DMU & Diax

[Diax1324]

[size=200]DMU automobile company[/size]
DMU automotive is a company founded at the heart of Germany, headquartered in the countryside near Berlin. Founded during the war, (1940) DMU was caught in the crossfire, having to produce sleek armored vehicles for the fuhrer and soft cheap vehicles for the masses. Postwar, DMU rose to great fame as a producer of reliable and safe cars for a budget, and beyond this, created some of the most interesting engineering feats of the last hundred years.

Now in 2015, prestigious, comfortable vehicles are birthed from every DMU factory (from Suffolk to Las Vegas). Always with the same engineering intelligence at heart, DMU strives for the absolute best. From charring Italian designed-German engineered sports-cars, to comfortable luxury sedans, to economical hatchbacks, DMU has a vehicle for every kind of buyer. Quiet, German precision is all that can be said of this megacorporation.

[size=200]Diax automobil[/size]
Diax. The name itself draws images of passion, romance, and finely seasoned food. Instead of the clinicality of a production center, the Diax Automobil workshop floor is painted, like a canvas, with the creativity of a Renaissance-man. Tools and utilities strewn across the floor, almost artistically. Nuts and bolts, cosmetically greased and placed in a manner that Jackson Pollock could not gratify. The essence of Italian fire, in one room, and one building. The company started as a small motorcycle shop in the 1950s, in Maranello Italy. The company was soon racing among the best, losing much, but gaining the hearts of hundreds of diehard fans. The underdogs, as it would seem.The bodywork of each motorcycle, handmade, beautiful, but heavy and slow.

A decade after it’s creation, Diax fell into bankruptcy. As luck would have it though, a large German company, DMU, was looking for more inspired bodywork to go with their near perfectly engineered creations. Diax fit the bill as some of the most inspired car-art makers in the world at that time. Even today, the Diax legacy creates on, as it’s own separate brand now in 2015, and,“Will live on, as long as I am president of DMU.”-CEO of DMU, Victor Alkaev.

Vehicles Below

[Diax1324]

[size=200]The DMU/Diax Renegade: The best example I can find of how these companies got on.[/size]

The DMU/Diax Renegade was a super/sportscar designed to do combat in the relatively new battlefield of “PR cars”.
PR cars are cars not designed for sales, or for practicality, but to gain ground over the hearts and minds of the current youth generation for recognition as “Like… The best car company ever man…”. At least for DMU.

Diax’s take on this project was very different to DMU’s. The point of view found by Diax could be summed up by the very Italian, very creative Diax project coordinator’s statement on the vehicle,“It is uhhhh… Like… Uh the car… Is the gateway to theeee-(extended) soul, eh, you know? We uh… We create the best of cars. It is like theeee uhhh… Soul pasta. Happy soul.”

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Diax was responsible for the bodywork and design, and managed to create a beauty. The car was masculine with it’s massive tires and gaping rear exhausts, but subtly feminine with it’s shapely hips and bashful headlights. It was simply a work of art.

But as with all things, there was a near fatal flaw: The engine

This was the first and the last car Diax was allowed to construct the engine for. It was unreliable, inefficient, expensive (Not as much as the original plans suggesting the engine being made of some “Gold alloy”), extremely noisy, and got terrible fuel economy.

Though this was an amateurish engine, it produced 237HP @6500RPM, a noteworthy chunk of power for a sportscar amid the global fuel crisis. The 3.7 liter transversely mounted V12, ran into a DMU 5 speed gearbox(which was originally intended to go in a front engined van), would propel the DMU/Diax Renegade from 0-60MPH in a surprising 5.5 seconds. This was comparable to the competition vehicle DMU was targeting: The Lamborghini Countach.

The car itself, despite it’s flaws, was an absolute hit. It created a new-found childlike atmosphere at DMU; creativity ran rampant. Immediate plans for a revamp of the car were made, but the impact had already occured.

Following this success, two more iterations of the Renegade were created: The Renegade S in 1977, sporting a childishly large new wing and a revision of the already profoundly flawed 1224 engine, and the Renegade Finale, closing the book on the Renegade as a name. With fuel injection and nearly 100 more horsepower than the first Renegade, the Renegade Finale was a fantastic goodbye to this chapter in Diax and DMU’s automotive history.

Renegade S

Renegade S motor. note the open, unrestricted (and unprotected) air intakes. These would suck up dust and debris like vacuums at high speed, leading to many reliability issues.

Renegade Finale

Renegade Finale motor, armed with fuel injection and higher compression pistons than previous generations.