The story
History
In the Spain of the 1940s, Franco’s policy of self-sufficiency, the United Nations embargo and the industrial policy of the INI starved Barcelona of car production: La Hispano-Suiza had become ENASA, the maker of Pegaso trucks, in 1946; Ford’s Spanish company was held to small trucks; and SEAT, founded in 1950, built its first car, the 1400, only in 1953, at a price that made it a luxury.source 1source 2 Spain built a little over 500 in 1945, more than 5,000 in 1950 and close to 70,000 in 1955. In 1951 the Villiers Engineering Co. founded a Barcelona subsidiary, Hispano Villiers S.A., whose first engines went on sale in 1953, and with them came the Spanish microcar built around a motorcycle engine.source 1
The design came from Paris. Gabriel Voisin, the aviation pioneer and maker of the Avions Voisin cars, drew the Voisin Biscooter in 1949–50, which puts him among the aircraft makers who turned to microcars, and among their notable designers. It drew orders at its debut at the 1950 Paris show, but no French firm would build it.source 1 Its name meant a double scooter, or a scooter on four wheels, and in Spain it was spelt Biscúter.source 3source 2
Autonacional
Autonacional S.L. was founded in Barcelona on 29 December 1950 by Ángel Gill Deu, Vicente Fulleda Boguña and Lorenzo Marco Sarrió.source 4 Gill and Fulleda came from Eucort, an unsuccessful car maker, and at first assembled and sold the last Eucort cars through the new firm. More money came from Benet Jofre, Damià Casanova and Josep Maria Marcet, the mayor of Sabadell, among others, and the firm became Autonacional S.A.; the former Eucort partners did not share the turn to microcars, and left.source 1 grupo7 makes Marcet, who also presided over the Sabadell Aero Club, the president, and Casanova the head of the workshop.source 3 Unlike most Spanish microcar makers, the museum booklet judges, Autonacional had the money for a real assembly line and for advertising on a wide scale.source 1source 5
On 11 January 1953 a delegation went to Paris to negotiate with Voisin, and the licence was bought from his Compagnie Aéromécanique Française, so the Biscúter was a French design built under licence.source 4source 3 RM Auctions and the Weiner museum date the licence variously to 1951, June 1952 or June 1953.source 6 Voisin adapted the car to the 197 cc Hispano-Villiers engine made in Barcelona and oversaw the project, and in June 1953 he travelled to Barcelona himself to settle the production arrangements.source 1source 3source 7 grupo7 has him driving the prototype from Paris to Barcelona in one go at the age of 77. He was born in 1880, so he was 72 or 73, and the drive itself is unconfirmed.source 3source 8
The car was shown at Barcelona’s trade fair, the Feria de Muestras, in June 1953, and it was a resounding success.source 3source 4source 7 Against the French car it had slightly reworked bodywork with bumpers, the Hispano-Villiers driving the right front wheel, no reverse, and brakes on the transmission and the rear wheels only.source 7 When the first customers got theirs is disputed: the Weiner museum says the standard model came at the end of 1953, the museum booklet says the first, very simple cars came out in June 1954, and Spanish Wikipedia puts series production in 1954, which is the likeliest.source 9source 1source 5 At the 1954 fair a bare chassis stood under the signs “Biscuter Voisin Autonacional” and “Compagnie Aéromécanique, Paris”.source 1
The slipper
It was a car stripped to the minimum. The first Biscúters had an aluminium body with no doors, no reverse gear and a starter pulled by hand, and the chain from the engine drove the right front wheel alone.source 5source 2source 7 The single-cylinder two-stroke gave 9 CV, under an oil-filled aluminium head so big that it looked more like a three-cylinder’s; English Wikipedia says the 2.4 litres (4.2 pints) of oil in it acted as a temperature buffer while the car waited at traffic lights.source 3source 2 The two occupants shared a bench, though the advertising promised “2/3 plazas”. It was 2,560 mm (101 in) long, weighed 240 kg (529 lb) and reached 76 km/h (47 mph).source 3source 7source 10 Without a reverse gear, Motorpasión says, owners parked it by lifting it by hand.source 10 The advertising claimed 4.5 litres of mixture per 100 km (63 mpg), and grupo7 says it really used nearly double.source 3
Spaniards called it the Zapatilla, the slipper, because its profile looked like the open-heeled slippers country people wore, and it gave Spanish a saying: feo como un Biscúter, as ugly as a Biscúter.source 5source 2source 3 It cost about 25,000 pesetas, by grupo7’s account roughly three years’ pay for a worker, when an imported car cost nearly 100,000; Motorpasión gives 28,600 pesetas for the Biscúter 100, probably at another date.source 3source 10
Fifteen a day
At its peak, from 1954 to 1956, the works at Sant Adrià de Besòs turned out 450 cars a month, about 15 a day, by Motorpasión’s figure.source 10 The firm had its own test track at the factory, its dealers spread quickly across Spain, and the Biscúter had several years of splendour.source 1source 5 A run of test drives up mountain passes and on racetracks won it public affection, though no date or result for any of them has been found.source 7source 11 Car number 1,000 was handed to General Franco, and grupo7 shows the photograph; no date for it has been found.source 3 The photographer Pérez de Rozas caught it at the blessing of cars on the Diagonal on St Christopher’s day in July 1954, and in March 1958 packed with students at the Sant Tomàs festival.source 1 In a condensed-milk advertisement drawn by the cartoonist Cesc, a child mistakes a Biscúter for a pram.source 3
The car grew up as it went. From 1955 an inverter gave it reverse, and since the inverter turned round the whole gearbox, the Biscúter had three reverse gears.source 3 By 1957 the 200 had a steel body and could be had with doors and side windows, reverse and an electric starter.source 7source 11 Spanish Wikipedia, in an article flagged as needing references, says that in the firm’s final years the state cut off its aluminium, and that the later steel came from flattened Marshall Plan oil drums; no other source repeats the story.source 5
The range widened, amid strong disagreements on the board, by Spanish Wikipedia’s account.source 5 The 200-C Comercial, from 1957 or 1958 and known as the Rubia, was a woody estate with wooden side panels and a metal roof, seating four or carrying two and 200 kg (441 lb), and about 200 were built.source 3source 5source 9source 10 In February 1958 came the 200-I Furgoneta, a van or pick-up that could carry 250 kg (551 lb).source 12source 3 For buyers with more money there was the Pegasín, below. A four-seater and a larger van were planned and never built.source 3
After the 600
SEAT’s 600 arrived in June 1957, and Spain was growing richer.source 1source 5 The sources disagree on when the end came. The museum booklet says Autonacional stopped making cars in 1958 and sold stock and serviced them for four more years; grupo7 says the firm closed in 1960, having built nothing since the year before; autopasion18 has production ending in 1959; and the Weiner museum dates the last Biscúters to early 1960.source 1source 3source 4source 13 A sales leaflet of 1961 still invoked the designer’s name.source 1
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Almost every Biscúter was scrapped.source 5source 2source 7 Twice there was talk of bringing it back: in the mid-1980s building it at Lora del Río, near Seville, was studied and dropped, and in 2013–14 the Girona industrialist Isaac Valls spoke of a prototype, which came to nothing.source 3source 5
