The story
History
G.A.M.C., a coachbuilder of Sanremo in Liguria, made its cars under the Baldi name.source 1source 2 The Frog, in the words of the old microcarfan.com, was meant to be a real car reduced to the smallest possible size; the Lane Motor Museum says the aim was to beat the congestion of city streets.source 3source 2 It was built largely from parts of the Fiat Nuova 500, and at 2.15 m it was shorter than the car it came from: 510 mm (20 in) shorter, Lane says, and about 100 mm (4 in) shorter than a Smart.source 3source 2 It was a strict two-seater, with a body of ABS, or of glass fibre by Lane’s account, on a steel chassis of rectangular section.source 3source 2
Italy had three versions: a basic one with a 302 cc engine and 80 km/h, a normal one with a Fiat 500 engine and 90 km/h, and a Rally with 595 cc and 105 km/h.source 3 Lane’s own Rally, a 1975 car, has an air-cooled twin and four speeds, and Lane gives it about 97 km/h (60 mph).source 2
Too heavy for 125 cc
In 1973 Henri Willame’s Willam decided to import the Frog into France.source 4 The car on the Willam stand at that year’s Paris Salon had a Fiat engine, but the version approved for France, as a licence-free car, had a 125 cc BCB two-stroke. It was plainly too weak for 385 kg and could not exceed 53 km/h.source 3source 4 It was dropped from the catalogue in 1975, after only 300 had been built with that engine, and Italian production stopped at the same time, because Mr Baldi had new projects.source 4 The German Wikipedia says the firm closed in 1976.source 1
A muddled record
The German Wikipedia tells a different story of the Frog: a Baldi first shown at the Turin Salon in 1972, which it describes as a buggy on a Fiat 127 chassis with its engine at the back, and which the press reportedly called the ugliest car of the salon. The 127 has its engine at the front, so the article may be describing another Baldi product; the Lane car and the old site’s photographs fit the 500.source 1source 3source 2 The same article lists Baldi leisure vehicles on Fiat 500 and Renault 4 bases.source 1 And the old site’s claim that one Monsieur Baldi also founded BMA is confirmed nowhere else.source 4
The Lane Motor Museum in Nashville has the 1975 Frog Rally.source 2 The collector who wrote the old site owned a Frog too: he was looking for a passenger door and a boot lid for it, and called the French 125 a true collector’s car.source 4
