From motorcycle to car: the scooter mobiles of the fifties

Menus

• The scooter mobiles of the fifties were so weird
• After the war with muscle power
• Cars are so funny to operate
• Falling gasoline prices, rising standard of living
• These cars do not exist again
• Who remembers the Kleinschnittger?
• Traditional classic car race in Italy
• Isetta? No: Mopetta
• 1965 was the year of the sports car
• On the way to mass motorization
• Dive, fly, make males

The scooter mobiles of the fifties were so weird

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The name said it all: the Zundapp Janus had doors that swing upwards at the front and rear, allowing equal access to the interior. There you sat d…ann back to back. The scooter mobile was powered by a single-cylinder two-stroke engine, which was common in this type of vehicle and showed that it was derived from the scooter. The 2.90 meter long Janus had 14 hp, was 80 km / h and almost 7,000 were built between 1957 and 1958. Another classic from the fifties is …

Source: Stefan Weibenborn

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… the BMW Isetta, also shown here in the "PS Speicher" in Einbeck in southern Lower Saxony. Many manufacturers offered scooter mobiles with a maximum of 250 cubic meters as ages…ative to the car. Up to this cubic capacity, they could also be driven by people who only had an old IV driver’s license instead of a class III driver’s license. Next to the Isetta it is one of the most famous scooter mobiles …

Source: Stefan Weibenborn

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… the Messerschmitt cabin scooter. The small mobile with the hinged hood was manufactured in two versions between 1953 and 1964 in Regensburg. Less is remembered …the …

Source: Stefan Weibenborn

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… Heinkel Cab 150, built around 6,500 times from 1956 to 1958. The vehicle was very similar to the BMW Isetta, but lighter and had a self-supporting body. Another ru…It was a very cute, but very rare scooter mobile …

Source: Stefan Weibenborn

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… the Kroboth all-weather scooter. Only five pieces were made in 1954 and 1955. It too only had three wheels and cost a little less than the Heinkel cabin at 2,650 Deutschmarks. Se…A parentage in the name was much cheaper at 750 marks …

Source: Stefan Weibenborn

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… Brutsch Mopetta, a single-seat open vehicle with a knobby, round bow. Only 14 copies were made between 1956 and 1958. It was considered "the smallest car in the world". Special…The engine was flanged to the outside of the body. On the other hand, it looked like a lively roadster …

Source: Stefan Weibenborn

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… Champion CH2. According to the exhibition organizers in Einbeck, the “first German miniature car built by specialists after the Second World War” was a two-seater 2.80 meters long…r and technically prone. On the other hand, it was annoying …

Source: Stefan Weibenborn

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… getting into the doorless Victoria 250 (successor to the very similar BAW Spatz), which was hardly possible, especially with the roof closed. It had a plastic body… and also managed with less than 250 cubic meters. Its 14 hp made it possible at least 100 km / h. The commercially failed mini-roadster is also part of the show "The European Dream" – special exhibition on small and micro cars from the economic boom, "the …

Source: one-time use, otherwise within welt.de, November 2015, otherwise Tel: 0178 2584660

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… can be seen in the "PS memory". The car museum, which opened in 2014, is located in a converted old granary. There the history of mobility has been bi since its inception…s traced into the present. Those who want to devote themselves intensively to the exhibits can …

Source: Stefan Weibenborn

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… Spend the night in the affiliated hotel "Freigeist", which opened in November 2014. It has also written about PS issues, like the scooters on the wall i…can be seen in the stairwell. In the museum next door it says …

Source: Stefan Weibenborn

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… Another eccentric mobility device of the fifties: the Kleinschnittger F 125. The roofless model looked like a shrunken roadster and had no reverse gear. Because it… With its light metal body weighing only 150 kilos, it could be lifted at one point without further ado and parked with muscle power. It was heavier, but also a lightweight compared to a “real” car …

Source: Stefan Weibenborn

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… Fuldamobil S 1, which was built between 1954 and 1955, 734 times. In a short time, the tricycle was available in three different body styles. The construction was initially mi…t covered with artificial leather, later there was a hammered outer skin on metal, then a polyester body. 9.5 PS and 80 km / h were in the data sheet for the two-stroke engine. Not much longer than some scooter mobiles, some full-fledged cars like …

Source: Stefan Weibenborn

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… the 3.20 meter champion 400. Except: It had an engine beyond the magical 250 cubic meters. The two-cylinder two-stroke vehicle of the vehicle, which was propagated as the “medium-sized car”…With 14 hp, ikels hardly achieved more than many a small car or scooter mobile. With 3750 euros, the champion, built in 1951 and 1952, had no chance against cars like the cheaper Lloyd.

