Automotive design for Alexis Kellner AG Berlin

£1,500 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books · No longer available

Finished in pale blue with contrasting pale grey roof and trunk, with matching wire wheels, presented against landscape background with a hilltop town in silhouette, this spritely 2-door cabriolet epitomises the brief pinnacle in the mixed fortunes of Austro-Daimler. Starting off in 1890 as simply the Austrian sales outlet of the German motor manufacturer, Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft, or DMG, founder Eduard Bierenz was soon persuaded to start making his own cars in conjunction with engine-builder, Eduard Fischer. Still an offshoot of the German company, in 1902 Gottlieb Daimler's son, Paul, took over technical developments, before being replaced in that role by the legendary Ferdinand Porsche. He took the company in a variety of directions, including more aerodynamic sports cars, aswell as powering buses, armoured vehicles and even the Zeppelin airship. After WW1, and before the company's collapse in the early 1930s, following a series of disastrous mergers and takeovers, it had developed a reputation for producing attractive sporting and luxury cars, attracting the interest of such coachbuilders as Kellner. Founded by Alexis Kellner (1880-1953) in 1910, in Berlin, the eponymous Alexis Kellner AG coachbuilding company's stylish automobile bodywork designs were immediately successful. This was demonstrated by the number of orders he received at the International Motor Show, in Berlin, in 1911. Kellner was noted for his inventiveness of small details, such as a concealed handl

• Binding: Hardcover

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