Köpings Museum
Text and pictures Björn Bellander

since 060105
Updated
2012-02-04
Ref. 1
© Björn Bellander

Created 090327
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Swedish version

Page 1

Mercedes 1929

Links

SSK clutch

Museum

The compressor equipped sport cars were the construction of Ferdinand Porsche and the were mainly used in sport cars competitions and the adversaries  were mostly Alfa Romeo and Bentley. They were not only used for competitions and could also be used for road driving.  Because of all the successfully competitions many sons of the high class people at that time wanted one that looked the same. That 's why they could order different trims of the car. Porsche put so much time of them that he finally was accused for neglecting job on other car models. This is one cause that he started to work at Steyer and then for Auto Union. The SSK cars had a single overhead cam and a Roots compressor which was driven over the main crankshaft. This was a system he later used for Auto Union race cars. This car has the biggest engine with 7.1 liter. 42 cars were built from which 20 have survived. This car has been driven by Karl Ebb and Caracciola mainly in Europe during 1930th and was moved to Sweden during the 40th. In Sweden it changed owners several times (Ebb?). Was finally found in a terribly stand in the middle of 1950 by Bertil Lindblad. Then he worked 20 years to put it back in the present state. Reading the link SSK clutch came into trouble. This made that a new type of clutch was installed. Sorry for this car had hardly been driven after complete renovation. See link.

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Page 2

Panhard Levassor 1912

Other sleeve valve engines

Links

Sleeve valve engine
Radial-bi-rotary

This car is equipped with a sleeve valve engine giving 70 ps. 1912 it was a very powerful car at that time. A sleeve valve engine has no traditional valves. The car was ordered by the speaker in Swedish parliament count Bonde. He traveled to Paris himself to fetch the car and then drive it home to Stockholm. At that time it was considered the finest car in Sweden and was often lend to the Swedish King Gustav V when he got high ranked visitors from other countries. It was used up to 1929 when it was stored. Bertil Lindblad got the opportunity to buy the car from Brita Bonde in the middle of 1950. Then he started a full renovation. The car is the only surviving copy of the total of 20 cars that were made. Most of those were sold to the Russian aristocracy. The internet has no pages and therefore it is likely that this is the only car.

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Page 3

Pierce-Arrow Model 48-B-5 
‎

Links

Pierce story

Pierce mc

The Pierce family shared the production units in the way that the son took care of motorcycles and the father cared about bicycles and lorries. In the first hand fire lorries. These were manufactured up to 1932 and engine and bicycles went bankruptcy 1914. The first motorcycle came 1909 with a 4 cylinders engine. 1910 they sold a single engine one. The four cylinders version was very costly. Pierce also produced a luxurious car under the name of Pierce Arrow. It could be recognize by the special design for head lamps. They were built in the front fenders in an easy recognized way. Read the good link about Pierce that tell you everything.
John Bryntesson, nicknamed the Gold King, was a man that emigrated to America from Dalsland Sweden in the end of 1800 in order to search for gold. He was one of them who succeeded and went back to Sweden with a fortune of 300 million dollars. When he went back this Pierce Arrow was in his baggage. It is a copy of President Woodrow Wilson's car. It is a high class car and the coachwork is made of cast aluminum. The car was presented to the Lindblad foundation during 1990 and a complete restoration was done. Last time the car was used was in the beginning of 1950 for at student celebration.

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Page 4

Nagant
 

Links

Nagant

Nagant was a Belgian company which was specialized for arms. They had near contact with the Russian Tsars. From there they got a rifle model, Mosin-Nagant, and produced it in large series. Nagant company was controlled by two brothers. The produced from 1900 till 28 or 29 a car model on license from French Rochet-Schneider. The factory was taken charge 1931 by Imperial. The engine is the usual unit at that time with a cast crankshaft house and 2 cylinder blocks without included valve system and 2 cylinders in each. Have a look at my Mercedes museum about Lightning Benz.

