact that one
of one of the accusations on things he was convicted of,
and it was even was that prisoners of war we're
being used as labor in these factories. So this is
very very dirty pool. Yeah. Now, without court transcripts and

(31:12):
all that, we don't know if he was willing, you know,
will in participant in this, or if this was forced
upon him or what so. Um. Again, it's it's just
a part of the history that we do have to
mention here, that that the that the founder of this
company did serve three years in prison for again eighting
the Nazis were again building these machines of war. Um.
But he bounced back from this. Yeah, and I do.

(31:33):
That's the point of what I want to ask about Scott,
because and something I want to ask the listeners to. So, yes, arrested, convicted,
but served only three years. And we're talking about post
World War two prison sentences where you know a lot

(31:54):
of people were sentenced to death or life in prison
or um. I think some they're they're a high level
military officials who committed suicide before they could go to trial.
Three years just seems seems light. Well, in three years
may indicate that that he had relatively little involvement, I guess,

(32:15):
and what had happened or or a little um little
agency maybe, yeah, I guess. Maybe that's the best way
to say it is that, you know, maybe it was
it was again forced upon him. You know that it
wasn't his doing. He wasn't running a camp by any means,
you know, on his own accord, it was it wasn't him,
He was being made to do so. But again the
three years since I think does reflect probably his uh,

(32:38):
his guilt in this situation. And before we get to
his bounce back, I will just give a brief example
of the kind of things they were building. Okay, so
during the war they use some remotely operated demolition tanks.
One was called the board Ward four and it was
the largest of the three remotely operated tanks that the

(33:02):
that the Nazis were using. It was the only one
capable of releasing its explosives before detonating, and the two
smaller vehicles were one and Done's. They were designed to
like be destroyed when they're explosive charges detonated, so you
could just like roll it in. You know, nobody can
see in the audits, but I'm like, I'm my main
holding a remote control. Um. So, initially they developed that

(33:26):
thing to carry ammunition, but it wasn't suitable. It was
too vulnerable to be a mind sweeper. So this is
what what's interesting about this is that the thing that
seems to happen in times of very high pressure, very
time sensitive demands on technological innovation, the thing that seems

(33:47):
to happen is people come up with a thing and
they'll be like, okay, here's my better widget, and they'll say, okay,
let's try to make it do this. I'll go, okay,
well this widget doesn't work for um, this widget won't
work on the shore because water ruins it. They're like, okay, okay,
well let's put in the desert or let's make it.
You know, we just try to find a use for

(34:08):
these innovations, and that's what happened there. Um. The problem
is that, of course, you don't know how something will
perform until it's in the field, whether you're crash testing
a Toyota Camra or a heavy tank. Yeah, that's true.
So that's the kind of stuff you built. But fast

(34:30):
forward three years he is out and it's a new Germany.
So after the war, uh, these Germans, you know, of
course the German raw materials were rationed um as like
on a per manufacturer basis. I guess. So if you
need raw materials in order to create your product, whatever
that is, uh, it's gonna be rational. And he needed
steel of course, you know, cast iron steel and all

(34:52):
that rubber or whatever it would happen to be, even
wiring and everything. But as a result, Carl board Ward
split his company into three differ divisions and he built
three different automobiles, the Goliath, the Lloyd, and then the
board Ward brand. And it was pretty that's a pretty
smart move because then three divisions, you get three times
the materials to your saint to that same company. Right, yeah,

(35:14):
pretty smart. This is the last time I'll explained what
what I'm doing. Visually, I'm tapping my head. It just
seems like a smart yeah, but it was. It was
a smart move on his part. So you know, he's
he's thinking about this stuff all the way through, and
you know around this time is when he launched the
something called the Hansa fifteen hundred in n and that was, Oh,
here's the first mentioned. There's a lot of first in
the year as well. Uh, this is Germany's first all

