We were curious about the cars in the old photos from the house so we thought we’d research them a bit. Thankfully we know someone who works as a car analyst with hubby so he was able to find out what the car in the photo below was relatively quickly. We didn’t give him the other one but we might have to now since the other wasn’t much of a challenge for him.
We have determined that the car in the first photo is a BMW Dixi DA2, likely built in 1929 or 1930. The BMW Dixi was the first car made by BMW.
Dixi (formerly known as Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach and later Automobilwerk Eisenach) had been making cars since 1904 but in the difficult times of the 1920’s was finding it hard to sell its 6/24 and 9/40 models so looked to enter the small car market and in 1927 agreed a licence with the Austin Motor Company to build the Austin 7. A production level of 2000 cars a year was agreed with Austin being paid a royalty on each one made.
The first 100 cars were supplied as kits but by December 1927 the first of the real Dixis, the DA-1 3/25PS were coming off the production line. DA stood for Deutsche Ausfuhrung meaning German Version and 3/15 indicated the taxation and actual horse power ratings. Apart from being left-hand drive and using metric threaded fasteners, the car was nearly identical to the Austin. Body styles available were coupé, roadster, tourer and sedan with a few chassis going to external coachbuilders. Most cars left the factory as tourers.
Looking to move into car manufacture, BMW bought the Automobilwerk Eisenach in 1928 and with it the rights to build the Dixi car. At first the cars were badged as BMW Dixi but the Dixi name was dropped in 1929 when the DA-1 was replaced by a slightly updated version, the BMW 3/15 DA-2.
We figure it might be fun to find a club here of Dixi owners and maybe recreate the photo today with the same car and the same angle, just a rather different looking house. We’ve actually found a group here already with several members who have the car, just different wheels. View it here.
The photo below was taken out of one of the family party photos and you can see the car lingering in the background. It’s not much to go on but it is something….
At first glance, I thought it was an Adler Trumpf (not Triumpf) but the eagle (Adler is German for eagle) on the grill isn’t the same and this one looks like it has clips on the top of the windshield which I thought might be where the wipers were missing…but it would seem not on very close inspection. So I guess we’re back to the drawing board on that one.
