NSU Prinz 4 - it's like a squashed Corvair! But is it fun?
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- čas přidán 25. 07. 2024
- It's like a tiny Corvair with a 583cc straight twin engine with some odd details and it's sooo brown! The NSU Prinz 4 was one of the better economy cars I reckon. But I must give both a knees and a feet alert as the pedals were tiny...
Huge thanks to owner Marcel for camera work and for letting me drive this lovely little car.
HubNut merchandise is available at hubnut.org - thank you!
#automobile #driving #classiccar - Auta a dopravní prostředky
I bought my first Prinz 4 in 1995. In 1997 it was written off by some thugs in Mile End who tipped it onto its side (with us inside). In 1998 I bought my current Prinz 4 from its original owner in Surrey. I love the car so much that when I moved to Canada, I had the car shipped over. I now drive her (she is called Stella) in Vancouver BC where she causes much confusion. Because she is rhd, most people guess English or Japanese manufacture and not German!
How did the tipping over story start and end, it deserves more of an explaination, I feel.
Amazed that Canada let you in after serving such a long sentence for murder..I assume you murdered them thugs? I mean… who wouldn’t have.. a bit of MDK?
Anyhoo, got to go It’s ‘Lights out’ jn 10 minutes…
My dad had an NSU RO80 which was a horse of a different colour! It may have been disastrous financially but it was an amazing car which still looks modern and futuristic today.
Did it have any of the faults that RO80’s were known for or was it reliable etc.
One of my dads favourite cars although he never owned one.
@@malcolmyoung7866 Actually my dad had two of them. The first one failed due to the well known engine problem. So NSU gave my dad a very good deal on the later model and that one was great and didn't suffer from any problems. I remember going down to Spain in it and it was a real head turner because of its beautiful and futuristic design.
Oh! Memory Lane!!
My first car was a 1964 blue NSU Prinz 4L. Fabulous thing, so advanced for the time - as you mention, all sycro box, discs up front and an absolute DELIGHT to drive. I was in a band at the time & we could get a full drum kit in it!
Once it got going, the handling was surprisingly good, if a bit susceptible to wandering about a bit in a cross-wind...
Also, it was pretty quite in the ....erm...."cruise"...with all the noise generators well behind you.
Loved that little car - SO much character, and it never let me down ever, despite having almost 90,000 miles on the clock!
I also loved the Drivers handbook that came with it, reminding that checking the tyres regularly (with the tyre pressure gauge in the supplied tool kit) not only enhanced the safety, but also endowed the driver "The Air of The Expert".
Best watch on here for ages; made my evening, thank you.
From America it sounds like a lawn mower lol
welcome to the new channel... Hobbitnut & the Frodo road-test
😂😂😂
Lord of the Piston Rings
One does just simply drive to Mordor
I had Prinz 4 in 1980. Its clutch had gone and I was told I could have it for free if I picked it up before the tax and MOT expired.
It turned out that the clutch cable was way out of adjustment, and I drove the car home.
It needed very little for a new MOT and I really liked it. I don't recall it being as noisy and shaky as this one, but time fogs the memory.
They were quite popular in the UK being economical and unusually rust resistant for their time.
IIRC Prinz 4s sold in the UK prior to us joining the EEC were assembled in the Irish Republic.
Great to see this. A bit of nostalgia for me!
That engine has a lovely burble about it. A cutey, without a doubt... Thank you Marcel for letting hubnut show it to the masses.
The first American to orbit the earth, John Glenn, drove a NSU Prinz. The other six Mercury astronauts drove Corvettes.
There were a few about in the 70s and I remember them well. Mind you, haven't seen one on the road for 40 years. Thanks for the memories.
@@alanhunter2009 if you were in Austria 4 weeks ago there were loads in Fieberbrunn
What a little sweetheart!
Here the "schoolteacher" 😅: Prinz 3 = 583 cc. Prinz 4 = 598 cc. Max speed (from test in an old review, Quattroruote 12/1970 - Italy): 120, 647 km/h (only driver) and 115, 448 km) h (full load). Actually the first Prinz 4 version in 1962, same review, did 123,323 km/h at medium load. Anyway, Prinz 4 was my dad's car, that dynastart and engine sound... how much nostalgia! 1975, I remember my father have a problem with a bushing in the gear lever... stop at the roadside, checking, show me the bushing, fixing and on the road again! Thx for the video!