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Page 5

Overland 1917

Links

Overland 1

Overland models

Overland Wiki

The car on the picture is from 1915. Overland was from the beginning standard Wheels, went over to be named Overland and last Willys Overland started 1908. The had several different engine types like 4, 6 inline and Knight sleeve valves. The Knight engines were double in cost of what a normal valve engine. Yet quit many were sold. For a while they had a 5 liter V8 sleeve valve which did cost $1950. The car in the museum is a model which quite often called Runabout and had a 4 cylinders engine with only 36 hp. It was sold for $495. The great period for Willys was during the first part of the 1920-th when the sold almost 20000 cars. During the end of 1930th the production went down and the company was almost bankruptcy. As a luck the war started 1939 and Willys together with Ford together with the construction company Bantam got the responsibility to produce the Jeep. After the war they continued production with a civilian model. Ordinary cars were not manufactured until 1952.  The Willys company was bought 1953 by Kaiser corporation and the car production continued in Sao Palo up to 1956. The name Willys was changed 1963 to Kaiser Corporation.
 

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Page 6

Voisin C5 1924

Links

Voisin car

Voisin C20 1931

Charles Voisin

Voisin Wiki

Gabriel Voisin was the elder of two brothers. The younger, Charles, started with air plane constructions together with Bleriot in the beginning of 1900. He quit from Bleriot and offered his older brother to be part owner in his air plane factory which was opened 1907. This year he succeeded in his first flying and the length was 60 meters. This airplane was developed and made even longer tours. Charles died 1912 in a car crash and Gabriel took over. The first world war was of course a success for this kind of production and lots of airplanes were sold to the French government. After the war he started with car production through a cooperation with Citroen, license?. Gabriel had special opinions on how to build and use different modern material at that time like aluminum and wood. He combined the materials to get light constructions. The engine type he used was a sleeve valve. Voisin is considered as a very luxurious car. Of all 20000 cars produced there are only about 100 survivors. Those who have seen the movies about Indiana Jones may remember the Voisin car and the French officer in the Sahara fort. It was used heavily, something a Voisin owner today never should do.

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Page 7

Renault 1901

Links

Renault story

Early Renaults

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Page 8

Bentley 8 liter 1930

Links

Bentley

Bentley story

Bentley Race story

Torsten Krüger's (not to be mixed up with Ivar Krüger) Bentley 1930, after his dead, was taken care of after some time at the Technical museum Stockholm. In this museum it just standing and collected dust as the museum board was not so interested in this large car. It had and engine with 6 cylinders and 8 liter volume. The car could go for 100 mph and this speed was not possible for Rolls Royce to reach. As this model saw the market when depression was on it's highest level only 100 copies were sold before the company 1931 ceased production. Most delivered models had the body on the picture. This car is now on display in Köping. It is still in a bad stand and of course the Lindblad foundation cannot put money on the car. This car was paid new with almost 2000£ and is today 2009 paid on auction up to $900000. Torsten Krüger also owned a Duesenberg which later was sold to a Swede Martin Strömberg. Read about this.

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Page 9

Delage D8

Delage

Delage picture

This impressive Delage was build on special order for a French fighter pilot, Pellerine. He was married with a Swedish girl. The car was used for their driving from Särö, outside Gothenburg, to Paris and the Riviera. 1958 Björn Linn got the, privilege to buy the car. He used it some years before it was stored for life. To get the opportunity to buy such a car is always an advantage.
The mark Delage started 1905 and through successes in competitions at that time it got good reputation. This was mainly caused by the 8 cylinders 1.5 liter engine. 1935 Delage was bought by Delahaye and production stopped 1954. Only 2000 Delage cars were build and from them there are an unknown survivors.