Source: Stefan Weibenborn

Mopetta, Champion, Fuldamobil: strange cars drove through Germany in the fifties. They were plump, affordable and: small. You could even lift a car into the parking space.

E.t there was a time in Germany that produced extremely strange cars from today’s perspective. While mass motorization had long been a fact in the USA thanks to the Model T from Ford, owning a car remained a dream for most people in Europe until the economic upswing after the Second World War.

There have been traffic lights, roads and traffic rules for a while. In 1909 Kaiser Wilhelm II had passed the first motor vehicle law for the German Empire. In 1937 the first pedestrian traffic light was inaugurated in Berlin; In order to organize what is happening on the streets, according to the Reich Road Traffic Regulations, pedestrians were only allowed to cross the lane by the shortest possible routes and were otherwise required to use the sidewalks. Too many had had accidents in traffic.

After the war with muscle power

Only there were hardly any cars on the streets. Because moving a motor vehicle privately in most cases meant driving a motorized two-wheeler. There were trucks, but cars? Not many. At best, cars like the Opel P4, a four-seater without a trunk, were just about affordable for the middle class.

The mass motorization aimed at by Adolf Hitler failed with the idea of ​​the power-through-joy car. Instead of the promise “You have to save 5 marks a week if you want to drive in your own car”, the war broke out.

Cars are so funny to operate

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Starting with a crank: That’s how it used to be when you wanted to start a car. The blinking too …

Source: picture alliance / akg-images

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… once happened differently. The VW “pretzel beetle” (until 1955) still had a fold-out indicator instead of an indicator. And at the beginning of automobile history, the chauffeur waved…eur actually still by hand to show the direction of travel when turning. Also out of the vehicle …

Source: Volkswagen

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… you had to grab oldtimers if you wanted to sound the horn (in the picture an Austin from 1928). The driver had to reach through the window for much longer to …

Source: picture alliance / AP

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… to adjust the exterior mirrors. Pure handcraft …

Source: Getty Images

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… was once the lighting of vehicle lights, as in this historic Audi with a carbide lamp. You had to push and pull for years to …

Source: picture-alliance / ZB

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… to operate the locking of the car doors. But the "little button" has gone out of fashion, like locking with a key and lock cylinder. In their place are …

Source: Getty Images / Moment Open

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… central locking and radio key activated – or keyless entry systems. The impending loss of a cultural technique can be measured by …

Source: Getty Images

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… how seldom the driver and front passenger only open the glove box to …

Source: Getty Images / Maskot

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… fish out the road map. Because today the navigation device has long been standard, which makes many drivers unlearn how to read maps and navigate with the index finger. Al…s just comfortable …

Source: Getty Images

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… many people should feel when they no longer have to operate the handbrake themselves. The electronic parking brake has now even been used in the compact class…for whom the fingers only have to be bent if it does not automatically apply the jaws. Completely ousted by electronics …

Source: Getty Images / Vetta

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… is also the brake on stuttering. Today, the anti-lock braking system takes on the challenge of having to be able to steer a car even when it comes to an emergency stop. That’s what the foot does…b a new task in some modern cars if …

Source: Getty Images

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… the trunk lid should swing open. A number of car manufacturers are now offering an extra feature in which the flap opens with a swivel of the foot. And new gestures arise,… …

Source: picture alliance / dpa-tmn

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… because soon at least infotainment systems will obey by swiping instead of touch. The auto industry is already working on gesture control.

Source: picture alliance / dpa-tmn

The forerunner of the VW Beetle was jacked up and equipped with a limited-slip differential so that it could also drive over the field for military purposes. Only after the Second World War were savers partially compensated.

After 1945, German automobile production lay idle for years. Like the rest of the industry, the motor industry also suffered. Petrol was still scarce and expensive. In order to compensate for war losses, entire industrial plants would be dismantled and transported away.

