Torpedo Typewriters

The origins of Torpedo Büromaschinen Werke AG are in the establishment in 1896 of Peter Weil and Company, by brothers Peter and Heinrich Weil, to make bicycles called the Weil-Räder and Torpedo-Räder. Production started with nine employees in a 500-square-foot building in Rödelheim, a district of Frankfurt am Main.

In 1907 the Weils decided to expand into typewriter production and took over the Johann Voelker company of Neu-Isenburg, which had been making the Hassia typewriter, designed by Hermann Wasem, since 1904.

Torpedo called this its Modell 1 and had Wasem design a Modell 2 for it.

Weil-Werke was incorporated in 1908 with 1.2 million marks in capital.

Courtesy Georg Sommeregger

The early Torpedo standard-size machines were exported under the brandname Regent. This was a name Torpedo would retain, and use again in the early 1930s when it exported its first portables.

Blue Bird Modell 15a

Also starting in the 1930s, it made portables for export branded Blue Bird, and the Blue Bird was again employed when the magnificent Modell 18 appeared in the mid-1950s.

Blue Bird Modell 18

Just as Underwood had expanded into Germany by taking over Mercedes in 1927, and Royal bought out Orga-Werke, Remington Rand took over Torpedo’s typewriter arm in 1931. The new corporate name became Remington Buromaschinen GmbH, but it continued to market typewriters as Torpedos.

Modell 15a

Remington’s first decision was to have Torpedo enter the portable typewriter market.

Remington sent one of its most experienced typewriter design engineers to Rödelheim to design a series of portables for Torpedo, all variations on one theme but called Modells 15, 16 and 17 (serial numbers apparently didn’t differentiate). These are believed to be Germany’s first four-bank portables.

The glorious Remington-style Klein Torpedo model above features in Richard Polt's Collection:

To the naked eye, the only differences in the earlier portables are that the Modell 16 is marginally higher and has a slide on the paper plate and the 17 has a collar around the typebasket rather than a distinctly Royal-like flat top deck.

Their designer was Herbert Etheridge, who had designed many improvements for the Bar-Lock typewriter company in London before World War I. In 1916 he immigrated to the United States. After working for Torpedo, Etheridge returned to England in the late 1930s and, appropriately, designed typewriters for Imperial.

It was appropriate because Torpedo had sold the rights to Etheridge’s portable typewriter designs to Imperial in the early 1930s, and from it Imperial made its first Good Companion. The more basic of the three designs was also made as the Deutsche Remington. Here is one from Alan Seaver’s Machines of Loving Grace collection:

Below is the Torpedo version with the same shaped collar

Here it is, sans collar, as the Torpedo Modell 17:

And here it is with slight variations (further curving of the collar, upright lever, side handles) as the Imperial Good Companion ("Model 1"), also from Alan Seaver's Collection at Machines of Loving Grace

F.H. Harms took over as director of the Remington-owned organisation in 1934 and in 1938 bike production moved to Hanauer Landstrasse. On January 29, 1944, an Allied bombing raid destroyed 87 per cent of the Rödelheim typewriter factory.

A temporary operation was possible in Groß-Karben by 1945, and later that same year Torpedo workers began rebuilding the original factory. In 1946 production resumed at Rödelheim, and by the middle of 1947 Torpedo had a workforce of 543. In two years this number had almost doubled to 1016 and in early 1950 it was 1259. In March 1953 the number reached 1790 and in 1956 2200.

Torpedo’s stocks were lifted, too, when in 1955 Hanne Friess won an international typing competition in Monte Carlo using a Torpedo Solitaire and claiming the world title.

At this point, Torpedo’s resurrection as a major maker of portable typewriters was completed. Andreas Salzberger took over as head designer and the Modell 18 finally succeeded the pre-War Modell 17. And what a beauty it is!

Will Davis once stated, “I can type faster on this particular machine, error-free, than any other in my collection. Beautiful looks and wonderfully snappy key action.”

By 1958, Torpedo had produced more than a million typewriters (some estimates are as high as three million) and in 1960 an electric typewriter was introduced. But in 1964 Remington Rand moved typewriter production to its facilities in Holland and in 1966 the factory in Rödelheim was closed.

Later models include the Modell 30 and one that looks very much like a Triumph:

This Dutch-made Torpedo from Mark Rosenzweig’s collection shows how closely related the last Torpedo portable is the Carl Sundberg’s Remington Monarch and Envoy III series designs (the keytops are identical):

A far cry from the Modell 18. So let's feast our eyes on some more of that beautiful machine:

Torpedo advertising: