Borgward had luxury car ambitions in the late fifties and desperately wanted a slice of the German big car market dominated by Mercedes. Its challenger was the P100 ‘Big Six’ a faster, cheaper and better equipped foil to Stuttgart’s important new ‘Fintail’ 190/ 220 range. With its restrained tail fins and wrap around screens front and rear, the P100 was fashionable without being flash. The hull was all unitary and a true five seater with generous legroom, opulent seating and a huge boost. Power came from the 2240cc 6M 2.3 11TS engine, basically an Isabella unit two extra cylinders producing 100 bhp. The P100s biggest claim to fame was its ‘airswing’ air suspension which comprised air bag with Bosch control and leveling values. It was pressurized by an air pump, belt driver off the front crank pulley and feeding a reservoir mounted at the front of the engine compartment. The Big Six was the first German car to use system. The P100s threat to the Fintail did not please Mercedes an, the way Borgward fans tell it, Stuttgart had more than a little to do with the downfall of the family owned Borgward empire.
It was alleged that they pulled financial strings to bring the company’s creditors, component suppliers, knocking at the door at just the wrong moment. Borgward, over stretched by the development costs of the P100, folded in January 1961. Big Six production stood at just 1400 cars. There is a bizarre footnote to the Big Six story, though. The liquidations sold the tooling to a company called Fansa, who built a further 2500 Big Sixes at a factory near Monterey in Mexio.
