In our recent report about the VW30, "The most beautiul prototype of all?" we had a look at the idea behind the car — smaller than previous prototype, smoother lines, etc. The series VW30, sometimes symply known as the VW30, was socalled because of the number of cars built. Of these, 29 were built by Daimler Benz at its Sindelfingen factory, some 20 kilometres south of Stuttgart. In fact, there is some doubt as to the Mercedes site of construction, as some of the Porsche personnel remember visiting the DB factory at Unter Turkheim which was also constructing parts for the new VWs.

Just one set of special wheels, fitted to s VW30 car, parked outside the Porsche villa. No indications as to size, or width of wheels, or type... Shame.

The very first W30 prototype, however, was not constructed by Daimler, but in the Porsche garage! And it was exactly there, in front of the Porsche family front door, that the first photograph was taken of a Volkswagen with non-standard wheels! Yes, even in 1937, the Porsche engineers started playing around with their prototypes! Today, It is nothing unusual for car manufacturers to offer a wide selection of special wheels and tyres for their production cars, but before the war, we suspect, Porsche was probably the first to fit different wheels and tyres.

Within days of production at Daimler Benz in Sindelfingen, the SS had taken over the daily testing of the 30 cars. Note the precision of the parking outside the barracks, showing some 20 of them lined up in the morning sunshine.

It is difficult to decide if these special, scotted wheels were the same size as the standard VW30s. According to most literature, the standard wheel size was 16in, 4j (some refer to 3j, but this would have been too skinny for the tyres! The tyre size was 4.50 x16, again, some referring to 5.25 on the rear, but this seems less than likely. The question today: were the slotted wheels the first 15in VW wheels?

Soon after these 30 cars were built, they were all moved up to the Kornwestheim barracks of the SS, which was big enough to house them. This was quite near Stuttgart Zuffenhausen, which was chosen as the site where the first permanent factory for the Porsche company was to be built.

The construction of the first factiry, where Porsche wanted to have more room; more whokshop space with many more engineering facilities, machines, etc, was only started in 1938. Before that, all the work had either been performed at the Porsche villa or in the design office, in 24 Kronen Strasse not far from the central railway station in downtown Stuttgart. Neither of these sites were suitable for any mid-size construction, let alone the large scale production of cars!

During the disign of the inverior roads and garaging for the Porsche factory during 1938, all the Porsche-owned cars were called into use. Shown left are three of the VW30 prototypes, showing quite clearly three different paint jobs. The cars are IIIA-37014, 37011 and 37025, from letf to right.

So in the early months of 1938, the general layout of the Porsche factory in Schwieberdinger Strasse, Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen was in the middle of being designed. First, the central courtyard was designed and then built, surrounded by a there-storey building, which was to contain drawing offices, administration, workshops, etc. This was well to the front of the plot of land. But there was large area, some two acres, behind, bordered by a railway on the one side and a smaller road on the other. This was to be a combined garage and testing area, with a road layout, a little like a driving learning centre for young people today.

And just how did the Porsche engineers design the layout for this area? By driving various vehicles which they were running at the time and simply parking them in strategic positions, until, eventually, they had the makings of a workable system. There are a few, rare photos of this process being carried out in spring 1938, but the picture (see opposite) shows some 16 cars from the 'Porsche test vehicle pool'. For example, the cars used later in the GroBglockner run in July 1938, the Adler, Opel and DKW, are all used in the garage design! Also, several US cars which Porsche senior had brought back from his two trips to America were included. In the foreground cenrte, a Ford V8, extreme left, a big Packard. (Porsche was quite fascinated with large American vehicles, it is said. While it really admired their methods of construction, it didn't think much of their short life-span!).

During construction work of the factory, the testing and experimental work continued apace. In the picture, car IIIA-37005 splashes through the temporary car park, with a dozen other VW30s standing around in the rain.

And what do we see, front letf? None other than three VW30 cars. The dark red example, IIIA-37014 is on the left; next to it is car IIIA-37011, which is a paler colour, but with different colour wings; and beside that, car IIIA-37025, which shows it had a rather dull and uninspiring paint job.

But the cars didn't stay that clean for long! During the construction of the factory, which lasted right thtough 1938, there were prolonged periods of rain and, as with any building site, lots of mud! Because the testing of the VW30 cars couldn't stop, there are variouse contemporary shots of the prototypes in the middle of the chaos, driving through the puddles. Some of the pictures shows ten or more of the cars, some Kubelwagen prototypes, and others show prototypes of the Volkstraktor, which was being developed more-or-less simultaneously.

Yet another Alpine test run, this time over the Katschberg Pass in central Austria, onr of the steepest, if not the highest in the country. This picture, taken in spring 1938, shows car IIIA-37007 leading a convoy of two or three others over the pass.

And it was during bad weather, too, that the testing of the W30 prototypes had to continue in the Alps. It is strange (and a little difficult for those who don't know central European weather condition!), but high up in the Alps, there could be a metre or two of snow! So, clearly, testing had to be restricted to the slightly lower slopes. But as soon as Spring arrived, the drivers and mechanics were heading off again up to the 2,000 metre high passes. Interestingly, although it is well documented that most of the two and a half MILLION kilometres testing were driven by SS troops, but there are virtually no photos at all of there soldiers. All the photos are of civilian drivers.

Soon afterwards, the V303 put in an apperiance, followed quite quickly by the pre-production models: the VW38 and VW39 series. And so the VW30 cars soon completely disappeared from veiw, until that sad day in October 1942 — which witnessed the final destruction of The most Beautiful of the Volkswagen Prototypes.

Author: ???
Foto: Chris Barber