The first post-war years were the years of the two-wheelers, whether powered by pure muscle power or by an auxiliary engine. Cars anyway, but even motorcycles were rarely on the road – still. But before their own car came into the sphere of financial possibilities, they started to boom.

Falling gasoline prices, rising standard of living

By 1953, the number of registrations of motorcycles rose to a high of 370,000, then the development took place at the expense of the motorized two-wheeler. Motorcycles with sidecars were still family vehicles until the mid-1950s.

But the desire for more was there. In order to cover this, manufacturers brought miniature vehicles onto the market, which heralded the decline of the motorcycle, which had been widespread until then, as an everyday vehicle. Care was taken that the displacement did not exceed 250 cubic meters. So people could get in without the car driving license III if they had the old driving license IV in their pocket.

The economic miracle brought a rising standard of living and thus cars for more and more people. With the price of petrol, the maintenance costs fell, in 1955 the commuter allowance for cars was introduced, which made driving more attractive.

These cars do not exist again

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Three eyes and a cornering light: the Tucker Torpedo was ahead of its time.

Source: Getty Images

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The 1976 Pontiac Firebird is history, as is its brand. Hardly anyone remembers …

Source: Wieck

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… to the Hispano-Suiza brand. The photo shows the model Alfonso XIII from 1914. In the fifties it was known and loved in West Germany…

Source: Heritage Images / Getty Images

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… the Goggomobil. Here, in 1957, the German actor Heinz Erhardt invited in. Gone and risen again and abolished again …

Source: picture alliance / United Archive

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… the Maybach brand. Here is a historical advertising poster. The luxury car manufacturer had his heyday in the thirties. In the seventies…

Source: Getty Images

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… there was still Datsun. In 1983 the brand was discontinued. The picture shows a 280Z. Datsun has since been reanimated as an emerging market brand by Nissan. It was different……

Source: Toronto Star via Getty Images

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… Steyr-Daimler-Puch. The picture shows a model of the brand in Paris in the thirties. Was a curiosity…

Source: Getty Images

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… the Amphicar. It was presented in the mid-sixties and could move on land and in water. Fishermen in Scotland use it here.

Source: Getty Images

At the beginning of the 1950s, scooter mobiles and small cars came into fashion, because only these were initially affordable for most citizens. "They marked a stopover on the way to their own car", says a special exhibition "The European Dream" – special exhibition on small and micro cars from the economic boom ", which is currently on view in the" PS Speicher "in Einbeck in southern Lower Saxony.

Handy mobiles with names like Fuldamobil, Janus or Kroboth are on display in the car museum, which is housed in an expanded former granary. Representatives of the long-lost scooter-mobile genre, which one rarely gets to see in this diversity.

Who remembers the Kleinschnittger?

Some of the 29 exhibits come from the Story collection, named after the village in Lower Saxony, where they stocked a museum until 2004. The collector Karl-Heinz Rehkopf, founder of the “PS Speicher”, bought it. Part of his small car collection, which is unique in the world, has been housed there since 2014.

Traditional classic car race in Italy

The famous Italian race has existed since 1927. It goes over 1,600 kilometers or 1,000 miles – from Brescia to Rome and back again. And, like every year, Italy is in a state of emergency. Source: Zoomin.TV

One of the best-known scooter mobiles was the BMW Isetta, built from 1955, one of the most successful of the Messerschmitt cabin scooters, which is also still a household name today. But who still remembers the Kroboth all-weather scooter, the Heinkel cabin, which is very similar to the Isetta, or the Kleinschnittger F 125? The roofless model looked like a shrunken roadster, it was so small and cute that it wouldn’t have been noticed on a fairground carousel. But with 4.5 HP it was at least 70 km / h fast.

In road traffic, however, the Kleinschnittger with the 125 cc three-speed motorcycle engine was an eccentric: It had no reverse gear. Since it only weighed 150 kilograms with its light metal body, it could be lifted at one point without further ado and parked with muscle power. After all, he had four wheels.

The Fuldamobil S1 rolled on one less wheel, which was only built 734 times between 1954 and 1955, but was a few hundred more expensive at DM 2,780. The structure was initially covered with synthetic leather, later there was a hammered outer skin on metal, then a polyester body. 9.5 PS and 80 km / h were in the data sheet for the two-stroke engine.

