History of Borgward

Our " Big Boss "

Founder, 1.boss and owner of the three companies of the " Borgward group " (Borgward, Goliath and Lloyd) was Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Borgward, born on 10 November 1890 in Altona, died on 28 July 1963 due to - after reading of these little factory history more than understandable - heart attack. He was one of 13 children of the coal dealer Wilhelm Borgward.Carl Borgward and the automotive industry Carl. F. W. Borgward, already as a small child was fascinated by the automotive industry, had set itself a target: building Automobiles! Each step of his life he only knew this target. Consistently he pursued his way, although one could hardly finance even its formation in the higher mechanical engineering school.

The war 1914-18 interrupted its successes in the working life (employment in Berlin), achieved up to then. After an injury he returned home, to Bremen, since 1912 his second homeland and that, almost 50 years later, it enabled his fall...

First Borgward used the smallest chances, he began with the building of radiators for the Bremen Hansa-Lloyd-Werke, after he had taken over the company Oskar Baerold. (first he was partner in this company with hardly 20 co-workers!) One of had the crucial idea: A truck for materials carriage! Borgward saw its chance to enter into the automotive manufacture. This was shortly the time after the inflation, which had prepared an end for some automobile companies, before someone heard of them at all. Indeed! This " lightning truck " becomes the first stone on the way to the large combine with cars, which will be always unforgettable: the Goliath tricycle car, the small Lloyd, the incomparable Isabella.

At first the difficulties were so large that Carl Borgward even itself had to drive around on the truck, in order to find agencies. But soon the cars, which should be called soon " Goliath ", became the commercial motor vehicles of the twenties. Market share: 25%