(35:37):
new post post war car, and first with the unibody
construction and through fenders, through fenders, so uh no, no
longer the I guess it's a pontoon body without the
through fenders, right is that right? Is that the right
way to say that? I think it is. And then
not long after that, I was followed by something called well,
the the Hansa eighteen hundred, and in nineteen fifty two

(35:59):
there was a hans Of two model, which introduced Germany's
for another first, Germany's first automatic transmission. Because they were
trying to win over the luxury market. Yeah, make a
car for the swells. Yeah, that's what they're trying to do.
It's and it's a pretty good looking car. I'm looking
at the right now in the in this article by
Hemmings that were also falling along with And it's a

(36:19):
good looking vehicle. And this is the fast back design right. Yeah,
two point four leader uh a D two b hp
in line six top speed. Check this out? Not bad,
not bad, not bad. And it was right around this
time Ballpark, around this time nineteen nineteen fifty four, somewhere
in there, Um they were building car. They built a

(36:42):
car I should say that entered into Lama and they
were also at the Nurburgring and La Carrera pan Americana.
That's it. Uh, the they were competing against Porsches Man. Yeah. Well,
of course they're competing against all the other sport races
of the day. So it did pretty well. I mean,
they broke the one thousand a mile record at the autodrome.

(37:02):
I'll try this out here, Ben, it's a French word autodrome,
the mot Leary. I think I'm close. Yeah, yeah, circuit,
the circuit near Paris. Yeah. And they had an average
speed of a hundred and seven point five miles per hour.
Most of their successes for Boorguard, as far as racing goes,
we're in Formula to Um and Carrera and so we're

(37:24):
in the mid nineteen fifties and we're about what nine,
So we're around there. This is a high point in
board wards commercial success. And this comes with the introduction
of a new Isabella line and this is a car
that a lot of people say, it's like like the
maybe the most beautiful car of its era. It's it's
a striking car. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's no two ways
about it. So the Isabella manufactured from fifty four to

(37:51):
sixty two. Right, it was supposed to have been marketed
oddly enough as the board ward Hands of fifteen hundred,
but they used the Isabella name on test vehicles, and
the staff and the you know, the press loved it.
Now Here's what I find really interesting about this is
that in that time frame around nineteen fifty four, you know,
mid nineteen fifties, about thirty five percent of factory production

(38:14):
was destined for the United States. And that's why I
just am puzzled. I'm so puzzled as to why this
hasn't you know, stood out more to me at museums
or they see them at car shows or whatever, because
you know, there have to be a lot of them
here in the United States somewhere. Yeah, there have to
be a lot somewhere. I know that there elsewhere in
the world. Of course, there are lots of them, because
by nineteen fifty seven they had they surpassed their five

(38:35):
hundred thousand car for for a boardward. Well that okay.
So here's the thing, and I wanted I wanted to
ask you about this. So I'm glad we're at this point. Um,
I wonder how much of that is tied to, at
least in the US, is tied to anti German prejudice
at the close of the war. Well, I don't know,
this is um, Well, I don't know. I mean, you

(38:57):
think so well that factory production is going is coming
here right right, But I'm saying we don't see more
of it because maybe those cars weren't as well preserved possibility,
you know. Yeah, I mean that's why I feel like
I am walking down the street, going around the corner
and really reaching for that one. Well, I mean there's

(39:17):
a chance, there, sure is a chance. But again, in
by ninety seven, they had built five hundred thousand cars,
and with so many coming to the United States out
of you know, the production, and I guess maybe that
was just you know, something that had happened later of course,
post World War two. Um, But anyways, I'm just kind
of confused by the low number of vehicles we see here.
The advertising price, the the launch price was higher than

(39:41):
that of their competitors. Sedans from Opal or Ford, but
it was still less than what Mercedes Benz wanted for
their one E D model. Yeah, and at the time
this also makes them Germany's second largest auto manufacturer, right
behind Volkswagen. So they're definitely players in this field. I mean,
they've got a lot going for them. They get decent
mile I mean they get between twenty to thirty four

