
On the occasion of the 100th anniversary. On the occasion of brose’s centenary in coburg, the family-owned company has a few problems to contend with. The general conditions on the global market are difficult, the automotive industry in particular is under pressure, and in fiscal 2018 brose recorded a slight drop in sales – for the first time in living memory. How to get back on track? Perhaps by first going downhill for a short while. To be more precise: in the basement. Brose stores more than 800 products that have already been produced in the company’s long history. Every single one of them can tell a story – and every single one of them can give courage.
"We can draw on one hundred years of brose expertise", says gregor kroner, head of predevelopment seat in the brose group. He, who is currently thinking a lot about autonomous driving, is always fascinated when he looks at the objects in the basement. Some may seem out of date from today’s perspective – others may be old, but contain technical inventions that have survived to this day. The archive is thus emblematic of the joy of progress and also of the courage to make entrepreneurial decisions at brose.
Curious basement stories
Uwe balder, who works as a company archivist at brose, is also very enthusiastic: "the leaps in innovation in one hundred years of brose are unique!" Time and again, company founder max brose – and later also his grandson michael stoschek – made the right decisions at the right time. In the early 1920s, max brose and his business partner ernst juhling recognized that the future belonged to the automobile – and came up with a number of ideas: from car jacks to vulcanizers for car tires. Later, in the early 1950s, max brose reacted to the fact that new administrations were being set up, all of which needed typewriters – the "brosette" model typewriter was sold almost 50000 times until 1959. It was also available in green, especially for police departments, and in red for fire departments. What "basement stories uwe balder can tell us more?