Tempo (company)


Tempo, 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 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, started the production of Hanseat three-wheeled cars with the collaboration of Tempo-Werke. Later on, Tempo introduced the Matador, which was extremely popular in India where it was used as goods carrying vehicles. The four-wheeled Matador remained under production by Tempo from 1949 till 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.
Various Tempo vehicles were once extremely common as goods carrying vehicle on the streets of Indian cities where the Indian company marketed them.

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 Three wheels were with single or two-cylinder two-stroke - Otto engines equipped, Which via a transmission drives the front wheel and a chain - engine, transmission, and the chain box as a supporting part and the front wheel were hingedly connected to the rest of the vehicle as a whole pivotable part.

Off-road vehicle

The SUV Tempo G 1200 was produced from 1936 to 1944. In 1936, Otto Daus developed this off-road vehicle for Tempo with two engines and four-wheel drive. The two-stroke engines each had 19 hp and drove each one axle.

Tempo Matador and Tempo Wiking

Parallel to the Hanseat came the Tempo four-wheel delivery van Matador and Wiking in the program. In contrast to the similar van, Volkswagen released at about the same time 0.75-ton VW T1, the direct competitor of matador. The first matador from 1949 were powered by 25-horsepower VW industrial engines that sourced the Tempo factory directly from VW. Since Tempo had failed to conclude a long-term supply contract with the managing director of VW, Heinz Nordhoff. In 1952, the delivery of this engine stopped to the company at short notice. Thereafter, the matador was fitted with two-stroke engine, or a four-cycle engine, both of which came from the engineering office of Müller in Andernach, In 1953, the Wiking came out to the market, a 3-4 ton with 452 cc two-stroke engine of Heinkel, which was built until 1955. The Wiking based Rapid, was a minibus, which was built from 1957 to 1963. The Rapid was powered by a 948 cc and 25 kW engine supplied by the Austin Motor Company.

Licensed production by other companies

Goliath motors ltd in Bremen also produced a threewheeler until 1961, but this was not a version of the Hanseat.

Models