Joseph Ledwinka, December 14, 1869 – November 26, 1949 was an automobile engineer.

Ledwinka, a distant relative of Hans Ledwinka

Hans Ledwinka

Hans Ledwinka was an Austrian automobile designer.- Youth :Ledwinka was born was born in Klosterneuburg , near Vienna, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire....

, was born in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, and emigrated to the United States in 1896 and was employed in his first job as carriage trimmer at the Chicago Coach and Carriage Company where he developed his first patented design for a four wheel drive electric vehicle with four wheel brakes several of which were built by Westinghouse

Westinghouse Electric (1886)

Westinghouse Electric was an American manufacturing company. It was founded in 1886 as Westinghouse Electric Company and later renamed Westinghouse Electric Corporation by George Westinghouse. The company purchased CBS in 1995 and became CBS Corporation in 1997...

. Later he became a chief engineer for the Chattanooga Railroad of Tennessee where he designed special drives for electric trolley cars. Coming to Philadelphia he started working together with Edward Gowen Budd for the Hale & Kilburn company where they pioneered the pressed steel car body panelling manufacturing process starting in 1909. In 1912, they established their own factory, the Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Co. later Ambi Budd

Ambi Budd

Ambi Budd was a company founded by Edward Gowen Budd in Philadelphia, USA. Budd studied at the University of Pennsylvania and his first work was at a company making automobile wheels from pressed steel rather than by casting. Steel-shaping technology progressed rapidly at the time and soon the...

 in Philadelphia where they formed automobile panels by drop pressing and power hammering later followed by drawing and stretching of panels. They supplied body parts to Dodge

Dodge

Dodge is a United States-based brand of automobiles, minivans, and sport utility vehicles, manufactured and marketed by Chrysler Group LLC in more than 60 different countries and territories worldwide....

. In 1923, André Citroën

André Citroën

André-Gustave Citroën was a French industrialist. He is remembered chiefly for the make of car named after him, but also for his application of double helical gears.- Life and career :...

 took up the Budd licence for his all-steel B12 model. In 1929, Ledwinka designed the front-wheel drive Ruxton

Ruxton (automobile)

The Ruxton was a front-wheel drive automobile produced by the New Era Motors Company of New York, New York, USA during 1929 and 1930. The car was the brainchild of William Muller and was built in the Moon Motor Car factory in St. Louis, Missouri...

 car. In the 1930s Ledwinka was involved in the design of Chrysler Airflow

Chrysler Airflow

The Chrysler Airflow is an automobile produced by the Chrysler Corporation from 1934-1937. The Airflow was the first full-size American production car to use streamlining as a basis for building a sleeker automobile, one less susceptible to air resistance...

 body and worked with Ferdinand Porsche

Ferdinand Porsche

Ferdinand Porsche was an Austrian automotive engineer and honorary Doctor of Engineering. He is best known for creating the first hybrid vehicle , the Volkswagen Beetle, and the Mercedes-Benz SS/SSK, as well as the first of many Porsche automobiles...

 on the early VW prototypes. Ledwinka was an author of over 300 technical patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

s relating to automobile design.