I said 3/15 PS type YES 1 – The most popular vintage cars in Poland are small Dixi and BMW-Dixi from the turn of the 1920s and 1930s. These cars are very popular and liked by viewers, turn out to be very effective vehicles in rally competition.
These cars were produced in Eisenach. The plants were among the oldest automotive companies in Germany – the first Wartburg car was built there as early as in 1899 r. Later, for more than a quarter of a century, various models left the factory gates, usually two- and four-cylinder. They were sold in small numbers, and in the 1920s, production was at the level of several hundred pieces per year. W 1926 r. there was a collapse in sales and the company controlled by the stock market speculator J.. Schapiro found herself in trouble. The rescue was to start the production of a small-engine car, which could be built in thousands of copies a year.
At that time, Dixi designers had already prepared a prototype (3/12PS H1) little, a three-seater car with an engine capacity of less than 0,8 dm3. The management of the label felt, however, that the car was too complicated and expensive to build to maintain an attractively low price. Time was pressing and the last resort was to buy a license. It was decided to cooperate with the English company Austin, which starting with 1922 r. produced the extremely popular Seven model, enjoying great recognition not only in the British Isles. The rights to the licensed production of the "seven" in Eisenach were purchased in 1927 r.
In April of the same year, the first vehicles went on sale in Germany, however the first 100 copies were delivered from England, and the most significant of the few minimal changes was the change… car brand. Within a few months, employees at the Eisenach factory dealt with the conversion of construction documentation and tooling to the metric system and already in December 1927 r. production of a new model, designated 3 / 15PS Typ DA, began 1. What the individual parts of the name meant? According to the custom of the time, information about the so-called. "Tax horses" (3) and engine power in HP (15PS). The letters DA were translated as an abbreviation of Dixi-Austin, although some also interpret it as an abbreviation of the phrase meaning in the language of our western neighbors "the German version".
The small-scale Dixi went on sale 1 January 1928 r. and although in 10 months later, the factory was taken over by BMW and sales under the Dixi brand lasted until July 1929 r. In a year and a half in Eisenach: was created exactly 9307 DA copies 1, which was a huge success, considering, that over the previous 28 years, the factory was built less than 6,5 thousand cars!
Of course, the secret of success was the low price (from 2750 do 3200 marek), which made it possible to buy a car even for not very wealthy people. Besides, Dixi was not a "cyclecarz", that is, a vehicle which is a Spartan cross between a motorcycle and a car, but a real car, only very small and providing only a minimum of comfort. However, the price attracted crowds of buyers and it is hardly surprising. Only the still not refined DKW could compete with Dixi. For comparison, a small-scale Tatra 11 it cost almost twice as much.
German designers introduced two major improvements, differentiating Dixi from the original Austin. The first was to adapt the vehicle to right-hand traffic, the second one is replacing the magneto ignition with a battery. Besides, almost everything remained the same. The car had a four-cylinder engine, in-line, with a displacement of only 748 cm3 (56 x 76 mm), developing at compression ratio 5,6 moc 11 kW (15 KM) by 3000 rotations per minute. The engine was a side valve unit, the camshaft was driven via spur gears made of cast iron. Fuel was supplied to the Zenith 22K horizontal carburetor from a 20-liter tank in the engine compartment. The engine was pressurized by circulation, and the lubrication system housed 2,5 liter of oil. The engine was cooled by a thermosiphon system with a capacity 5 dm3. Dixi had a 6-volt electrical system, batteries were mounted 45 Ah.
The drive system is interesting – the drive shaft was split and consisted of two sections connected by a ball joint. This allowed to reduce shaft vibrations and simplified the structure of the chassis frame. Dixi got dry, single-disc clutch and three-speed gearbox without synchronization with the lever on the floor in the longitudinal axis of the car. The frame of the car was simple in construction and light. Its essential elements were easy-to-produce longitudinal members that tapered at the front (under the engine and radiator). Both axles were stiff. The suspension was resolved differently. In front there is a transverse leaf spring; at the rear, the springs are quarter elliptical at each wheel. The primary drawback of Austin, which was duplicated in Dixi, there was a bizarre and ineffective braking system. Brakes, of course, were mechanical, but the point is there, that the foot brake only acted on the rear wheels, manual and only on the front wheels.
I said yes 1 it was a very tiny vehicle, this is evidenced by the basic dimensions – length 2800 mm, width 1170 mm and height approx. 1625 mm. These data refer to the basic version with an open body, housing (theoretically or with great self-denial of passengers) 3-4 persons. Common to all versions, and was also sold 3-4 -local limousine and 2-seater coupe and roadster, were the dimensions of the chassis: wheelbase 1905 mm, track width 1000 mm (front) i 1030 mm (back). The complete chassis weighed only 280 kg, and the entire vehicle in the most popular open variant only 400 kg. Nothing unusual, that the maximum speed was "up" to 75 km/h. The owner was also provided with relatively cheap exploitation, the manufacturer specified the average fuel consumption at approx 6 liters per 100 kilometers.