Avolette

The design was German. Egon Brütsch of Stuttgart built small cars whose bodies were two egg-shaped fibreglass shells, joined round the middle by a strip of rubber, and he sold the right to make them across Europe.source 1 His Brütsch 200 prototype was shown at the Paris Salon of 1954.source 2 The story of Brütsch is mostly a story of licences, and the Avolette is one of the cars built under licence from him.source 3source 2source 4

The French licence went to the Société Air Tourist, headed by Jean Avot, which was the French agent for Cessna aircraft.source 1source 2source 5 The cars were assembled in a hangar on the former military airfield of Toussus-le-Noble, about 16 km (10 miles) west of Paris.source 6source 2 Air Tourist sold aeroplanes rather than building them, which makes the Avolette a cousin of the aircraft makers’ microcars rather than one of them. The English Wikipedia says Air Tourist also built Brütsch’s Zwerg under licence, in single- and two-seat forms.source 7

From Brütsch-Avolette to L’Avolette

At the Paris Salon of October 1955 the car was shown as the Brütsch-Avolette, and it was in essence a Brütsch 200, still wearing the German chrome script on its nose. It had twin faired-in headlamps, an Avolette decal under the bumper, portholes in the tail, a fixed steering column, Brütsch’s single T-tube frame, and a 175 cc Ydral engine in place of the Sachs.source 2 Avot was not happy with that frame and, the Weiner museum says, designed his own tubular backbone.source 1 The production car’s frame, as RM describes it, kept the T-tube but stiffened it with two D-shaped hoops ahead of and behind the cockpit, joined under the cockpit rail to make a cage.source 2

By the October 1956 Salon it had become L’Avolette, and it had changed a great deal, though it was still a three-wheeler with its single wheel at the back.source 2source 4 A single “Cyclops” headlamp ran the length of the bonnet. Polished cast-aluminium wing guards doubled as step plates, a proper chrome-framed windscreen stood up front, and vertical air slits appeared in the rear flanks. It was steered by Bowden cable, and sprung by Neidhart rubber-in-torsion units at the front and Niemann rubber rings at the rear.source 2 The coupé on the stand had a near-spherical top that slid back. Production coupés had something simpler: a tube-framed top with Plexiglas sides and a fabric roof, which tipped forward over the windscreen to let the occupants climb in, since no Avolette had doors.source 2source 1source 6

Five versions, one hangar

There were five versions, and the code on each said what it was: the number gave the engine size, the letter Y, S or M named Ydral, Sachs or Maico, and C or D marked a coupé or a décapotable, a convertible.source 1 The basic Normale, with a 125 cc Ydral, was started by hand and could be driven without a licence, one of the post-war 125 cc licence-free cars.source 3source 2 The Tourisme had a 175 cc Ydral, a top and a heater. The Tourisme de Luxe had the 191 cc Sachs of the Messerschmitt KR200.source 2source 6

The fastest, the Record de Luxe, was the odd one out: it ran on four wheels, two of them close together at the back, and used the 250 cc Maico engine of the Maicoletta scooter, with a rocking starter that RM likened to a washing machine’s. It was claimed to reach 110 km/h (68 mph).source 1source 2 Both of the Weiner museum’s cars had four gears forward and four in reverse.source 1source 6 A Compétition de Luxe with a differently styled body was dropped from the brochures early on.source 3source 6source 2

The Weiner museum dates production from the autumn of 1956 to the summer of 1957; the German and English Wikipedias end it in 1958.source 1source 6source 4source 8 How busy the hangar was is suggested by a journalist, never named, who came to the airfield to road-test a car and, RM reports, found the large hangar full of vehicles in various states of assembly.source 2 In 1957 a softer-shaped “New Avolette” with a Lambretta engine of 125 or 150 cc was shown at the Cycle Salon; RM thinks it may have been the Compétition rebodied, and says it came to nothing.source 3source 2 Brütsch’s last design then found another French maker, the V2N below.source 3source 6

The V2N came from Brütsch’s last design, the V2, which in Germany led nowhere.source 3source 9 The German Wikipedia says that V2 stood for Volkszweisitzer, a people’s two-seater, and N for its backer, an Indonesian investor named Ngo.source 9 Who built it is unclear. The German Wikipedia names the Société France Jet, or the Union Industrielle of Neuilly-sur-Marne or Nogent-sur-Marne; the Weiner museum speaks of a connection with the Société France Jet in 1958.source 9source 6

The fuller story comes from the original microcarfan.com alone. In 1958 a “Jet 175” came first, and went no further. Then Monsieur Ngo asked for something sportier: scalloped flanks, a sharply tapered tail and unusual colours. Period documents give it a 175 cc Ydral, but the car the old site’s owner found in 2008 had a 200 cc Sachs, and had been painted blue over its original orange, the colour of its upholstery and tonneau.source 3

A 1959 V2N, by the same account, had a door for the passenger, a taller windscreen with aluminium posts, an aluminium dummy grille and a big air grille at the back. It kept the beam chassis, but its running gear, transmission and engine were all new, the engine a French Ydral. A period advertisement offered 125, 175 and 200 cc, and the second V2N the old site’s owner found in 2008 had a 200 cc Ydral built for the purpose, with its own bore and stroke, not a rebored 175.source 3

There was an American venture too: a subsidiary, France-Jet Motor Ltd, showed the car in New York with an AMC 280 cc four-stroke, and a last American version of 1960, with a longer nose, big wheels and a 1,100 cc engine, was no longer a microcar.source 3 The German Wikipedia’s sources give the engines as Ydral 175, later AMC 280, or as 197 cc, 175 cc and 280 cc singles, a Fiat 500 twin having been planned and not used, and say only a few were built in 1959 and 1960.source 9

About six Avolettes survive.source 1source 6 The Weiner museum had two, a Record de Luxe and a Tourisme de Luxe.source 1source 6 When its collection was sold in 2013, the Record de Luxe, restored in its original orange, was offered as the only surviving example of the most powerful version.source 2 The old site’s owner found two V2Ns in 2008.source 3 No club is known.