Former BMW rival Borgward has announced it will return to car making as soon as next year following a 54-year hiatus.
Confirming late last night at the Geneva motor show that work has already begun on a plug-in hybrid concept, Borgward is now expected to reveal its first concept car in over five decades at this year’s Frankfurt motor show in September.
The return of the German car maker has been linked by industry pundits with a commercial tie-up with Beijing truck and commercial vehicle maker, Foton - but Borgward has yet to confirm the partnership that could see production begin at the Beijing truck maker’s factories.
It was originally expected that Borgward would use the Geneva show to unveil a new concept car but the German car maker only confirmed it’s working on a new plug-in hybrid. That concept will now only be revealed once Borgward had moved from its temporary base in Lausanne, Switzerland, to its new home in Mercedes-Benz and Porsche’s back yard Stuttgart, Germany.
In its heyday, before the premium car maker went bankrupt back in 1961, Borgward employed more than 23,000 people, and manufactured in excess of one million vehicles.
Borgward became known as a technical pioneer developing direct fuel injection and, Borgward claims, inventing the affordable sports sedan segment with its Isabella sedan.
Today Borgward is led by industrialist Karlheinz Knöss and Christian Borgward, grandson of the founder Carl Borgward
Borgward was originally founded in 1919 and also has a rich sporting heritage to draw on. The German car maker raced both at the Nurburgring 1000km and the Le Mans 24hr.
Speaking of the forthcoming model Borgward claims its future vehicles will be “luxurious, inventive and bold.”