Isetta? No: Mopetta

Closer to the scooter was the Brutsch Mopetta, which was once priced at 750 marks, a single-seat open vehicle with a knobby, round bow. Only 14 copies were made between 1956 and 1958. It was considered “the smallest car in the world”, can be read in the exhibition, but had a three-wheeled chassis and a moped motor with only 2.3 hp under the plastic cover – and was unsuccessful. Today the mini-car is worth thirty times the original price, in euros. Some collectors consider it to be the only true mini car in automotive history, more than just an ancestor of the Smart.

1965 was the year of the sports car

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The BMW 2000 CS, the New Class Coupe, was presented in June 1965 as a “comfortable touring car with a sporty heart for long journeys”.

Source: BMW

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At the 1965 IAA, Opel presented a surprisingly sporty prototype, the Opel Experimental GT. Development had already started in 1963, and it was supposed to be after the IAA premiere…re another three years before series production of the Opel GT could start.

Source: Opel

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From 1965, Porsche offered the models 911 (photo) and 912 as Targa. Because of the rollover protection system, which was mainly due to the stricter approval criteria in the USA, were… this sports car is often referred to as a "safety convertible".

Source: Porsche

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At the Turin Motor Show in 1965, Lancia presented the elegant Fulvia Coupe. With its timeless, graceful design, the Fulvia Coupe is considered the masterpiece of designer Pietro Ca…stagnero.

Source: Lancia

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The Alpine 110 had been on the market since 1962. The French sports car had numerous uses in motorsport until 1977.

Source: Renault

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The Fiat 850 was available in three versions: a sedan, a spider and a coupe. The latter was a 2 + 2 seater fastback style. And if you take it very seriously, the Fiat became so…r is offered in a fourth body shape: the 850 T delivery van.

Source: Fiat

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The Volvo P1800 was built in the UK from 1961 to 1963. However, because the quality was so poor, production of the sports car was relocated to Sweden. The model designation…In 1800 an "S" was therefore added for Sweden. The sports car was, by the way, the company car of Simon Templar alias "The Saint" for many years.

Source: Volvo

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At the Paris Motor Show in 1964, Ferrari pulled the canvas off the 275 GTB. The street sports car had the difficult task of being the successor to the legendary Ferrari 250 GTO.

Source: Ferrari

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One of the most beautiful sports cars of the 1960s was without a doubt the Jaguar E-Type. It was presented in 1961 at the Geneva Motor Show as the successor to the Jaguar D-Type racing car. A.…In this photo, then Jaguar boss William Lyons poses next to an E-Type.

Source: Jaguar

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The Toyota 2000 GT was seen as the Japanese interpretation of the Jaguar E-Type. Only 351 copies of the sports car were built.

Source: Toyota

However, according to the Einbeck exhibition organizers, “the first German miniature car built by specialists after the Second World War” was the CH2 champion of the Ulm engineer Hermann Holbein. In 1949 and 1950, eleven of the cars were put on their wheels, stylistically like a scaled-down anticipation of the AC Cobra. (Other sources assume 120 copies.)

Only the technically vulnerable 2.80-meter two-seater was far weaker than the later US car and only had 6.5 hp and a speed of 60. And the CH2 was ahead of its time. Because the purchasing power of the German citizens was still too low to spend the purchase price of 2,650 marks.

On the way to mass motorization

How much the small vehicles descended from the popular motor scooters up to the sixties, when many could already afford a real car, no other vehicle proves better than the Vespa 400, which can also be seen in the "PS memory". Because the Italian two-wheeler manufacturer was in good financial shape, he was able to build this small car.

But on the home market, the four-wheeled mini-sedan with a folding roof – 90 km / h, the equivalent of 3,490 marks expensive and suspiciously similar to the German Goggomobil – proved to have no chance. The competition from Fiat’s Nuova 500 was too great.