The NSU Prinz , the car for the kings !
In German though, Prinz means heir apparent or just "son of a ruling monarch". The English prince would be a Fürst (yes, from the same root as the English first).
Fahren eine prinz, und du bist eine konig! Or so the old slogan said...😂
That's an impeccably preserved NSU PRINZ. Here in Uruguay they were commonly seen running back in the early 80's.
That is drop dead gorgeous
My dad had one of these cars , his was the 1000cc version. It was an up-spec version that looked a bit like the TT. Beautifully made cars. His was a 1969 model so 6V electrics of course. The last production year of the model was 1972/73 and by that stage the engine was 1200 with 12V electrics. You'll need to keep the king pins greased because they tend to seize and affect the steering. I remember the exhaust system being incredibly expensive and quite complex. My lasting memory of the car is the whisky bottles clinking around in the bonnet because that's where he kept his stash so my mum couldn't find it!!
The Prinz 1000 was the only one with 6 Volt electrics. This was a big mistake, especially in the wintertime. Prinz 4, 1000 TT and TTS and the 1200 were all 12 V.
What a great example of one of these cars. The exhaust note sounds great, especially on downshifts.
I used to deliver them out of Shoreham late 60s. I owned a Prinz 2L when stationed in Detmold 65 to 67. The 1000 TTS was the one to drive, it rivaled many quick cars
The Cooper S competitor.
Absolutely brilliant video Ian ❤👍 what a beautiful car love the colour brilliant
'A little tight in the rear'. That is a selling point.
I have wondered about these for 45 years. Seriously. I fell in love with the little red Spider when I saw it as a kid in the Science Museum (Wonder if they still have it)? So naturally I wondered about these. They were few and far between even in 1979 and not one Spider, as I looked for my first car having saved up a bit and sold my beloved Nikon FE. (Warning: Deviation and old mans waffle).
I missed out on a MK3 Spitfire by 10 minutes. I told the guy I was coming with cash and had to get a train and bus and walk... I went home fuming yet, lo and behold, in the local garage at the end of my road was sitting a convertible Vitesse 2L Mk1... £395.00 so I paid up (most of it) and drove it 100 yards home. It really taught me how to drive what was in part a dodgy handling vehicle, though when sorted it was wonderful..The sagging rear spring was a godsend for grip. I spotted it on the cover of Classic Car Weekly a few months ago. The bloke exaggerated how long he had owned it!
Anyhow I deviated and I have to make a complaint. I'm not sure which was worse. The Jesus sandals or the bare feet? ( It was the bare (bear) feet, we are used to your sandals). For the love of god get your lovely Mrs to invest in some dainty driving shoes for you. Just to continue the complaint, I was hoping to hear something about the engineering. We did get some nice info on the engine and gearbox and boot prop device. I noticed there was no sign of suspension or steering parts intruding into the bonnet or boot space, all seemingly being hidden under the tiny wheel arches, apart from a single anchoring point at one end. How was the steering? Is it a rack? I had gained the opinion that these cars were very nicely engineered. Did it feel well put together?
I waffle on like this and sound like a total bore when I have had no sleep for 36 hours. Which I haven't. Apologies and of course I'm not really complaining, apart from about the feet.
Edit: Yes I am hallucinating now.
My friend had one in the late 90s
Our favourite thing was the way the manual described the capacity of the glove box.
“The Glove compartment is a useful size.
It will hold a thermos flask (full).
or an airbed (empty),”
and they say Germans don’t have a sense of humour!
Some Germans most certainly do, and quite a dry, witty one too. Just don't confuse Cologne carnival shows with German humour.
Great video I like the older cars more better than the newer ones the good old days of the car with no computers on board 😂
Another brilliant review. Lovely car so well made for its day. When I was 8 my dad had an NSU 1200C. Great car and very nippy and rare even then. Would have one now.
it looks so like my DAF 44, even the same colour, It also shares the washer bulb as they were only fitted to DAFs and NSU cars. lovely
The old car of our neighbours. Back seats were good enough for their two kids. When taking wife and kids to church on sunday mornings. Later switched to THE favourite automotive vehicle of the Dutch during the late sixties/early seventies; the Opel Kadett B.
Beige of course.
