In total, the technical documentation includes 4,300 archive units spanning more than 150,000 pages. The focus is on automotive technology, which accounts for around 80 percent of the documents. Documents about power tools and domestic appliances account for the remaining 20 percent. The earliest documents date back to 1903.

The technical documentation consists mainly of printed publications, such as technical descriptions, spare part lists, Bosch equipment lists for vehicles, retail catalogs, key data sheets, design documents, inspection instructions and inspection value tables, repair and service documents and vehicle-related test values for the Bosch products fitted in them. From about 1970 onwards, documents are also available (almost exclusively between 1975 and 1985) in microfiche form, from 1985 on CD too, and from around 1990 almost exclusively on CD or DVD, except for the commercial documents and the advertising and image brochures.

Technical drawings

The highlights of this collection undoubtedly include the design drawing of a magneto ignition from 1899 (the earliest drawing), a technical drawing of the first spark plug, and a drawing of the first Bosch record player, a niche product built in various models between 1934 and 1939.

Magneto ignition design drawing from 1899 (excerpt)

In total, there are 608 registered and around 2,000 unregistered drawings from the period from 1899 to 1992. The drawings appear on oil paper, or in some cases, carbon copies or blueprints. The largest bundle of drawings feature ignition distributors from the period between 1935 and 1990, which were passed on to us when production discontinued at the Blaichach plant. The drawings are stored in individual or multiple folders in drawing cabinets.

The selection of topics is fragmentary, therefore the collection of drawings only hints at the product diversity. The drawings focus on ignition, diesel injection, automotive and motorcycle lamps, bicycle lamps, lambda closed-loop control for three-way catalytic converters, switches, horns, domestic appliances, and starters.

Trade show displays

Strictly speaking, this category is an extension of the product collection. It contains around 50 displays from the period from 1939 to the present on a variety of materials (chipboard, metal, Plexiglas) that show products in a system context.

The highlights of the collection include an overview of spark plug electrode forms since 1902 and a varnished wooden display featuring the components of the first series-produced gasoline injection system for cars.

These displays, which we received from the exhibition departments, show the ever increasing complexity of Bosch systems in a functional context. While an injection system in the 1950s consisted mainly of an injection pump and the injection nozzles, today’s diesel injection system is a complex structure of electronic controls, sensors, pressure accumulators etc. Maintaining these systems so they remain tangible for later generations is the prime motivation for this collection category.

The displays deal mainly with automotive electrics (ignition, vehicle electrical system, lighting, etc.), engine management generally, diesel and gasoline injection systems – but also with electronic control, air-conditioning, alarm systems, park pilots, crossover topics such as pollutant emission reduction and topics that are not specific to particular products or functions, e.g. an overview of “plastic products in automotive technology”.