A Brief History of the Marque
Manufactured by Bungartz and Co., Munich
An established builder of tractors, in 1934 they added an automobile to their lineup, the Bungartz Butz. Designed by Josef Ganz, the tiny two-seater was propelled by a water-cooled 400cc two-stroke twin mounted above the rear axle.
The machine did not achieve market penetration and was shelved within the year.
Ganz, a Jew, was persecuted by the Nazis and fled to Switzerland. His contribution to the development of the Volkswagen was never recognised, and he died, impoverished, in Australia.
The Butz and its creator are discussed in more detail here: Josef Ganz
Sources: Oldtimerclub Lachendorf, et al
The following is derived from a page in the Schouwer Archive.
The text on the back of a trading card reads:
Bungartz "Butz"
Open two-seater with luggage trailer, 400 cc, 12 hp, two-cylinder two-stroke engine, rear engine, swing axles.
The richly illustrated original collector's album, priced at RM 1,-, can be obtained from specialist retailers or directly by sending the amount in advance to postal giro account Berlin No. 23743.
"Bilderdienst", Berlin-Pankow, Berliner Straße.
The car was probably built in Munich around 1934. The body was mostly made of plywood.
I must admit that I had never heard of the car manufacturer Bungartz & Co. before. My literature contains hardly any information about the origin and history of these vehicles. In 2001, I asked here: "Are these collectible cards really all that remains of our knowledge about these automobiles?" See for yourself what the internet can be good for:
Addendum dated December 11, 2004 :
Suddenly, information about the "Ganz" and "Bungartz" is pouring in! Paul Schilperoord, a Dutch expert on the subject, sent me an article from the magazine Motor-Kritik No. 5 of 1934, which deals with the chassis for the Bungartz (Maikäfer and Butz):
Info from the end of the scan: I also have some information about the Ganz drive block. It's a design patented by Ganz that, I believe, was used almost identically in the Bungartz Butz, the Standard Superior (1933), and the prototypes Ardie-Ganz (1930), Maikafer (1931), and the Rapid (1946). I don't know who produced the engines, whether the manufacturers did it themselves or whether it was built at a separate factory. I do have, for example, the original Ganz patent for the drive block and information about other cars based on Ganz's design. Let me know what you're interested in, and I can send you some copies, for example, of the patent. The patent states a 1-cylinder engine, but the Standard Superior had a 2-cylinder engine.
For Tatra Streamline fans, I recommend Paul's Tatra website !
Furthermore, Paul provided me with an electronic copy of a patent document from the 1930s, which deals with streamlined vehicle parts and, according to Paul, is attributed to Dr. Ganz.
Addendum dated December 6, 2004:
I received crystal-clear copies of a Bungartz Butz brochure from the Netherlands. You can find this information material here . Many thanks to our neighbors!
Addendum dated September 25, 2001:
According to another expert on the company's history, the Bungartz company was founded by Dr. Bungartz in the autumn of 1933.
Addendum dated September 24, 2001:
Following a suggestion from Mr. Josef Bachmair, I can add the following information:
The vehicle was apparently manufactured in Munich between 1934 and 1937 by the company Bungartz & Co., specifically in the Berg am Laim district of Munich (then postal code 8), at Neumarkterstrasse 17, on the premises of the Machol distillery. The company was founded in 1934 by Dr. Everhard Bungartz, who came from the Cologne area. He married Gretel Asbach from Rüdesheim, which explains the connection to the Machol distillery, possibly owned by Asbach at the time. Vehicle production likely ceased in 1936, as Dr. Bungartz acquired the patent for rotary tillers, including the manufacturing rights, from Siemens at the beginning of 1937.
The engines installed in the "Bungartz Butz" were likely DKW models, as these engines were also used in Bungartz rotary tillers from 1937 onwards. Dr. Everhard Bungartz, born on December 5, 1900, in Cologne, died in 1984.
There might also be an explanation for the name "Butz." Gretel Asbach's older sister married a man named "Butz." The extent of Mr. Butz's involvement in the vehicle's production is unknown.
