Its French sellers
French licence-free car makers of the 1970s and 1980s
1970–1994 · France · 14 makers
The story
History
Mario Zodiaco founded Autozodiaco at Pianoro, near Bologna, in 1969, and began building in 1971: beach buggies on Volkswagen Beetle chassis, among them the Damaca, designed by Tom Tjaarda.source 1source 2 The firm also made a beach motorcycle, the Moto Zodiaco Tuareg 223-2, with an ILO-Rockwell two-stroke and a belt-driven continuously variable transmission.source 1
In 1974 came the Charly, a two-seat three-wheeler with a plastic body.source 1source 3 The German Wikipedia gives it a 49 cc Minarelli two-stroke; the old microcarfan.com, the only detailed account, gives a 50 cc Morini of 4.5 hp with a four-speed manual gearbox, and the German article on All Cars also mentions a Morini at first, so both may have been used at different times.source 1source 3source 2 At 2.10 m by 1.27 m the old site found it a respectable size. It ran on 145/10 rear tyres, or could be delivered in beach form on big low-pressure lug tyres.source 3
Snuggy in France
It went on sale in France in 1976 as a licence-free car, sold first by a firm called Marland and then, from 1976, by Vitrex, and it was All Cars that named it the Snuggy, the old site says.source 3 The German Wikipedia adds that SECAM, maker of the Addax, offered the Charly from 1977, and Vitrex bought SECAM in 1978, so the two accounts may describe one chain of sellers at different dates.source 4source 5 In 1978 All Cars, also of Pianoro, took Autozodiaco over.source 2source 1
The driving position was, in the old site’s words, very special: the clutch pedal was to the left of the steering wheel, and the brake, the accelerator and the wheel itself were on the right. A later road car photographed on the old site, which dates it 1986, has the wheel moved to the usual place on the left.source 3 The Charly 4 put the Snuggy body on four wheels, in road and beach forms, licence-free in France and with 125 cc or 250 cc engines in Italy. The open Tobrouk of 1978 was green, with its spare wheel mounted outside in the manner of a four-by-four.source 3 All Cars moved on to Motobécane engines, sold the cars in Germany as well, and stopped building them in 1985.source 2 No production figures have been found, and no museum car or auction result is recorded. Some survive all the same: the cars pictured here include a Charly on German plates and a Charly 4 parked in Berlin, in the country where All Cars also sold them.