I was convinced THE favourite vehicle of the Dutch during that period was the DAF (Any model but Daffodil sounds funny).
@@martinda7446 Sounds even funnier in German because it's closely related to crocodile (the flower has a completely different name in German).
Another one ticked off the list Ian. Beautiful car
Sat there all chocolatey like a luxury biscuit 😀
What a great little car and in fabulous 70s brown. Awesome 👌
The Prinz was kept on the Market by the Italian customers. Because Volkswagen wanted to cease production around 1969, but there was still more than 50.000 orders open from Italy so until early 1973 about 70 percent went directly to Italy from Neckarsulm factory
For NSU: they also brought the NSU K70 into the band with VW, which was a 4-cylinder, watercooled, frontwheel driven sedan - which directly competed with the Audi 80 / VW Passat that were just on the brink after the VW / Audi merger. It was sold for a few years and then discontinued, even though it was more modern and spacier than the Audi 80 was. But it was just a stepchild of a former competitior and handled as such. The bigger rear engined NSU 1000 / 1200 was used as a racecar. The 1200 TTS and TTS-E dominated round track races or slalom. The 4 cylinder engine was the technical base for the Münch motorcycles - the first "Superbike" of sorts. NSU had a rich history - all eliminated for and by VAG mediocrity. Thanks for showing though !
The rotating knob for the quarter lights is similar to the Rover P6 and Triumph Stag. Nice
What a lovely exhaust note!
Nice one Ian, keep them coming, thank you!🙏
Gloriously delightful!
What a lovely little thing from Neckarsulm in Baden-Württemberg… Thanks guys for this trip! 😊 See you soon ///// Martin
Lol, yup...I still have the nsu hood badge from my 1960 prinz 3!
What a great step back in time Ian, a lovely little car that is great to see on the road. I really like it. Many thanks for sharing.
Love these cars. Always reminded me of a bathtub...in a good way
Thank you for sharing your adventure.
Cool little cute car! It even looks cute in brown,not usually a car colour I like! 😍😍
Welcome 🤗 in the Netherlands 🇳🇱 Ian ! And yes we’ve got also lovely rainy weather! 😢 So you must feel al little bit at home 😂😂😂 Sadly without your lovely family! What an amazing 🤩 brown super car! Lovely lines , so sad that so many brands don’t exist anymore! Luckily there are still survivors like this example! Looking forward for your next adventure here in the Netherlands 🇳🇱! And don’t forget to buy something nice for the family! Iets lekkers 😋! Stroopwafels, Jodenkoeken, drop , zwartwit! And eat some poffertjes! 👍🏻👍🏻🆙
That's such a charming little thing, absolutely delightful 👌
Another fantastic review of a car I've never seen or heard of. Very interesting and entertaining. Thanks 😊
Had a red one did an engine overhaul, novel cam drive system. Later on went to work at a VW dealer and worked on lots of NSU RO 80s !
What a lovely little car! Thanks for the video
I HAD A NSU LAMBRETTA SCOOTER BACK INTHE DAY.VERY NICE LITTLE CAR AND A LOVELY BROWN.
What a delightful little thing.
My first new car in 1964. Bright red. I Ioved it.
The OHC drive was an NSU "thing"; they used it on their sportmax and Rennmax motorcycles. It gives very accurate can timing but seems to be a solution looking for a problem for a small family car.
It's the opposite of the fuel pump rod drive off the camshaft that used to be typical for American V8s (and others?) before electric pumps in the tank.
W O Bentley did it with his six cylinder engines in the 20's because it was quiet. But then he learned his trade in locomotive engineering.
Why is it a problem?
Honda used small OHC engines which were extremely reliable and often were given little care.
To clarify, because I can't remember the dates - 20's/30's. Bentley served his apprenticeship at the GNR works in Doncaster.
@@NeilBarrattit's not a problem but Honda's OHC engines were chain driven which would have been much cheaper to make. The ?Ultramax? System seems almost wilfully complicated and expensive to make. Ok, it's cheaper than shaft and bevel and maybe a gear train but nowhere near the value engineering of a chain OHC.
What a charming little thing!
My grandad bought three of these to do up and sell. He liked them so much that he kept one for my grandma to drive.
The Prinz 4 was quite a popular car in Italy at the time. There were still plenty on the road in the 80s.