(40:02):
miles per gallon UM. They've got all these modern features.
You know, they have four wheel independent suspension, UM, four
speed automatic transmissions. Yeah. Yeah, so um, you know, the
price is right, it just seems like, um, I don't
know more again of this this type, this uh, this
this vehicle. Now. Production went on until what nineteen six

(40:22):
one I think of the Isabella's UM but production by
the by the end of that production, I should say,
more than two hundred thousand Isabella's were eventually produced. So
it was a big, big uh seller for them, a
real popular model. And in fact, this was so big
at the time that Chrysler decided that they wanted to
buy that brand at some point, and they were going
to They're going to try to buy fifty of the company.

(40:44):
Was very shart take. Well, yeah, I guess so, yeah, exactly,
shark tank. Yeah right, So Chrysler again they wanted to buy,
They want to buy fifty one, and this bid would
have equalled somewhere around two hundred million deutsch marks, which
I think is an equivalent to about fifty million US dollars,
and called borg Ward said no way, yeah, turned it down.
Now remember this, excuse me? He said nine. Probably did

(41:06):
say nine. Yet, nice work. And then so so this
is again like right around the late nineteen fifties, I
think it was by nineteen fifty nine. So remember that number.
You know that he could have chosen to sell out
here at this point for fifty million dollars at least
fifty one percent of his company. This is very important.
So yeah, it really does, and it comes up very

(41:28):
soon as a matter of fact. Um, But nineteen fifty
nine was also a big year for board Wards, so
initially he thought he had done the right thing, because
here's the scoop. On nineteen fifty nine, they have a
new six cylinder board Ward P one model, which was
introduced to the Frankfurt Motor Show that year, and that
was then considered the company's most prestigious model, and of
course this is the first German production car with air

(41:50):
suspension that we talked about before, so it's got you know,
this cutting edge technology. Um. And this helped mark the
best year in board wards history nineteen fifty nine. So
he's at the top of the game right now. It
looks great. I just have to see if you are
a fan of classic cars, these cars look great. And
the P one hundred has this, uh, this design that

(42:12):
to me recalls almost like classic Chevies, you know, yeah,
oh yeah, it's good. Look, I mean it really is.
It's a nice, nice look. It's got got little fins
on the back and everything. It's got that American style
and a bit of the roofline almost reminds me a
bit of like the Mercedes of the day. Um, you know,
the big Sedans. That's just a really impressive looking vehicle.
Very sharp, very clean looking. Um. Take a look at

(42:34):
you know the models that you'll you'll find online. Just
a quick you know, Google search for the word will
get it you. The the Isabella line. So they're but
they're having a big year. Yeah. Their income totaled over
six hundred thirty two million uh Deutche Marts, which would
make it approximately a hundred and fifty eight million US
A hundred and fifty eight million coming into this company

(42:54):
right now. This is the income that's coming into the
company now. And remember with the Chrysler bid that they
had passed up again for fifty one percent of the
company for fifty million dollars. So they were like, yeah,
so here we are the first half of nineteen sixty. Um,
this is important. This is a really critical time here
for for this company. The first half of nineteen sixty
again we said buyers had to wait months to take

(43:14):
delivery of these new Isabella's. But the second half of
the year, this is where things kind of go bad
and a couple of things happen. Well, one major thing happens,
an article of all things changes everything, and you know what,
we'll tell you about that right after word from our sponsors,

(43:37):
and we're back. Scott. I that's a heck of a
cliffhanger you left us with. I feel like it paid
for the whole seat, but I only needed the edge. Well,
I do my best, and I try, I try. Um,
there's not always you know that that edge to get
to right before we have to make the leap for
the commercial. But but we're here. And there was a
single article. Yeah, there was a single article in nineteen

