Edmund Rumpler

 ( Austrian Automotive Pioneers ) 

Edmund Elias Rumpler (4 January 1872 – 7 September 1940) was an automobile and aircraft designer.

Born in Vienna, then Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Austria),Wise 1974, p.1964 he worked mainly in Germany.Lyons 1988, p.73 An automotive engineer by training, he collaborated with Hans Ledwinka on the first Tatra car (at that time called Nesselsdorfer-Wagenbau), the Präsident, in 1897.

By age 30, in 1902, he had quit Daimler to become technical director of Adler. He designed the first German engine to have engine and gearbox as a unit at Adler. The next year, he a swing axle rear suspension system (an idea later adopted by Ferdinand Porsche for the KdF Wagen and Porsche 356, as well as by Chevrolet for the Corvair).

The Wright brothers turned Rumpler's attention to aviation. He quit Adler in 1907, and in 1910, copying countryman Igo Etrich's Etrich Taube, Rumpler became the first ever aircraft manufacturer in Germany. In 1911, he took on Amelie Beese as a student pilot and used her flying appearances in competitions as promotion for his aeroplanes.

Rumpler continued to be interested in automobiles, and after the First World War, he applied aircraft aerodynamics to a car, building the Tropfenwagen (German, "drop car") in Berlin. A production model proved a sensation at the 1921 Berlin Auto Show. Rumpler's efforts produced a car with an astoundingly low Drag Coefficient of only 0.28 (when tested in 1979); the Fiat Balilla of the period, by contrast, was 0.60.Setright 1974, p.38

The Rumpler design inspired the 1923 Benz Tropfenwagen (which used the virtually-unchanged Rumpler chassis) and Auto Union (also built in part by Rumpler engineers) Grand Prix racers.

Rumpler's Tropfenwagen was not a commercial success, and only 100 Tropfenwagen were built, just two of which survive. Rumpler returned to aircraft.Lyons 1988, p.74

Because Rumpler was Judaism, he was imprisoned after Adolf Hitler took power in 1933, and his career was ruined, even though he was soon released. He died in Züsow Germany in 1940, and the Nazism destroyed his records.

• Notable owners of Tatra 77; Rumpler was one of them.

• Lyons, Pete. "10 Best Ahead-of-Their-Time Machines". Car and Driver, 1/88, pp. 73–4.
• Setright, L. J. K. "Aerodynamics: Finding the Right Shape for the Car Body", in Northey, Tom, ed. World of Automobiles (London: Orbis, 1974), Vol. 1, p. 38.
• Wise, David Burgess. "Rumpler: One Aeroplane which Never Flew", in Northey, Tom, ed. World of Automobiles (London: Orbis, 1974), Vol. 17, p. 1964.