Baumm NSU Economy Run Streamliner 1956

Information update April 2018 by PNB:
Many thanks to Michael Moore for the statistics to go with this 1956 photograph of the Baumm III streamliner from his NSU book
'Die NSU Renngeschichte 1904-1956' (NSU Racing History 1904-1956).
It says:
CD: 0.11
standard 125 cc NSU Superfox engine: 8.8 hp
Top speed: 155 km/h (96.3mph)
Length 2.9m (9.5ft)
Height 1.02m (40.1")
Width 0.83m (32.68")
Wheelbase 1.75m (68.9")
Dry Weight 125kg (275lbs)
1.13 L/100 km Baumm fuel consumption = 285mpg(UK)/237mpg(US)
3.224 L/100 km for standard Sportmax fuel consumption = 88mpg(UK)/73mpg(US)

It appears H. P. Müller was maintaining 100.33 km/h (62.3mph) on the economy test of 502.125 km/312 miles while riding 65 laps of the Hockenheim circuit.

Baumm NSU Economy Run Streamliner 1956

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Big up to Gustav!

Yeah, good old Gustav. Unfortunate that he hit a tree at Hockenhiem, but he's in class company.

Er.. What are we supposed to take from this photo and data sheet? Am I missing a lesson for todays FF designers and proponents?

Gustav Baumm, Nurburgring death & 2018 Zero modifiers

Good old Gustav Baumm was actually killed at the Nurburgring Nordschleife 23/5/1955. I believe he was testing a new streamliner without the usual canopy fitted which would probably have prevented his tree-induced injuries from being fatal. This was not just a tragedy for Gustav and his family and friends, but also for the future of motorcycle racing and motorcycles in general because NSU were planning to compete with a new generation of 'hammocks' in the 1956 season in both the 125 and 250cc classes. (Don't know how they would have coped with the push-starts which lasted right into the late 1970s! Start at the back with pushers, maybe?).

My main reason for adding the stats to the photo above (which has been here since 2005) is to remind everyone of just how little power you need to go at modern highway speeds if you have a properly aerodynamic shape. More specifically, there are several Zero owners currently modifying standard MY2015-2018 Zeroes to make them more efficient than the standard 'naked' machines. No-one has got close to the efficiency that Terry Hershner achieved with the help of Craig Vetter back in 2013-2014 with his 2012-based Zero, but Terry and others have achieved improvements of 20% in range just by adding conventional fairings and Zero have doubled both the range and power of their standard products in the meantime. Experiments are also ongoing with modern 'dustbin' fairings on standard-ish Zeroes and several owners have dramatically lowered charge times from the standard 9 hours right down to 1 hour with the help of fast-charging packs.

The 8.8hp of the above 125cc NSU is little more than half the power of a modern 11kW/15bhp 125cc machine and less than a fifth of the PEAK power of the Mk1 learner-legal BMW C evolution which first went on sale in 2014. It's also barely a third of the CONTINUOUS power of the BMW C evolution Plus which went on sale in 2017, with a standard range of 100 miles in town and 80-100kms on the highway. It seems reasonable to conclude that one could construct a Cevolution Plus-powered machine (or Zero-powered, or Lynch/Agni/ Saietta-powered,) which is much less aerodynamic than the Baumm streamliner, but about twice as aerodynamic as the standard machines which they usually power, and therefore easily achieve ranges of 120-150 miles at highway speeds with the same battery packs. PNB