(43:58):
sixty that changed everything for this company. And this is
really strange. UM. A cover story the magazine durst Spiegel
ridicule board Wards engineering driven an impulsive style, and highlighted
the company's financial travails. Now here's the here's the thing.
We talked about how they had um all these different
brands and they were constantly working on um, you know,

(44:20):
like engineering and purchasing for both or rather for all
those brands, all four of the brands, and uh again
little commonality among the cars. Sometimes the company finds itself
short on cash, so um, you know, they're they're often
shortfalls in one area, but you know the other areas
making you know, a handsome profit. Um. But it didn't
always work out that way, and there were there were
there were problems within the organization, I guess, and this

(44:41):
this article pointed out that, um, you know, there might
be some some cash flow issues within the company that
that needed some attention. And so I guess I guess
the uh, the city state of Bremen, you know, the
the government, I guess, the the the the ruling so
Social Democrat party, which by the way they hated Karl

(45:03):
board Ward. Yeah they were waiting for an excuse, Yeah
they were. But they jumped on this opportunity to renege
on a pledge that they had vouched for a credit
that board Ward needed to move forward with with the
new model, you know, with the new plans with knew
whatever he was building at the time. And um, they
think that it was probably this move is really as
much about emotion as it was about facts, because again,

(45:24):
they hated each other. And you know, this guy, um
had kind of an old school industrialist idea, you know,
like he was gonna make it on his own. Uh.
They didn't necessarily like that. They wanted him to be
a little bit more beholden to them. Um. And that's
really what's going on. I know, like it's a little
political in nature here, if that's that's exactly what it
was going on. But they didn't like each other, and

(45:44):
they seized this opportunity. Well they had more than that too,
simply seize Yes, you're you're right, it was politically motivated.
There was no love lost. Uh. This the car company
could have continued if they just granted the credit and
probably could have paid back the creditors. But what they
what they also gave him was an ultimatum, which was, Okay,

(46:08):
you can either shut down business now, or we the
Senator Breman, the political party that you hate, we will
control your company. Give us your toys or break them. Yeah. Now,
this is a little bit. This is a little bit
where we get the Preston Tucker angle right where they say,
you know that the it's the big Wells, the government

(46:29):
agency shutting down the little guy, right. Um. And the
thing is like, after you know, article after article that
I read about this is that only a just a
small loan, a relatively small loan, would have kept this
company afloat. But you know, as you said, Ben, he
had two choices. He had the choice of either shut
it down or hand the company over to the state
to operate. So but but you gotta wait, wait before

(46:50):
you jump into that. I know, I'm paying it back.
But he's got more than just you know, like his
pride to think about. He's also got twenty three thousand
employees at this factory that are working every day. That's
a really good point, Scott, And I'm glad you made that.
That's a really good point. So ultimately he chooses to

(47:11):
give up his assets to Bremen based on his UH
air quotes, debt or his debt burden or whatever, which
is well, it's highly disputed. We'll get to it. We'll
get to it. But so he makes the choice for
the good of his employees because the weird blood feud

(47:31):
these folks have with him as an old school industrialist.
If he if he gives up his uh if he
rolls over, he gives up his assets, then those twenty
thousand plus employees will still have a job. Well, here's
the most outrageous part of this whole thing. So he
turns over the company to to Bremen, right, and the
Senate decides who they're gonna put in charge of this company.

