German cyclecars and Kleinwagen: the minor makers

After the First World War a big car was out of reach for most Germans, and small makers sprang up to sell cars built round motorcycle engines, from BMW, DKW, Motosacoche and others, through the inflation of 1919–⁠23.source 1source 2source 3source 4 The currency reform of 1923–⁠24 ruined their customers and many of the makers with them.source 2 Most lasted a year or two. The Slaby-Beringer electric single-seater and the Hanomag 2/10 PS have their own pages, and the Viennese Schasche, sometimes counted as German, appears among the cyclecars elsewhere.source 5 Here are ten of the rest, by the year each began.

The Eisenberg merchant Paul Peter and the Berlin engineer Karl Moritz founded their firm on 25 March 1919, in Thuringia. Its first car, the 5/12 PS of 1920–⁠21, had an air-cooled flat-twin of 1,219 cc, two speeds, no differential and no reverse, and cost 10,000 marks. A water-cooled 5/15 PS of 1,308 cc followed in 1922, then the 5/20 and 5/22 PS with sporting versions, besides vans and light lorries; a six-cylinder 5/40 PS shown in Berlin in 1924 never went into production. In 1922–⁠23 the firm moved to Naumburg an der Saale, where 250 workers could make 60 to 80 cars a month. About 100 had been built by the winter of 1922–⁠23, and an estimated 500 to 800 in all, before the firm went bankrupt in December 1925.source 2 With engines of 1.2 and 1.3 litres these were light cars more than cyclecars. The works manager, Wilhelm Gehring, bought the machinery and founded a firm that still trades.source 2

Karl Koch’s Kleinauto- und Motorenwerke Koch & Co. of Erfurt made as its first model, dated to 1920, a two-seat sports car with a 4/16 PS flat-twin and a chain to an axle with no differential, and in 1925 moved up to a 6/24 PS four. The firm went bankrupt in 1923, yet made cars until 1926, about 800 of them, and at least one Koco ran in the small-car race at the AVUS in Berlin in 1923.source 6source 7

Paul Staiger of Stuttgart began building a small four-cylinder 4/12 PS two-seater in 1922, because Opel could supply too few cars of its own. He made about 500, and stopped about 1924, when he found that selling Opel’s own 4/12 PS paid better. It was a light car rather than a cyclecar.source 8

Ludwig Maurer of Nuremberg showed his 2/6 PS at the Berlin motor show in the autumn of 1923: an open aluminium two-seater with a 450 cc two-stroke flat-twin of 6–8 PS, three speeds and a chain to the rear axle. It was 2,800 mm long and weighed 260 kg, and it did 55 km/h (34 mph) on 4 litres per 100 km. Sales stayed low.source 1 The firm was linked to the earlier Maurer-Union cars with friction drive.source 1source 7

At Potsdam-Wildpark a boatyard built the “B.Z. Cyclecar”: a two-seater with a light-metal body and a BMW flat-twin of 494 cc and 6 PS, with three speeds and reverse. It weighed 300 kg, reached 60 km/h (37 mph) and could climb a 20 per cent gradient. Only a limited number were made, and the company was dissolved in 1924.source 3

Rollfix-Eilwagen of Hamburg-Wandsbek mostly built three-wheeled delivery vans, with one rear wheel driven by chain and DKW engines of 127 or 297 cc, later ILO engines of 200 to 500 cc. Among a few passenger cars was the Rekord of 1933, a two-seat three-wheeler with an opening roof. In 1934 the firm became Rollfix-Werke Frederic Schröder, with the Motrix brand.source 9

H. C. Dehn’s Fahrzeug- und Maschinenfabrik in Hamburg built a single model, a Motorradwagen, or motorcycle-car: an open two-seater without doors, with a light canvas roof, room for luggage and a removable cargo carrier, and its own air-cooled two-stroke single of 8 PS, of 346 cc or about 440 cc by different figures. It was hoped to sell as a cheap people’s car, but it came and went in 1924.source 10

Gustav Ehrhardt’s Pluto Automobilfabrik at Zella-Mehlis built the French Amilcar under licence (more in built under licence): the 4/20 PS, based on the C4, with 1,004 cc, the 5/30 PS, based on the CGS, with 1,074 cc, and a supercharged 5/30/65 PS racer, driven by Friedrich, Glockenbach, Mederer and von Einem. Pluto also supplied engines to Voran of Berlin, and ended in 1927. At least one 1924 Pluto survives.source 11

Spinell Motorfahrzeuge of Berlin-Dahlem, led by Otto Krell junior, made a sporting two-seater with a light-metal body on leaf springs, three speeds, chain drive and a starting lever, with engines of 3/12 or 4/18 PS, or a Motosacoche of 5/20 PS. At 3.25 m long it was hardly small. Few were built.source 4

Engelbert Zaschka’s three-wheeler had an air-cooled single at the back, driving the rear wheel through spur gears, a folding frame of steel tube under a light fabric body, independently sprung front wheels and a radiator grille that was only for show. Two people could take it apart into three pieces in about five minutes. In 1928 Zaschka drove it up to the top platform of the Berlin Funkturm, the radio tower. It would do 40–50 km/h and was meant to cost over 1,000 Reichsmark, but the tube frame was too costly to make, and it stayed a prototype. It is often called the first folding car.source 12

A reconstruction of a Peter & Moritz, built round original engine parts, has been shown at the Motorrad- und Technikmuseum Großschönau, and at least one Pluto of 1924 survives.source 2source 11 No survivor of the other makers has been identified in the sources read, though the pictures on this page show a 1922 Koco at the Autostadt in Wolfsburg and at a show in Stuttgart.