Stoewer (original) (raw)
Stoewer was founded by the Stoewer brothers in 1896 as a manufacturer for sewing-machines in Szczecin (in these days the German town Stettin). In 1899 they started to construct automobiles. The first "automobile" they designed was the "Big Vehicle", with 6.5 horsepowers and 17kph maximum speed. In 1908 Stoewers constructed "Stoewer G4". This vehicle was immensely successful with 1070 cars constructed. In the mid-20's a new class of cars was introduced: The "D-Types" included D3, D9 and D10 with 4-cylinder-engine, and D5, D6 and D12 with 6 cylinders. Something special was in 1921 class D7 with a 6-cylinder Stoewer-airplane-engine with 120 horsepowers. It was the strongest car in these days. In 1928 Stoewers started to construct S8 and G14 with 8 cylinders.
At the beginning of the 1930s Stoewers delivered their highlights: G15 Giant, M12 Marshall und P20 Representant, each with 8 cylinders, with 60 up to 120 horsepowers and 130kph maximum speed. The production of these cars had to be cancelled after 2,500 vehicles being produced due to worldwide economic troubles. In 1931 Stoewer constucted one of the first cars with front-wheel drive at all, class V5 (25 horsepowers, 80kph maximum speed). Its afterdecessor V8 "Gryf" was the last car being constructed by Mr Stoewer itself, class "Arkona" and "Sedina" were the last civil cars being produced by Stoewer's. With beginning of World War II Stoewer's were being forced to produce cars for the German Army as class "LEPKW" (Leichter Einheits-Personenkraftwagen). After World War II the days of production of cars in this famous factory were over.
See also: List of automobiles