(47:53):
They put into here's the guy they put in charge.
His name is Johann Simler. And Johann Simmler if you
if you'm not sure if anybody is a BMW historian here,
but he was a manager who simultaneously had a BMW's
supervisory board and board ward at the same time. These
two are bitter rivals. There I wouldn't well, I don't
know about bitter, but their rivals, their direct competitors. They

(48:14):
put the fox in charge of the Hinnhouse. And it
turns out maybe bitter is the right word, because um
similar that just doesn't really care if board Ward continues
operator not. In fact, he would rather see them gone
because it, you know, it further promotes the BMW brand.
He did the most apathetic uh it's called half baked.
Often they did the most apathetic job of trying to help,

(48:37):
and we know it was super apathetic and likely insincere
disingenuous because uh, less than a year later he stopped
and the company had to close down. But here's the thing,
here's where it gets crazy. All the creditors were paid
off like that man instantly. And the thing is, I

(48:59):
think there was even money left over at the end.
You know, once the creditors were paid over, there was
still money left money and the money in the account. Yeah,
I don't know for a better way to say that,
they were still in the black. Yeah, exactly. So this
is okay. In my notes and on every you know,
source material that I've got here, I have the word
what in huge letters next to this with uh, you

(49:20):
know what's that punctuation marketing tarot bang, Yeah, with the
question mark um um it's an examation, explanation, and question
mark together. I've got those all over the place in
this Like, what are they doing that they gave It's
like putting putting the fox in charge of the henhouse?
Is that? Yeah, that's saying yeah, I I that is
the Oh my god, I got one right. That's amazing.
Well I just said it earlier. I think that's how

(49:42):
you got it right. Anyway, So we're gonna have we're
gonna start having a brim and board ward situation here
in the podcast studio. It's crazy they put the guy
in charge of BMW in charge of this of his competitor,
because it really feels like a hit. It feels like
the stuff they were saying about so called debt was

(50:02):
of bologny malarkey, A bunch of bosh people say that.
I don't know. I think I might have just accidentally
made that one. It works, It's not our best okay,
thank you anyway. So so it turns out that this
looks even more politically motivated rather than actual dealing. But

(50:25):
it is a pyric victory for the city of Bremen.
Well okay, yeah, the thing okay, Bremen is suffering at
this point, right, because they've lost twenty thousand jobs and
millions of dollars in tax revenue. So it's it's bigger
than that too, because on this, on this bigger scale,
I guess the downfall of this company becomes what they

(50:46):
call an ominous crack in German post war in Germany's
postwar economic miracle, because they did come back, they came
back strong after World War Two. But the thing is this,
this is starting to uh show maybe some of the
internal conflicts that are going on within Germany as well. So, um,
it's a critical point in Germany's history when this company

(51:07):
takes a dive. There's something that I definitely think we
we should add here, which is there was an engineering
passion that played at least part of the role in
the downfall of Borguard. As much as I think the
people in Bremen, the government of Bremen overreached, um, I

(51:29):
do think it also didn't help that for every brand
that Borguard had, they had their own engineering and purchasing departments.
They were very unique marks, you know, like in terms
of they didn't have the modular design or interchangeable parts
like you have mentioned before. Yeah, and you know. The
thing is that it's it's also pointed out that, um well,

(51:52):
even this is this is the crazy part. There's so
many crazy parts. I can't keep saying that. But I'm
gonna skip. Just had just a little bit because in
nineteen sixty five, this very same magazine that did the
cover story um on board Ward sixty Yet the Spiegel,
they reported that board Ward could have easily overcome its
nineteen sixty one problems with a little financial help from

(52:13):
the local banks or the state. Now what again, this
is another place where I have the the what um
in tarot bang all over the place because seriously, I mean,
after after they kind of ridiculed the company and and
pointed out the flaws to the state, and then they say,
now like, well, here's how we would have solved it,
or it could have been easily solved. Um it season
it seems like they're kind of playing both sides of

(52:35):
this here. But okay, I'm grabbed my head and shaken.
I can't. I can't believe what's going on with this company.
It's really it's pretty shocking to see how this all
played out in the early part of the nineteen sixties.
But the company sort of went on a little bit
after this, and and in a different way UM in
the late nineteen seventies, I think it was MC almost

(52:58):
benefited from the fall of board Ward. Now that's strange
company to kind of throw into the mix here, AMC UM,
but so the American Motors Corporation, but the AMC Hornet
from which was built I think from about nineteen seventy seven,
UM again almost benefited from UH this because they were
going to use the underpinnings of the P one hundred

