Stoewer () was a German automobile manufacturer before World War II whose headquarters were in Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland).
The company was founded in 1858 by Bernhard Stoewer as a precision mechanical repair shop, after the local garrison had hired him to repair a sewing machine. In the same year, production of sewing machines in Stettin began. By the time of their fiftieth anniversary in the year 1908, 75,000 sewing machines and 6,000,000 typewriters had already been produced.
In 1899, the ironworks was taken over by the sons, the Stoewer brothers, Emil (1873 â 1942) and Bernhard (1875 â 1937) founded the firm Gebrüder Stoewer, Fabrik für Motorfahrzeugen and started to produce automobiles. Their first car was the GroÃÂer Stoewer Motorwagen, with and maximum speed. Stoewer was thus one of the pioneer carmakers in Germany.
In March 1906, the company Stoewer stopped producing chains and pedals for bicycles and used the factory hall to expand automobile production. With the freed-up 2000 square meters, they aimed to increase production from about 100 vehicles in 1905 to about 250 vehicles in 1906.
In late summer 1907, the company entered into a partnership with carmaker Deutsche Motorfahrzeugfabrik GmbH. Stoewer wanted to utilize their newly expanded factory by producing the Autognom. In return, the German Motor Vehicle Factory was to take on exclusive sales of Stoewer vehicles.
In 1908 Stoewers constructed the Stoewer G4. This model was successful for them at the time â 1,070 cars were built. In 1910, Stoewer cars were also built under licence in France, by Mathis of Strasbourg. In 1916, the family-owned company was changed into a limited company under the name of Stoewer-Werke AG, vormals Gebrüder Stoewer.
In the mid-20s a new class of cars was introduced: the D-Types included D3, D9 and D10 with four-cylinder engines, as well as D5, D6 and D12 with six cylinders. Something special was the 1921 D7 with a proprietary six-cylinder aero engine with . Of the fifty "D10" made, the only survivor was located in Melbourne, Australia in original condition; it has since been brought to Germany.
In 1928 the company started to build S8 and G14 models with eight-cylinder engines. In the early 1930s Stoewer produced its highlights: G15 Gigant, M12 Marschall and P20 Repräsentant, each with eight-cylinder engines, with and a maximum speed of . The production of these cars had to be cancelled after 2,500 vehicles were produced due to worldwide economic troubles. In 1931, Stoewer constructed one of the first cars with front-wheel drive, the Stoewer V 5 with , maximum speed. The model named Greif Junior was built under the licence of Tatra. Its successor V8 Greif was the last car made by Stoewer himself; class Arkona and Sedina were the last civilian cars produced by the company.
In 1936, the Stoewer factory developed the 'uniform light off-road car' (le.E.Pkw, leichter geländegängiger Einheits-PKW) for the German army, a versatile four-wheel drive car, the Stoewer R200 initially (until 1940) equipped with four-wheel steering. Due to capacity limitations, the cars also had to be produced by BMW-Factory Eisenach, as the BMW 325, and by Hanomag in Hanover as the Type 20B. Together the three manufacturers made a total of ca. 13,000 units, of which 2,000 were built by Stoewer. Stoewer's founders were pushed out in the early 1930s for being too focussed on civilian cars, and control of the company fell to a Nazi-controlled supervisory board. Stoewer AG was one of many German companies that exploited slave labour during World War II, maintaining their own camp for prisoners. After World War II, the Red Army seized the remaining production facilities, dismantled the factory and sent the equipment to the Soviet Union, and the company ceased to exist.