Could a Jewish man who died in obscurity in Melbourne be the unsung creator of the Volkswagen?
Port Phillip council thinks so – in the next few months it will honour him in a plaque at Edgewater Towers, the St Kilda apartment block where automotive engineer Josef Ganz once lived.
In Germany in the early 1930s, Ganz was an influential editor of car magazine Motor-Kritik, and a consultant engineer for Daimler-Benz and BMW.
In the race to build an affordable “people’s car” or “volkswagen”, he made prototypes similar to the future Volkswagen Beetle. They were lightweight with backbone-type frames, mid or rear mounted engines, independent wheel suspensions and swinging rear half-axles.
Read the full article by Carolyn Webb at The Age.