(53:19):
UM for the for their own vehicle for the UM
for the hornet. But they, for whatever reason, that plan
never came to fruition. They just didn't do it. UM.
So it was gonna be skinned as an AMC hornet,
but it would have had the the you know, the
the workings I guess of the board Ward P one
strange weird thing because you know, the assets were sold

(53:40):
and shipped to Mexico, and I guess that's where these
were being built, or you know, there was a UM
some type of connection there that was made. There's probably
more to that story too that that would anger me
as well. But but what a weird twist, What a
weird way to run into a legitimate conspiracy theory. Some
of it doesn't add up, man, Well it doesn't. I mean,
the state could have saved him, I guess. And you

(54:01):
can look at this a couple of ways, like, well,
maybe they just didn't want to bail him out. But
it seems like they were in the can for is
that the right phrase in the can for BMW? We're
in the uh in the corner of BMW. Maybe that's
probably in the pocket. I'm terrible in the pocket, that's it?
Is that the one? Yeah? I guess, I don't know.
So it seems like they were they were favoring BMW
in this case because look who they had run this

(54:23):
thing similar um, and they knew what was going to
happen with that. But I mean, did they know that
it was going to fold up less than a year later?
I don't know about that. Maybe, And it's kind of
you know, my bias here is clear, But to be fair,
it's only my opinion that similar was it was crooked.

(54:43):
But cricket is a paper clip. But the that doesn't
make sense either. I gotta stop trying to make up idioms. Man,
It's all right, see, we get what you mean, though,
I guess yeh crooked is a paper clip crooked iss
bent Cohener. Uh. So that's that's just my opinion. But
it is difficult to ascribe motive to people without without facts. Well,

(55:11):
and then also we have to mention this to um
just two years after this bankruptcy. So here's a guy
that you know was producing what would you say, like
more than half a million cars. I don't remember what
the final production number was eventually, but by nineteen fifty
seventy and half a million cars, uh, second largest manufacturer
in Germany. Uh. Carl board Ward died in nineteen sixty three,
just two years after this bankruptcy. So he probably died um,

(55:34):
you know, thinking that his company had failed. He knew
what was going on, though, I mean, he knew how
dirty this game was that he's planned. Um, so he
knew the real story. But this, the Boardward factory and Bremen,
by the way, is right now being used by Mercedes
benz Um. And then you know, we can skip way
way ahead if we want it, unless you still have
some more historic material to cover. Ben No, Scott, I

(55:55):
say forward into the future, because while this might seem
like it is the bittersweet end of another Scott in
Ben rise and fall of a car company origin story.
This one has an epilogue. Yeah, my happy ending. Yeah,
well so far well yeah sort of alright, so and

(56:16):
we'll see how this pans out. I guess. But um,
after what was it fifty seven years, seven years from
from until two thousand and eight, Um board Ward was
just gone. Um. They still own the name, they still
had the you know, the company UMI the rights to it.
I guess maybe the family did. And the founder's grandson,

(56:36):
his name is Christian Boardward. He teamed up with a
former SOB and Daimler PR executive. The guy's name is
Karl Heinz Nuss. And last year, last year, okay, that
would be in I think it would have been when
this article is written. Um, they sold the rights to
a brand UM by the name of Polton Motor in China.
And I hope I'm saying that right. Folton, it's f

(56:58):
O T O N It's maybe Ton or something, but Fholton,
let's say. And UM at the Geneva Auto Show that
year and they announced her. They gave a glimpse in
the future and the plans that they had decided they
were going to bring out a premium model Boardward badged
vehicle by the end of yes, the board Ward b

(57:20):
X seven. It's a compact luxury crossover suv. You know,
everybody's gotta make a crossover now. Uh. It's got two
trim levels, right, and both are powered by a turbocharged
two leader in line for engine uh that has horsepower
around and they also have a one horse power plug