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Page 10

Buick eight 1924

Links

Buick cars

The car on picture comes from Nostalgi museum Grängesberg Sweden. This car has been sold. Buick was one of the more powerful cars in the 1920. It could be delivered with either 6 or 8 cylinders engine. It gave a powerful moment and could be rebuild to support different kind of machines. The Buick in Köping was bought by a farmer who rebuild it for his patented way to drill holes in a tree trunk. Those were used for draining peat mosses in Sweden. This was a type of pipes that later were replaced by the well known earthenware pipes. Today only special plastic pipes are used.  Those tree trunk pipes were also used in mines to pump water in this case much longer. One can study such equipment for long way drilling in Falu copper mine. These wooden pipes never become rotten either in a peat moss or a mine.

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Page 11

Bugatti type 44 1928

Museum

Bertil Lindblad is one of the men behind the car museum in Köping, even if it's not the official name. He was a machine engineer and worked at the Mechanical Workshop of Köping. Here he got his main engine education much for the possibility to use work machines for his renovations for many of his interesting cars in the museum. Type 44 Bugatti was one of the first cars he bought. At that time these type of cars had no high money value. They were only of interest for those who understood that special cars in the future had a cultural, historical value and must be preserved. To keep on with this kind of interest one must have a complicated and comprehensive education. His network with important persons for this was quit big. Among them Curt Borgenstam who often travelled in Europe as a navy attaché could change his route to visit different old car producers. Lindblads collection became with time rather large and was during a short time on display at Nacka Strand museum. On the contrary Köping was his place in life and in order that his collection should not be widely spread after his dead a foundation was created and the locals became his old working place. Here also the supporting club twice every year arrange markets for old car spares. 

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Page 12

Bugatti type 57 Stelvio 1936

Links

Driving an Atlantic
Unloading Atlantic

The beautiful blue/black Bugatti in the museum was bought by Borgenstam 1951 and was often used for long travelling in Europe. The car was renovated after his dead and incorporated in Lindblad foundation.
In the small pictures to the left you can see the same type although a cab. A photo taken at my visit in Dorlisheim, It is pity that the handsome type 57 Stelvio cabriolet from 1936 never will come out and rev up with the nice sound from the 8 cylinders engine and with the lines of it body melt into the landscape around Dorlisheim. It is true that the car has a good place in the dry air in this little museum, although it was raining outside the museum. The opening where they have taken the car inside is bricked. The engine is lifted out of the car and can bee seen behind. It is a 3.3 singel cam. This type of car came the first time 1934 and could be purchased with three different body types. Stelvio, Ventoux and Atalante On special order one could order between 4 doors Galibier or Atlantic Coupé (only 3 were built). Generally speaking people could get anything if they just paid the price. It was for type 57 that Jean built the individual front end but was refused to fulfill from his father. From type 57 was 905 copies built (there are different opinions).

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Page 13

Isotta Fraschini 1955

Links

Caproni
Isotta Fraschini
Torpedoboats

There are some names that a car interested person in Sweden must know and these he proudly mention in discussions and club meetings. One of these names is Curt Borgenstam, navy attaché for Sweden. He was the man who built up the Swedish torpedo boats defence. Having such a work he could travel much and also was one of the men who bought the unhappy destroyers from Italy. The engines that later were mounted in the Swedish built boats were Isotta Fraschini and one of them can be seen at this museum. It had three rows of 6 cylinders each and is often called a W6 engine and had an output if 1500 ps. In those boat that were built, in late 1950 three of these engines where working. Have a look in the picture far back you can see "the handbrake level" which handles the coupling for idle running. Later the output was raised to 1800 ps. A torpedo boat engine had no reverse gear. Instead the engine revolution was slowed down and in the right moment the camshafts pushed so the engine turned in opposite direction. This was done every time the boat made port. Isotta Fraschini engines were often built in airplanes which Sweden bought from Italy. Among them the Caproni bomber/reconnaissance. Jan Blomkvist who was my boss during my time at Hedemora Diesel some years, is today a reseller for Isotta Fraschini, placed in Hälsingborg.