Tempo (also known as Vidal & Sohn Tempo-Werke GmbH), was a German automobile manufacturer based in Hamburg. The company was founded by Oscar Vidal in 1924.
The company was well known in Germany, producing popular vans like the Matador and the Hanseat. Tempo also produced small military vehicles during the 1930s and 1940s.
History
Tempo Matador (Restored)
Tempo was founded as Vidal & Sohn Tempo-Werke in 1924. During the 1940s, Tempo produced small military vehicles. Post-war the requirement of the Bundesgrenzschutz, in West Germany, to acquire a suitable vehicle for Border patrol led to production of the 80" and 86" Tempo from 1953 to 1957. The Tempo 80" and 86" were built using a rolling chassis from Land Rover, but attempts to continue production with the 88" and 109" models were not successful.
In 1958, Firodia Ltd, an Indian manufacturer of cars (later acquired by Bajaj Tempo, renamed since 2005 to Force Motors), started the production of Hanseat three-wheeled cars with the collaboration of Tempo-Werke. Later on, Tempo introduced the Matador, which (along with the Hanseat) was extremely popular in India where it was used as goods carrying vehicles. The four-wheeled Matador remained under production by Tempo from 1949 until 1967.
In 1966, Tempo partnered with Hanomag AG, the produced vehicles were sold under the name of Hanomag. From 1967 to 1970 the vehicles were sold under the new name "Hanomag-Henschel". In 1971, Hanomag-Henschel, and within Tempo, was purchased by Daimler-Benz AG. Tempo remained on the production of vans until 1977. From 1966 to 1977, all vehicles produced by Tempo were sold under a different name, either Hanomag, Rheinstahl-Hanomag, Hanomag-Henschel, or Mercedes-Benz.
Vehicles by Tempo
The first tricycles
The first tempo tricycles were created from a combination of motorcycle and flatbed, which was in front of the driver. In the further development, the cab was moved in front of the bunk or box. The tempo tricycles are equipped with single-cylinder or two-cylinder two-stroke Otto engines—the 400cc 12hp Tempo A in 1938, for example. The engine drives the front wheel through a transmission and a chain. The engine, the transmission, the load-bearing chain box, and the front wheel are hinge-connected to the rest of the vehicle as an integrated pivotable part.
Off-road vehicle
The cross-country car Tempo G 1200 was produced from 1936 to 1944. In 1936, Otto Daus developed this off-road vehicle for Tempo with two engines (one in front and one in the back) and four-wheel drive. The two-stroke engines each had 19hp and drove each one axle.
Matador, Wiking and Rapid
Tempo Rapid Minibus
Parallel to the Hanseat the four-wheel delivery vans Matador and Wiking were added to the Tempo lineup. At about the same time Volkswagen started offering the 0.75-ton VW T1, a direct competitor of Matador. The first Matador from 1949 (whose front-end has been compared to a boxer's face) was powered by a 25-horsepower VW industrial engine sourced directly from Volkswagen. As Tempo failed to secure a long-term supply contract with the managing director Heinz Nordhoff, Volkswagen stopped the delivery of this engine at short notice in 1952. Thereafter, the Matador was fitted with either a two-stroke-engine of 672 cc or a four-stroke-engine (1092cc, 34hp), both of which came from the engineering office of Müller in Andernach.
In 1953, the Wiking entered the market, a 3/4 ton (up to 850kg payload) truck with a 17PS (13kW) 452 cc two-stroke Heinkel engine. The Wiking was built until 1955.
The Wiking-based Rapid was a minibus which was built from 1957 to 1963. It was powered by a 948cc and 34PS (25kW) engine supplied by the Austin Motor Company.
Licensed production by other companies
Tempo A600, a later version of their first four-wheeled vehicle1939 Tempo G 12001950 Tempo MatadorHanomag-Henschel F 20Tempo Matador F307 built by Force Motors, then Bajaj Tempo was in production until 2000
In Spain Tempo Onieva, later taken over by Barreiros, made Tempo Viking vans and light trucks featuring Barreiros diesel engines.