(57:43):
in hybrid version that they're planning to add later. And
they worked on this for seven years because we said
in two thousand eight is when you know the founder's
grandson again, Christian board Ward. Uh, you're teamed up with
this guy and said, well, I'd like to do something,
but you know, we don't want to jump right into
it immediately. Let's let's lay this out. It sounds like
they had they spent their time laying out the plans,
you know, doing whatever they had to do for that

(58:03):
seven years, and then when they promised that vehicle, they
actually delivered because in July I believe it was of
last year, this vehicle went on sale in China and
it is destined uh to come to well other emerging markets,
I guess in in the late part of there was,
and in Europe, the rest of Europe by this year,

(58:25):
we'll see. Yeah. No word yet on the US though, No, No,
I don't know about that. I don't I don't know
if that will ever happen, but um it may. Um.
But it's interesting that they have developed new product again
with a fifty seven year break in the action and
then come out, you know, seven years prior to the
launch of the first vehicle and said, yeah, we're gonna

(58:46):
do this, or we're gonna we're thinking about bringing back.
We're gonna get the band back together. That's what they said. Really. Yeah,
So it's interesting. I mean, I guess it's a real
comeback story, you know. Yeah. And it's happy right because,
I mean, they're producing vehicles, the founders, Grant Son, and
they've got plans to expand they've got plans to make
multiple you know levels, multiple versions, right. Uh. They're going

(59:09):
into the market which is one of the fastest growing
right now, crossover SUVs. You know a lot of people
are buying those. So I don't know about you, Scott,
but I absolutely wish them the best of luck. I
do too. I hope there are success because um, you know,
they're building on this great company history. And and honestly,
if you haven't seen the Isabella line, take a look

(59:30):
at you know what's out there, the convertible versions, all
the different models. Um, really there's a classy looking car,
it really is. I would. I know we didn't have
time to go through all the models, but I'm curious
if you could recommend one to look at or like
one that would be your favorite. You got me scrambled
from my notes, but what's your what's your favorite? You know?

(59:51):
Looking through them, I gotta say I'm a big fan
of the Hanza two thousand, three three nine. It just
it looks so classy. Maybe they actually know maybe the
Sevre or the two thousand. Okay, fair enough, I'm looking

(01:00:11):
at those right now. And I would go with the
Isabella Coop And that's I'm talking about the one that
was produced between nineteen fifty seven and nineteen sixty one.
So it's a hard top, but it just has just
so there's something about it that's just right for the
late nineteen fifties, early nineteen sixties. So you're just has
that look. So wait, wait, wait, wait, you're not into
the Goliath Pioneer. You know, I actually am into the

(01:00:36):
Goliath Pioneer and I feel like this is one of
those cars that maybe I ran across one at the
at that micro museum, you know, the micro car and
micro and Bubble Car museum. I think it was that
was here in Georgia. Um long gone now, but UM,
I just feel like maybe I've seen one of these somewhere,
but I don't know. I can't exactly place where it was.

(01:00:57):
I don't know. It's a strange thing, you know, when
when you realize how many of these were produced, how
many were shipped to the United States, and how few
of them we see. Now, Yeah, it's a weird equation.
But here's the thing. Maybe it's one of those Uh
was a better mind? Yeah, better minehuff bed min. That's
the that's the term. Like maybe now that we're focused
on you know, the HANSA, Goliath, board Ward, all those names,

(01:01:18):
maybe we're going to spot these and museums now when
we are car shows, you know, when we go to
them in absolute area. So uh, I think we've mentioned
this on the show before, but just for a quick explanation, Uh,
the beta Mine Hauff phenomenon is when you hear uh something,
and it appears that you hear it frequently for a
period of time afterwards. So, for instance, let's say you

