This page was last updated on 27-jun-2004.

samma sida fast på Svenska

cars in:
In Sweden there are not many NSU:s left, perhaps a lot fewer than in some other countries. But the Swedish system of registrating cars, where a car has the same licence number throughout it´s life makes it fairly easy to keep track of them. When a car is scrapped it looses it´s number and then one can assume that the vehicle then is in such a bad state that it will never again hit the roads, and then it is also almost impossible to keep track of them. I have located a handful without plates in scrapyards but they are very unlikely to ever run. I will here present the current figures of NSU cars in Sweden still registerred. 

The total is 238 (last count june 2004) cars. Note that there are not any TT/TTS, those models were never officially imported. One TT has been confirmed privately imported in the 70´s, but is since many years scrapped. And there is supposed to have existed a TTS which has been a racing car and never registerred.
In 1983 there were 455 still on number plates. The fact that there is only one model each year before 1968 is probably (not confirmed) due to the importers choice to only have one model each year. Next step will be to try and find out which models that were imported each year, any help on this issue is most welcome! When Audi took over NSU in 1969, the company that imported NSU at the time, Gjestvangs, let/ lost NSU to the Mercedes import, which at the time imported Audi as well and the unsold cars in stock were also taken over by them. Those cars were almost all model 1969 + a few 1970. During 1970 25 cars were registerred. But then the official NSU- import stopped. All cars registerred in Sweden after 1970 (marked*) below are privately imported, a guess is that amounts to about 15-20 cars.
Here are the registration figures of NSU cars according to "Bilbranschens Registreringsstatistik". The total import is about 2550 cars. Most of them Imported by Gjestvangs in Stockholm (early cars by Bengt Berg in Gothenburg), but there are some evidence that a few NSU:s were imported privately every year. Many cars remained unsold for periods over many years, thus registerred later than it´s actual year of make.

There is not even an NSU- club in Sweden any more. In the years 1983-86 there was a small club, (or rather, as the name indicates, a registry) see the logotype below, started by L-G Bengts in Falun. It sadly died out, probably much due to the large distances in Sweden. L-G is still a true NSU- fan.
 

Instead there are two clubs in Denmark and I am a proud member of  Danske NSU Venner (the Danish NSU friends)

The figures for Denmark is a bit harder to estimate. Unlike Sweden, where the cars allways keeps it´s registration, the Danes turns in the licence plates when the car for some reason is not used. As long as it is registerred the owners has to pay road taxes and insurance and when restoring, or otherwise long time repairing many want save some money by sending in the licence paltes. Thus one can assume that the actual numbers of NSU.s in Denmark is much higher. There is perhaps as many as the double still with the prospect of once more hitting the roads. These are the figures for NSU:s in Denmark May 1996. Total :189. Source: Kurt Jakobsen. I have no figures as to the total import.

A personal comment regarding the differences compared with sweden: Import fees on cars has over the years been very high in Denmark. That accounts for the fact that smaller cars sold better in denmark that in Sweden. See i.e the difference in registration between the two countries as far as Ro80 is concerned. Because of the taxes and import fees the Ro80 became a real luxury car in Denmark. The Swedes have never been mini car drivers, Volvo (for obvious reasons) and American cars has allways been popular in Sweden. The number of american cars in Denmark is very low.

The Norwegian summary I have access to, dates a few years back but is not by any means less interesing. These figures were published in the sadly demised Swedish Club magazine: "Neckasulmen", no 6/86. The compilation is done by a gentleman by the name of Christian Mosgaard. He can tell us that the total amount of NSU.s imported to Norway is 6496. The best year was 1963: 845 cars (most Prinz4) and a market share of 1,8%. According to "opplysningsrådet før veitrafikken" was by the end of 1984, 183 cars registerred. By the end of 1985   the amount decreased further and NSU was placed under "miscellaneous manufacturers" in the statistics. If anyone have later updates please contact me. I would also like to know how the registration works in Norway.

Finally here are some facts, or anecdotes, from Norway that simply are too good to be withheld.

• In 1962 a Prinz 4 ran an "economy- rally" (not a race for low priced cars, but a competition to cover most kilometres on least amount of gasoline, to avoid "cheap" comments ;-) and set a record which was not to be broken until 1985, 23 years later!!

• In 1968 in Stavanger (southwest Norway) more NSU:s than VW:s were sold !!! Strong dealership there I suppose.

• NSU arrested!? Yes, that is the word used in the newspaper article. In February of 1961 The National board of Motorsport in Norway felt it necessary to arrest a Prinz after the icerace in Kongsvinger in the -750cc class. The prinzes were driven in convoy to the Technical Institute in Oslo for examination. The reason for these extraordinary actions was that the cars had been winning "too superior", and with even better times than the more powerful cars could produce. Timewise there was only one standard car that was better and that ran in the 1600cc class! The result of the examination was that the Prinz was pronounced not gulity! Motor and gearbox was all standard issue and not tampered with!

top of page

If you lost the menu, here is the Index