I remember these as a child, the styling always has been attractive to me. Nice to see one of the humble small version preserved like that, usually it's the NSU 1000 and then especially the TT/TTS models which get recognition.
Love these reviews Ian.
Such a pretty looking car, looks good in brown. Love the simplicity.
That may be the brownest car I have seen. Delightful! I used to see a few of these around in my mechanining days in the eighties, completely forgotten about them till now so thanks for the reminder👍
Beautiful, humble car!
my mates dad had an NSU the bigger one i can remember it being very smart and a lovely ride we spent most of our time in it playing hot wheels so dont remember much more
I had the bike with the NSU Prinz engine, the Munch Mammoth TTSE 1200. What a beast! I rode it around Australia and then sold it to a famous museum on Hamilton Island in The Whitsunday Island chain. I miss it..
This is my first time learning about this car and I instantly want one! Thanks for the great video 👍🏻
Wow, what a stunning example.
What a lovely little car. I love the variety of what you get to drive Ian. Hubnut at its best!!!
I wish my car was painted in this wonderful brown colour.
My Renault 16 was...
Lovely little car❤
That is adorable, and I love the colour. My Grandfather had an (Larger model, as you said) NSU Prinz 1000 TT, and loved it. He later sold it, for a used 1976 RO80 and regreated it. Wasn't as smooth and refined in his view. Great video.
Lovely little car
First time really having a look at one.
I’ve always liked the look of these. Neat little thing.
Cool video.
🚗🙂
Thanks for the review!!!
My dad had bought one new as his first car!! (He was in his late 20's though or early 30's)... However he gave it to my aunt and drove it till the early 90's when the gear box/clutch gave out sadly! :( (This was also in Italy)
I do remember as child the big chrome dials and steering wheel though it was so cool! (bit like your Morris Oxford)
I now understand more as to why there were no parts available and I thought it was just because of no equivalent clutch but yeah that gear box looks complicated!
Well done to Marcel for keeping this one on the road!!!
Love these simple utilitarian cars but which also have an element of elegance attached to them.
What a fantastic little car! Doesn't it sound WONDERFUL!
What a cute little brown thing!
I didn‘t even know there was a two cylinder Prinz. Hope you‘ll also find a Prinz TT to drive. Quite a difference in power and fun!
Around 1970 when I was a lad, there was an NSU dealer just round the corner from where we lived and mum and dad were seriously thinking of buying one of these for mum. They were then offered a year old Mini Countryman (the woody one!) by a family friend, chickened out of the NSU and went for the mini instead.
The example you are testing looks to be in amazing condition.
Some reason i really like this... even in brown! An amazing find Ian!
My primary school teacher had one like this and I loved it - and her (yep, little boy crush). I think its colour was mustard. I used to wait for her to leave, so I could hear the engine come to life. Fond memories of car (and of teacher, yes).
What a fascinating and sweet little car
Soooo beautifully brown. Great content again
Lovely little car Ian
Been wanting to review one of these for ages.. my uncle in Italy used to have a blue one just like this..
Love it - want one.
simply wonderful ! when cars were fun 😎
And slow, awful, and totally unsafe in this case. But cute.
@@emjayay At least it did not burst into flames like EV's
@@emjayay bet you wear a gas mask when go to the toilet
@@emjayay It's the nut behind the wheel that makes a car unsafe!!
That method of spinning the camshaft via connecting rods was first employed by NSU on their motorcycles.
I can remember the first time I saw an NSU Prinz in a photograph, or rather a slide, sometime in the late 1960s. A family friend had returned from a vacation in Italy and was showing slides of his trip. There in the background was a white Prinz. My brother and me got quite excited in the manner that only car-mad little boys of single-digit age can get, over this little European Corvair. We knew all about Fiat 600s and 500s also visible in that pic because our relatives in the old country drove them and Corvairs were a common sight in Canada at the time, but now the existence of this shrunken Euro Corvair was a new and exciting development. I remember we had a hard time processing that it wasn't a Corvair at all, but some obscure (to us) European brand.
By the way, theyre called eccentrics and straps, not rods. I've had 2 of these, a 59 and 60 with the first body style
The camshaft drive was actually designed by an English bloke called Walter Moore for Norton motorcycles. The bike was called a CS1 (camshaft 1!). He was lured away by NSU and designed a very similar bike, the NSU 500 SS. The joke back in the day was NSU stood for Norton Spares Used....so there ya go..
