[2] Today, Fichtel & Sachs is a German manufacturer of automotive parts, producing powertrain and suspension components.

On August 1, 1895, Ernst Sachs (technical director) and Karl Fichtel (commercial management) founded Schweinfurt Precision Ball Bearing factories (Fichtel & Sachs as oHG) with a founding capital sum of 15,000 Deutsche marks.

In 1896, Schweinfurt Precision Ball Bearing factories already employed 70 workers, who produced about 50 to 70 hubs daily.

[6] This led to product piracy in China at the time, with confoundingly similar falsifications of the torpedo freewheel hub.

After the invention of the well-known torpedo freewheel hub, which preceded eight years of construction work and was already so mature that it has barely changed over many decades, the company grew rapidly.

A further development boost brought the conversion of multiple of the factories to armaments during the war, when the number of employees rose from 5000 to 8000.

[4][9] In 1911, Karl Fichtel died and in 1912, in order to counter the high customs duties to nearby Austria-Hungary, Sachs acquired a factory in Černýš (Tschirnitz) on the river Ohře (Eger) in Bohemia, today part of Perštejn.

[4] In 1929, on the eve of the great recession of 1929/30, Ernst Sachs sold the rolling bearing division with 3000 coworkers, which made about half of the enterprise, to the Swedish conglomerate SKF.

This merged with the Schweinfurt Fries & Höpflinger AG, the Maschinenfabrik Rheinland from Krefeld, the Riebe-Werke and the rolling bearing production of the German weapons and munitions factories DWM, both in Berlin, to the United Ball Bearings AG (VKF, from 1953 SKF GmbH).

With the proceeds Sachs paid off the Fichtel heirs and invested in sustainable developments, such as clutches, small engines and shock absorbers.

[10][11] In 1937 he presented at the Saxonette auto show a 60 cc engine that could be installed in the rear hub of bicycles.

From the end of the Second World War to the mid-1980s, Fichtel & Sachs also produced single-cylinder two-stroke gasoline engines with capacities of 50 to 400 cubic centimeters, which were called StaMo.

From 1953, a single-cylinder two-stroke diesel engine was built under license from Holder, which was initially used with 500, later with 400 and 600 cubic centimeters, especially in tugs and small tractors.

In 1981, the Foundation of Fichtel & Sachs (West Africa) Ltd. in Lagos, Nigeria, together with Salzgitter AG was founded.

The traditional French chain manufacturer Sedis has been resold to the Indian bicycle and industrial holding 'Tube Investments'.

[20] Today's product range coming from the Schweinfurt plants of ZF Friedrichshafen AG includes drive components such as clutch systems,[21] torque converters, dual-mass flywheels, electric drives and complete modules for hybrid vehicles, as well as suspension components such as shock absorbers and damping systems for cars, trucks, motorcycles and rail vehicles.

Examples products: Fichtel & Sachs began producing a vehicle engine with a displacement of 74 cubic centimeters in 1930.

In August 1945, the operation was taken over by the state government of Saxony and handed over to the USSR on November 1, 1946, trading as part as Awtowelo.

Products such as steering bearings, bottom bracket, idler sprockets and unbraked steel hubs have been discontinued.

The bicycle components business unit, which only produced the coaster brake hub Univers (torpedo) and Speed (Jet) and aluminum hubs, was sold to the Flying Pigeon Bicycle Group Corporation (Tianjin) from China on April 1, 1994, and the RENAK International GmbH with approx 30 employees.