Dive, fly, make males

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When the car had just really learned to roll, it had to take the plunge into the deep end. The French manufacturer actually built in the 1920s …a motorboat car, here a historical photo from 1926. Until today …

Source: Getty Images

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… the idea has not really caught on, at least it has not conquered the mass market. But there are dumps where one seriously investigates the matter. For example d…he US company Watercar builds amphibious vehicles for domestic use. The Panther model has a 250 hp V6 engine with a displacement of 3.7 liters and has a medium speed of around 150 km / h on land, but 70 speeding things are possible on the water. Not really a car, not really a boat, if you look in vain for air conditioning, airbags or an anchor on board. Always good for crazy approaches …

Source: picture alliance / dpa-tmn

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… is the Swiss developer Frank Rinderknecht, who regularly presents his studies at the Geneva Salon. In 2008 it was sQuba, a car that can dive. It may not go far…r than ten meters sink, and thanks to two propellers and a jet jet drive, it is only three km / h fast under water. But the air supply for the occupants is enough for two hours – longer than any scuba dive. The complementary idea also came up, namely that …

Source: picture-alliance / dpa-tmn

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… Flying car. What could be more natural than giving wings to a lame duck? While this Citroën 2CV in the airplane version of a tinkerer can hardly take off, the f…lying car of today a small industry emerged. There are a handful of companies in the USA in particular, but also in the …

Source: Getty Images / Car Culture

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… Slovakia is involved. The Aeromobil from the manufacturer of the same name made its first flight in 2013. At the wheel of this model is the designer Stefan Klein,… who was also on board when an Aeromobile crashed last May. Klein was able to save himself by parachute. 1970 drove less riskily in a no less experimental vehicle …

Source: picture alliance / dpa

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… the designer Jean-Pierre Ponthieu presented at a trade fair in Paris. Trademark in addition to the funny exterior: The "Automodule" could turn on the spot and by means of the small…a single cylinder on the rear wheel can even do wheelies. It went really uphill with …

Source: Getty Images

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… the Land Rover Defender, which the Scottish conversion company Cuthbertson offered in a special version as a tracked vehicle between 1958 and 1972. The off-road vehicle was used as a caterpillar or similar…Without wheels only 60 km / h fast – but who wanted to race through the Scottish moors? Ask the question of meaning even louder …

Source: Cuthbertson

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… one could use this "Double Mini". By the way: decades ago, a hobbyist also carried out a conversion of the VW Beetle with two front sections. Only the rear section w…On the other hand, it was the case with the following luxury sedan …

Source: Getty Images

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… changes. It’s a Rolls-Royce that someone turned into a pick-up without respecting its intended purpose. One acted more as a marketing gag… unspectacular looking car that…

Source: Getty Images

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… the internet trading platform mobile.de was established in 2010. What you need to know: Here a “VW Astra” zooms through the picture, the German average car, so to speak. N…After evaluating the search queries on mobile.de and Ebay Motors, a car was welded together with the front of an Opel Astra and the rear of a VW Bora. The majority desire is also reflected in the equipment: manual transmission, sunroof, sports suspension, navigation system. This is also piecemeal …

Source: mobile.de

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… Modeler’s dream on wheels – you could call it a historic house car. Unfortunately, it cannot be seen in this picture how comfortable the interior is. At least en…g it went …

Source: www.jupiterimages.com

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… in the bow of the British manufacturer, the tricycle specialist Bond. The small car, built in the seventies, was powered by a 700 cubic engine with up to 31 hp…steady, but there was also an electric version. And with that, the Bug may not have been that crazy, it may just be ahead of its time. A car that is in principle promising against overcrowded city centers is also …

Source: UIG via Getty Images

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… the electrically operated Tango T600, which is so narrow that, according to the manufacturer, two copies can safely drive next to each other in one lane. That would be the Ka…Increase the capacity of the road network in line with a growing number of T600s. According to the manufacturer’s website, there are still only twelve of the tiny cars measuring just under a meter in width in which the driver and front passenger sit one behind the other. What you can’t tell from the T600: It’s a speedster. A speed of 100 is reached in a good three seconds, and Tango specifies a top speed of over 240 km / h. The price moves at $ 240,000 in the higher sports car segment. But according to Tango there is a waiting list of 2,000 interested parties who would strike if the price should drop sharply.

Source: Tango

Even if not all were successful – the microcars and scooter mobiles contributed to the fact that a trend reversal was announced in 1960: for the first time, the number of passenger cars in the Federal Republic exceeded the number of motorized two-wheelers.

At this point the VW had a Beetle, Successor to the KdF car, already set for its big race to catch up. In 1972 it replaced the Model T as the best-selling car in the world. At this point in time, mass motorization had long been achieved in Germany; it was already there in 1961, when there was one car for every ten German citizens. Only ten years later hardly anyone was talking about the little mobiles that had initiated the development.

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