What a pretty little car!
I had a white NSU 1000C called Casper, back in 2004 for a few years, what a fabulous little car. Amazingly good brakes, great gearbox, a fantastic heater, with a great sounding engine that loved to rev. Brilliant car to drive and have fun days out in. I loved mine and was absolutely delighted to see one on Hubnut. NSU's are so overlooked, and yet they were so well engineered. Sadly an impatient Audi driver shoved a Mazda MX5 straight into the front of mine. The MX5 was totally crushed, and the Audi was a write off. All I had a buckled wing and a broken indicator, and few dents. However, I didn't fair quite so well and it ruined my experience with the car at the time and so I ended up selling it to the President of the owners club. I still miss that little car.
Aw!
Lovely!
A few weekends ago, I was parked next to a Prinz TT. These had a very successful Motorsport career.
My father had one of these at the end of the seventies. As he was six foot one I do not know how he managed. I can remember going on holiday with my sister and myself in the back. I am now six foot three and was always a tall child. The front boot full and a roof rack with a full size suitcase on top. I can remember him having to change down to third to get up any road with a slight incline. He went from that to a Vauxhall Ventora with the 3 litre six cylinder engine cylinder.
That's some change!
In the 70s my mate's mum left her husband & lived with someone else, this man bought her a NSU Prinz but even though she didn't have a car she turned her nose up at it & got him to take it back! I can't remember what she drove after that for certain but I think it was an old Ford Anglia, so she went from a new car to a 2nd hand one!
Bonus wiper footage is simply cute and delightful.
I adore those cars
W O Bentley also used the eccentric cam drive. It is very quiet but thermal expansion is a real problem. NSU tried some ingenious solutions on their bike engines.
Incidentally in steam practice there are two eccentrics per cylinder but one is forward and one reverse and only one actuates the valves at a time. In the NSU/Bentley design there are two or preferably three; if two they must be at 90 degrees because if they were 180 degrees apart the camshaft could start in reverse. This creates vibration. With three eccentrics they are 120 degrees apart so no vibration.
Gloriously brown. Love it.
My Dad had one about 1968 painted Blue...It got the Family from Bradford to Mabelthorpe and back with Roof rack on the roof..Fully loaded..never failed
Like these.Something about rear engines cars ,that appeals to me.
Between this and your latest acquisition your channel has been positively bursting with adorability.
I've always admired the curved rear window and rear roof detail on these. A lovely thing.
Such a pretty car!
The styling of the Soviet ZAZ Zaporozhets was also heavily inspired by the Corvair, Imp, and Prinz.
Well, since the Corvair arrived in Sept '59, ALL the cars that looked like it were derivative. A derivative of a derivative is a derivative of the original, not of the copies, surely? Copying an Imp is not logical because the Imp isn't original. That's my logic, anyway.
Renault 8, Simca 1000, Fiat 1300/1500, BMW 1500/1800/1602/2002. Imp, NSU Prinz the most egregious, and the Zappo. Plus any I missed.
By the time all these were fully on the market, the Corvair had moved on to the MkII in Sept '64 -- Hubnut tested one of those down under. It was a gorgeous looking car, better than the original, and had a decent rear suspension finally.
Never saw the NSU in the part of Canada I lived in in the '60s, don't think anyone was brave enough to sell them. But every 40 or 50 miles out in the rural sticks of Canada in a bigger town, there would be a Chevy dealer, so Corvairs were common-ish. Most people bought the Chevy II instead or a Vauxhall Victor or a Viva, noth badged as Envoys. The Vauxhalls themselves were at the less common Pontiac dealers. Badge engineering at its finest.
I owned a NSU 1200C whilst in Germany in the early 70’s. My very first car, did several trips to and from UK with no problems, with the exception of my 18 month old son being car sick on one of our return trips back to Germany, so not the cars fault (could have been my enthusiastic driving). In conclusion a great little car.
What a cute and interesting little car!
@5:50 That oddly reminds me of The Flintstones. 😘
I remember a friend of the family who had one in the 70s. Nice car!
I love this thing. It sounds amazing. Soviet zaz zaporozec looks totally like NSu prinz 4 but with v4 engine. Maybe little bigger
So cute!
'Ooh, that's quite hot!' - Bit of a 'John Noakes in Blue Peter' moment!