Fritz Fiedler
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Fritz Fiedler (1899-1972), a qualified engineer, joined the BMW firm in 1932 as chief designer at the age of 32 after working for Horch, designed 8 cylinder and 12 cylinder cars. Working with Fiedler was Rudolf Schleicher, who had joined Horch in 1927 after being at BMW on their motorcycle design team. Fritz persuaded Schleicher to return to BMW and these two were responsible for the new series of six cylinder cars that were to set the car division of BMW on the road to success. The first car that Fiedler was fully responsible for was the BMW Type 326 saloon that was shown at the International Automobile Ausstellung in Berlin in 1936.
While Schleicher was at Munich on motorcycle development and the competition side of BMW motor car activity, Fiedler was at Eisenach in overall command of the car side of BMW, specialising in chassis, suspension and aerodynamic design and development. The last great work of his to emanate from Eisenach was the 3.5 litre 6 cylinder Type 335 saloon, a fine 90 mph car for the German autobahns. During the war he was occupied with military vehicle design and development and finished up at Munich, fortunately, so that he was in the American zone. During the war he was a Director of BMW, but left the board on 1945 and in 1947 joined AFN Ltd at the persuasion of H.J. Aldington. Although he was loaned to Bristol as a consultant on their Type 400 project, he did most of his work in England at Isleworth, where he was always known as Dr Fiedler, although he did not have that title in Germany. He was very popular with the workforce at AFN, most people describing him as a kindly and charming man, and everyone admired his engineering qualities. He took charge of the development of the post-war Frazer Nash, dealing with chassis, suspension, body design and construction and development of the FNS Bristol engine. On the Isleworth dynamometer he got over 100 bhp from the Bristol engine before the Bristol men did.
After three years with AFN Ltd, he went back to Germany and returned to BMW where he was responsible for the new V8 engine and the 500 series of cars. He was chairman of BMW-AG from 1955 to 1956 and he finally retired in 1966, after a long and active life devoted to BMW, but he attended the firm each day as a consultant for a further two year and died in 1972.
Source – “From Chain Drive to Turbocharger- The AFN Story”, Denis Jenkinson, 1984.
Denis Jenkinson was a well respected motoring journalist, known by his friends, and ultimately the world of motoring enthusiasts, as ‘Jenks’. He was closely associated with all things AFN and was AFN’s official archivist by the time he wrote “From Chain Drive to Turbocharger- The AFN Story”.