(01:01:39):
had never heard the word, um, I don't know, Scott,
what's a weird word? Caterpillar? Caterpillar. You've never heard the
word caterpillar, and you learned about what a caterpillar was,
and then all of a sudden you noticed that every
single day, at least two or three times a day,
you ran into a caterpillar. Also happens with songs, right,

(01:02:03):
and people think, oh, I woke up with a song
in my head, and all of a sudden it's playing
on the radio. Whoa Freaky Friday, Twilight Zone, X files, precognition, precognition,
my psychic powers are back and play Time to get
a scratch off ticket. But what's actually happening is you're
just primed to notice that more often. This happens a

(01:02:25):
lot to people that buy a new car of a
certain make and model. YEA. Once they buy that vehicle,
which they had really never paid much attention to on
the road, suddenly they see everybody else that's also driving
the same making, model of car that they now have.
It happens a lot or that they're searching for, you know,
if they're interested in that vehicle to buy it. Let's
say you're gonna look for the latest Corvette Corvette, and

(01:02:47):
then suddenly you see sen Corvettes all over town, which
you hadn't noticed, you know, the week prior. It just
happens that way, It just happens. The human brain is
a fascinating I don't buy any means want to go
into any detail on us. But but we should also
mention that in nineteen n um board Ward built a
couple of helicopters to helicopters. Helicopters. Yeah, strange they built too, Scott.

(01:03:13):
These people are out here changing the face of the
automotive industry and building helicopters. These were these were built
for spraying and agriculture, you know, like maybe crop duster
type vehicles. They're very small helicopters. And if you want
to look into those, you know, check out Boardward Helicopters
and you'll find a photo of at least one of
the two that they built. But they were they never
got pressed uh the prototype stage, because that's when the

(01:03:34):
bankruptcy happened. I just feel like, you know, here, like
these people are changing the face of industry, and here
I am just trying not to spill coffee. See, you
know what this is an indicator of. This is an
indicator of We're gonna find out who's listening all the
way to the end of the episodes, because they will
be the ones that here about the helicopter. You know,
if they tuned out right when we finished the story, yeah, yeah,

(01:03:56):
then I thought, you know, it's just Ben and Scott
chatting afterwards, right, it's meaningless chatter. We are going a
little longer this one of my friends. Okay, we uh
so there's a helicopter test, so right in, if you
got to the end of the episode, let Scott know
your opinion of bourg Ward helicopters. And we didn't do
the nicknames. That's that's next on the agenda. Let's see.

(01:04:17):
I I wrote a note us, so I think we
go with uh Nold borg Ward Brown. That's a good one.
Uh what do you what do you think? Goliath? Okay,
and Goliath? Why not Goliath? I like it. Let's take it,
and then right right in, let us know what you
think about bourg Ward. We want to thank Thomas C

(01:04:39):
for writing in with the excellent suggestion. This was something
that fascinated us. We hope you enjoyed it too, because it's, uh,
it's weird for us to run into something that we
have completely not heard of her, never heard tell as
my relatives just just have never dug into this topic

(01:05:01):
and never really really focused on it. But it's a
fascinating story. Again and this these turn up all the time,
so keep sending in those ideas. It's it's really really
um important to us to to cover stuff like this
that you know, if if we haven't heard about it,
then there's a good chance that a lot of our
listeners haven't heard about it. So if you know of
something that's kind of interesting, unique niche like this, send

(01:05:21):
it in. We'll we'll dig into it and see if
there's a full episode there. And we've gone probably too
long on this one, but but that's because of our excite.
Yeah it's a good story. Yeah, yeah, this Uh consider
this a road trip episode. I should have said that
at the beginning. So if you are interested in hearing
more automotive origin stories, then go to our website car

(01:05:42):
Stuff Show dot com, which you mentioned at the top,
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(01:06:05):
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at how stuff works dot com and I want to
hear about those helicopters. For more on this and thousands
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Let us know what you think. Send an email to
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