Update from June 10, 2001:
Here is the first additional information from a friendly visitor to this page:
"The Bungartz Butz was designed by Joseph Ganz, who had previously developed the lightweight Standard Superior passenger cars. The Bungartz Butz was available with 200cc and 396cc engines. Ganz moved to Switzerland when the political situation in Germany deteriorated towards the end of the 1930s. Later, he worked for the Australian car company Holden and died in Australia in 1967."
Current:
On February 11, 2004, I received an email from an eyewitness in Australia, addressed to Dr. Ganz, who primarily discusses the development of the Volkswagen. I have no personal experience with this. I am forwarding the contents of the email here, unedited and uncensored. Read it for yourself and form your own opinion.
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: G H
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 11. Februar 2004 02:15
Betreff: Ganz at Bungartz
I am glad to have found your website which contains some of the details of the early history of the Volkswagen as it was in reality. As a colleague and friend of the late Dr. Josef Ganz, the real designer of the VW, my blood boils every time I see yet another invented story. It was one of these lies in the Australian media which made me search the internet where I found your site.
This latest story was contained in a letter to one of the local media which claimed that the VW was designed by somebody in the Tatra works. This correspondent got things half right when he accused Ferdinand Porsche and his Nazi backers of having stolen the design of the VW from the Czechs, or more correctly from the Sudeten Germans. Stolen yes, but Tatra no. As you can glean from some of the other contributors to this website, the original designs came from my friend and colleague Josef Ganz who designed it in the 1920s. With brilliant foresight, he called it the "Volkswagen". As your website makes it clear, the first experimental models were produced by Bungartz in Munich.
It had all the then novel features of the later beetle, such as the swing axles, the "boxer" motor and air cooling. Indeed it was superior, siting the engine inboard of the rear axle providing vastly better handling.
Although Porsche, a racing car designer, would not, under normal circumstances have wanted to have his name associated with a vehicle at the opposite end of the automotive market he was used to, being put in charge of Hitler's massive Volkswagen project was presumably an offer he couldn't refuse. The only production models of the VW that were built, saw te light of day during WWII as army scout cars, for which their flat underside would have made them eminently suitable, and on that basis some of the more recent "historians" fostered the myth that the design was produced by Porsche during the war.
As a Jew, Ganz was deprived of his patent rights, which were later illegally passed to Tatra whose management had impeccable Gestapo connections. Ganz himself, after an odyssey of escaping through numerous European countries, had landed in Australia.
The name Volkswagen was stolen by Hitler and Goering who saw Ganz's VW prototype at an exhibition and immediately recognised its potential, in both name and engineering concepts. By making millions of middle-class Germans buy the cars on a reverse time-payment plan (pay first, drive later), none of the contributors ever saw a VW except for a little toy diecast replica which was part of the promotion. Before Ganz was forced to flee Germany he was made to abandon the VW name and sell his car in 1933 as a "Standard".
After the war, Tatra had the cheek to demand royalty payments on their stolen "VW patents. This placed the masters of Wolfsburg in a quandary. To avoid paying many millions in undeserved royalties to Tatra, they had to abandon the Porsche myth and to re-discover Joe Ganz's contribution, and paraded him to the courts, which put an end to the Tatra claims. They paid him a miserable ex-gratia retainer to the end of his life. They made no attempt to publicise his part in the creation of the VW. Joe died in Australia. years ago, as mentioned by other contributors to your site.
How do I know all this? Joe worked for General Motors in the Australian Holden plant for some years, and later was my colleague as machine designer for a rubber company in Sunshine in Victoria, Australia. We were good friends, and I was privy to his attempts to gain recognition. Joe showed me all the original drawings of his brilliant VW designs as well as, if my memory serves me right, copies of his patents.
He was a genius, albeit an excentric one. He must be given the credit that unlike today's engineers who design a minute part of a vehicle, his design covered, apart from the basic concept, the engine, gearbox, suspension, the body shape and even the name!
In latter years, up to the present, every attempt to abandon Ganz's basic concept has led to commercial near-failure and re-emergence elsewhere in the world. We will not see his like again
It is to be hoped that someone, either in Germany or in Australia, or indeed somewhere in the world given the ubiquitous nature of VW distribution, will write the true history of this remarkable feat of foresight at a time when the very notion of a miniature but practicable and serviceable car was considered ridiculous.