In Uruguay Tempo Viking and Matador were made by Germania Motors.
In the UK, Jensen Motors made the Tempo Matador too, known as Tempo 1500 or Jensen Front Wheel Drive, starting in 1958.
In India the Tempo Hanseat remained under production by Bajaj Tempo under the name Bajaj Tempo Hanseat from 1962 to 2000 ("Force" in latter years).
Australia The Jolus Minx 1963-65 F1 car used suspension and cut down drive shafts from the Matador.
Goliath motors ltd in Bremen (Part of the Borgward-group) also produced a three-wheeler until 1961, but this was not a version of the Hanseat.
Models
Tempo, light commercial vehicles (LCV):
T 1, T2 = 1928-1930
T 6 = 1929-1935
T 10 = 1930-1936
Pony = 1932-1936
Front 6 = 1933-1934
Front 7, 10, 14 = 1934-1935
Front 9, 12 = 1933-1935
D 200, D 400 = 1935-1936
V 600 = 1935-1936
E 200, E 400, E 600 = 1936-1937
A 200 Resolut = 1938-1940
A 600 Titan = 1938-1943
A 400 Athlet = 1938-1948
Hanseat = 1949-1956
Boy = 1950-1956
Matador / Mayor = 1949-1952 - 13521 of these vehicles were built using a 25hp Volkswagen 1100cc motor and ZF gearbox. The incoming Typ 2 Volkswagen led Wolfsburg to cease supply of the engine, ending the model run and forcing Tempo to return to two-stroke engines.
Matador 1000, 1400 / Mayor 1000, 1400 = 1952-1955
Wiking / Viking = 1953-1955
Wiking 1 / Viking 1 = 1955-1963
Matador 1 / Mayor 1 Jensen Tempo 1500 = 1955-1963
Rapid = 1957-1963
Matador E / Mayor E = 1963-1966
Tempo off-road cars:
T 1200 = 1935
G 1200 = 1936-1943
Tempo Land Rover = 1953-1958
Daus 214 = 1958
Tempo cars:
2/3 Sitzer front 6-14 = 1934-1935
Kombinationswagen (400, 600) = 1935-1940
Kleinwagen A = 1955
Kleinwagen B = 1956
Kleinwagen Y = 1957
Hanomag production:
Athlet, Matador / Mayor = 1966-1967
F20 - 36 = 1967-1970(75) (in India as the Tempo Matador)
Force Motors, formerly Bajaj Tempo, produced Hanomag products in India.
External links
Tempo Dienst -
Tempo club Germany (Membership needed) -
Related Research Articles
DKW was a German car- and motorcycle-marque. DKW was one of the four companies that formed Auto Union in 1932 and thus became an ancestor of the modern-day Audi company.
A flat-four engine, also known as a horizontally opposed-four engine or boxer engine, is a four-cylinder piston engine with two banks of cylinders lying on opposite sides of a common crankshaft. The most common type of flat-four engine is the boxer-four engine, each pair of opposed pistons moves inwards and outwards at the same time.
Auto UnionAG was an amalgamation of four German automobile manufacturers, founded in 1932 and established in 1936 in Chemnitz, Saxony. It is the immediate predecessor of Audi as it is known today.
The BMC B series is a line of straight-4 & straight-6 internal combustion engine mostly used in motor cars, created by British automotive manufacturer Austin Motor Company.
The OM616 engine family is a diesel automobile Inline-four engine from Mercedes-Benz used in the 1970s and 1980s, and produced by Force Motors in India from the 1980s to the present.
Opel Blitz was the name given to various light and middleweight trucks built by the German Opel automobile manufacturer between 1930 and 1975. The original logo for this truck, two stripes arranged loosely like a lightning symbol in the form of a horizontally stretched letter "Z", still appears in the current Opel logo. The Blitz name was then applied to the British-made Bedford CF when it replaced the Blitz in certain markets.
