Dutch and Belgian microcars

The Dutch word is dwergauto, dwarf car, and the dwarf cars of the Netherlands and Belgium in the 1950s were one-offs, kits and licences.source 1source 2source 3 The DAF 600 of 1958 is too big to count here. Seven makers are below. The four without sections of their own come first, by date; the three with sections of their own follow, also by date.

Kits for Ghent, early 1950s

The Belgian Jules De Reuck took 100 German Kleinschnittger F125s in kit form, for assembly in Ghent.source 4 What followed, the Kleinstwagen Belge, is told with its parent.

The Succes, 1952

At the Brussels show of January 1952 a prototype called the Succes appeared, to have a German 200 cc twin. It was a close copy of the Fuldamobil N roadster, with no known link to Fulda, and it was not produced.source 5

The Bambino, 1955

The Netherlands’ licence-built Fuldamobil, sold under the Hostaco brand as the Bambino 200, was assembled by NV Alweco at Veghel from 1955 to 1957. It is told, with the doubts about where it was really built, on the Fuldamobil’s page.source 6source 5 The Louwman Museum in The Hague has one (see museums and meets).source 6

A Trippel for Belgium, 1956

Ateliers de Constructions Mécaniques Ch. Wilford et Fils took a licence for Hans Trippel’s Trippel 750 coupé, the design that Weidner built in Germany as the 70 S; no record has been found of any Belgian cars being built. Trippel’s earlier cars are on the page for German Kabinenroller small makers.source 7

Ateliers Claeys Flandria of Zedelgem had made bicycles since 1896, and mopeds and motorcycles after them, and sponsored the Flandria cycling team. For what it billed as its 60th anniversary it showed a microcar at the Brussels motor show in February 1954: a steel body with front-hinged doors and 2 + 2 seats, and a two-cylinder ILO two-stroke of 250 or 400 cc at the back. With the larger engine it was said to reach 80 km/h (50 mph); its quoted thirst was 4.5 litres to the 100 km (63 mpg). It was not produced.source 8 The firm came back to the idea in 1979, with 50 cc microcars on three and four wheels.source 8

Arnold van der Goot began thinking about a small car in 1947, while a student at Delft, and after the war he worked for the Bristol Aeroplane Company; two sources spell his name van der Groot, but his family and his son Erik use Goot.source 1source 2source 3source 9source 10 His first plan was a three-wheeler made of two bicycle frames welded together. It grew into a small pool car, to be hired at stations round a city, driven inside it and left at any station, and the Dutch government backed it, because traffic in Amsterdam’s narrow cobbled streets was already a problem.source 3source 2source 9source 10 It is seen as a forerunner of the Witkar, the shared electric car Amsterdam tried in the 1970s.source 10

He made almost all of it himself. The two seats were plain metal pressings, the steering wheel bent steel tube, and the road wheels, suspension and steering were his own; the roof was formed by forcing water between the halves of a concrete mould, and a local cookware firm made the headlamp surrounds.source 3source 2 The prototype had a 200 cc ILO engine. The production cars had his own 228 cc two-stroke of 8 hp (6 kW), whose connecting rod was made from curved, spot-welded gas pipe, with three gears and an automatic centrifugal clutch.source 1source 2source 3 It sat behind the seats, driving the single rear wheel, and the whole unit came out in minutes.source 2source 3

it was claimed that in the event of a breakdown it was possible to remove the defective power unit and replace it with a new one in ten minutes!

Upright at the front, with SHELTER across the nose, and curved at the back, it was about 2.3 m (7½ ft) long by one account, 2 m by another.source 2source 3source 10 The prototype was built in Amsterdam, production moved to Terborg in the Achterhoek, and parts were made for 20 cars, to be offered for rent or lease as a test of the public. Seven were built, or five or six by Marshall’s count.source 1source 2source 3source 9source 10 The axles broke on the cobbles and there were engine fires, and the government withdrew; the car had also come too late, and looked old-fashioned and home-made.source 2source 10source 3source 9 A last car was put together from leftover parts in about 1970.source 9

Two are known. One belongs to the designer’s son, Erik van der Goot, with a large stock of parts, and one to the collector Sjoerd ter Burg; AM Klassiek reports the best example in the Louwman Museum and a yellow car awaiting restoration at Terborg, which may be the same cars.source 2source 3source 10source 9

The Citeria was a small sports car rather than a microcar. The garage owner Puck van Beekum, hoping to recover his losses on an earlier project, the Bellcar, built it with the engineer Han van der Blij: a glass-fibre body, a BMW two-cylinder four-stroke at the back, independent suspension all round and about 135 km/h (84 mph), for 7,450 guilders.source 11source 12source 13 After about two years of building and testing it was launched at Zandvoort on 17 November 1958. Stirling Moss and Carel Godin de Beaufort came, de Beaufort drove it round the circuit, and Dutch television filmed it.source 11source 12 A few days later Van Beekum was arrested for financial irregularities, and he was later sentenced to two and a half years. Only the one car was built, and it survives in its original state in Wil van Buuren’s private collection.source 11source 13