[David_Hayward (RIP)]

In Germany, as with Pressed Steel in England, Budd assisted in the establishment of a new company which could produce all-steel bodies, the AMBI-BUDD PRESSE WERKE, established 1926 with the benefit of Budd patents. The company pioneered all-steel bodies and integral body-chassis construction in Germany. Budd apparently charged little for license fees, and gave out free advice and assistance. He even lent advice to European steel mills to enable them to produce the high-grade quality steel panelling which automotive bodies required.

At this point we have to bring in yet another key player: RUSSELL S. BEGG. Begg was born in the U.S.A., and graduated in 1909 from the University of Michigan with a B.Sc. Degree. He then spent three years with the Packard Motor Company, then a period with the E.B. Thomas Motor Car Company, and then the Sheldon Axle Company. After that he was appointed Assistant Chief Engineer at Thomas B. Jeffery Motor Company, where he was responsible for Rambler and Jeffery motor cars. He was then appointed Chief Engineer to the Jordan Motor Company went the company was reorganised, and was in that post for 12 years. However, at the end of his period of tenure with Jordan, the E.G. Budd company took him up, where he gained valuable experience with steel body construction techniques as reputedly, their Chief Engineer. After this influential period with Budd, Begg moved to the Stutz Motor Company in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was appointed Chief Engineer. Presumably as Stutz went out of business, he was taken up by GENERAL MOTORS ENGINEERING, and appointed engineer in charge of design in Lou Thoms’ Product Study group in Detroit. It appears that he was appointed Deputy Chief Designer at Adam Opel A.G. in Rüsselsheim in 1934, at the same time as being a member of the P.S.G. He was then promoted in 1936 and reassigned permanently to Adam Opel A.G. as Assistant Chief Engineer....

In Germany, Adam Opel A.G. were able to use Budd patents and panels from Ambi-Budd Press Werke, with steel supplied by Armco, to produce their Olympia model in 1935, the first Opel to use unitary construction, and then the new 1.1 litre Kadett and 1,488 c.c. new Olympia both using unitary construction. However, in France, just as the German-French crisis over the Rhineland was seething, Louis Renault, using Armco steel panels, pirated the Kadett design for his own company and produced the 1937 Model Juvaquatre, which was an 8 h.p. 1,000 cc small car, also assembled in Acton, West London. Budd received no payments, nor even an acknowledgement, and pursued Renault personally through the German courts, using the Ambi-Budd patents. Renault had to give way and pay royalties to Budd as a consequence! The Renault ‘Eight’ [8 h.p.] was a 2-Door unitary construction car, also assembled to 1939 by Renault Limited at Western Avenue, Acton, London W.3. The preproduction cars, the Coach version were the Model AEB1, built 9 June to 13 July 1937, and production cars 21 September 1937 onwards. The Acton-assembled cars were apparently model BFD1, built 26 September 1938 to 12 June 1939, 1,237 built......

Ambi-Budd’s plant in Berlin also supplied Ford of Germany. .....

A total of 53 Model BFJ1 AUSTRALIA models were built 1 to 9 August 1939 for export and/or a quantity of Acton-built Model BFD1 cars destined for New Zealand ended up in Adelaide 1940 and were marketed in 1940-41 as the ‘Renault 8’ as a Tourer or ‘9’ as a Coupe Utility pick-up. The Renault Eight as it was called in the U.K. had a 7’ 8½’ wheelbase and was 12’ 4’ long. The Opel Kadett K38 had a 7’ 8’ wheelbase and was 12’ 2’ for the Standard and 12’ 6’ for the Master because of the rear wheel cover, though because of the longer stroke/smaller bore the Renault had a taxable rating of 8.3 h.p., the Kadett 11.3 h.p. and thus was taxed less heavily.

The Pressed Steel Company Limited who produced Morris and then in 1938 Vauxhall bodies for the J-type saloons/sedans, had a Budd license, and so did Citroen. However Renault didn't!

One explanation for a possible Soviet copy is that Opels, as well as Buicks and Chevrolets, were assembled and sold by Lilpop Rau i. Loewenstein in Warszawa, as what we would now call "dealer-assemblers" and Lilpop exported cars and trucks around eastern Europe. Indeed a 1939 Chevrolet has turned up in Kazakhstan! Although James D Mooney had gone to Russia in 1929 to try and do a deal (which Ford's succeeded in concluding) I know of no formal license/licence agreement between GM and any Soviet state-owned factories. The Warsaw factory was seized by the Germans and became a Hermann Goering Werke munitions plant. A number of 1939 Chevrolets assembled by Lilpop Rau i. Loewenstein were supplied to the Polish forces, and armoured versions are known.