Hanomag was a German producer of steam locomotives, tractors, trucks and military vehicles in Hanover. Hanomag first achieved international fame by delivering numerous steam locomotives to Finland, Romania and Bulgaria before World War I and making of first tractor Hanomag R26 in 1924 in Germany. In 1925, they added automobiles to their line, additionally moving in 1931 into the production of construction machinery. Since 1989, the company has been part of the Komatsu company.
Force Motors Ltd is an Indian multinational automotive manufacturing company, based in Pune. From 1958 until 2005, the company was known as Bajaj Tempo Motors because it originated as a joint venture between Bajaj Trading Corporation and Germany's Tempo for manufacturing auto components. The company is known for brands, like the Gurkha, Matador, Minidor and Traveller. Over the last five decades [when?], it has partnered with global manufacturers, such as Rolls Royce, BMW, Daimler, ZF, Bosch, VW, Traton and MAN, for manufacturing auto components.
Steyr was an Austrian automotive brand, established in 1915 as a branch of the Österreichische Waffenfabriks-Gesellschaft (ÖWG) weapon manufacturing company. Renamed Steyr-Werke AG in 1926 and merged with Austro-Daimler and Puch into Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG, it continued manufacturing Steyr automobiles until 1959.
The DKW Schnellaster, also known as the DKW F89 L, was a van produced by DKW from 1949 to 1962. Alongside the DKW F89 passenger car, it was the first vehicle to be manufactured by the new Auto Union conglomerate in Ingolstadt following the re-establishment of the business in West Germany. The model name Schnellaster translates from German to English as Rapid Transporter.
The DKW Junior is a small front wheel drive saloon manufactured by Auto Union AG. The car received a positive reaction when first exhibited, initially badged as the DKW 600, at the Frankfurt Motor Show in March 1957. The ‘Junior’ name was given to the DKW 750 in 1959 when the car went into volume production, but failed to survive an upgrade in January 1963, after which the car was known as the DKW F12. In addition to the saloon, a pretty ‘F12 Roadster’ was produced in limited numbers.
From 1931 to 1939, Daimler-Benz AG produced three cars with rear engine as well as a few prototypes. Production numbers remained low for each of these models, especially compared with the production of conventional front-engine Mercedes-Benz cars.
The Lloyd LT 500 was a compact van produced and sold by the German automaker Borgward Groups's Lloyd Motoren Werke GmbH in Bremen, Germany between 1953 and 1957. A six seater minivan version was offered by April 1954.
In 2023, Spain produced 2.45 million cars which makes it the 8th largest automobile producer country in the world and the 2nd largest car manufacturer in Europe after Germany, a position it maintained in 2024.
Poinard is a former French auto-maker. The vehicles commenced development in 1951, were presented to the public in 1952, and withdrawn from production in 1953.
Einheits-Pkw der Wehrmacht – literally: "standard passenger motor-car of the Wehrmacht" – was Nazi Germany's plan for a new, multi-purpose fleet of all wheel drive off-road vehicles, based on just three uniform chassis, specifically designed and built for the Wehrmacht. The plan was formulated in 1934, and vehicles were built from 1936 to 1943.
The Hanomag F-series is a series of medium-duty trucks built by Hanomag, then Hanomag-Henschel after a 1969 merger with the Henschel company, in their Bremen Seebaldsbrück plant from 1967 until 1973. It was replaced in favor of the more conservative Mercedes-Benz T2 after that company took over Hanomag-Henschel. The F-series badge was also used on the smaller "Harburger Transporter" as well as on some rebadged Mercedes-Benz T2 models.
The Goliath F400 is a three-wheeled pickup transporter, made by Hansa-Lloyd and Goliath Company Borgward & Tecklenborg in Bremen, Germany which was sold under the brand Goliath. It was based on the three-wheeled passenger car Goliath Pionier with a closed timber-framed wood cab.
The Goliath GV800 was a light freight truck built in the early 1950s in Bremen, Germany. It also was available as panel van and reached up to 37 mph. It was announced in March 1951.
The Hanomag L 28 was a light truck from the German manufacturer Hanomag that released in 1950. The vehicle was the first newly developed commercial vehicle from Hanomag after World War II. It belongs to the large vans and light trucks division.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
