Goggomobil TL

Hans Glas GmbH of Dingolfing made farm machinery before it made the Goggo scooter, and in 1955 it launched the Goggomobil T250 saloon.source 1 The TL was built on the same platform, with the engine in the tail and swing axles at each corner.source 1source 2 It was made largely for the Deutsche Bundespost. The post office had been using three-wheeled Tempo vans, and RM Auctions’ catalogue names the small one, the Tempo Boy, as the model whose end left it needing something new; the Glas van was the only small vehicle that offered a quarter-ton payload.source 3source 4 English Wikipedia says the Transporter was built largely at the Bundespost’s request.source 2

It was shown at the IFMA, the two-wheeler and small-car show in Frankfurt, in the autumn of 1956. auto motor und sport reported a Goggomobil Transporter with sliding doors for the Bundespost there, at the same show as Getrag’s “Selectromat” preselector gearbox.source 6source 2source 7 Production began in 1957, and in its fourth issue of 1958 the magazine reported the Transporter in series production, with the first 100 delivered to the post office.source 1source 2source 8 One RM catalogue says the Bundespost took about 2,000 in 1956. It cannot have: the van was only being shown that year.source 3source 2source 8

Doors that slide

It is the forward cab that makes the TL look unlike the saloon. Driver and passenger sit over the front wheels, with the load space behind them and the fan-cooled two-stroke twin under its rear end.source 1source 2 Each side of the cab has a sliding door, chosen so that the driver could get in and out in narrow streets and tight parking places, which was new on so small a commercial vehicle.source 6source 2 At the back of the van were twin doors; the pick-up had a tailgate, and could carry a tarpaulin or a short canopy.source 6source 2source 9 To keep the load floor clear, the fuel tank went under the driver’s seat, and the floor itself was made of wooden slats.source 3

There were three engines, of 250, 300 and 400 cc, as in the saloons, but with lower gearing, marked “L”.source 3source 6 The smallest needed only the old class 4 licence.source 1source 6 With about 14 hp and a top speed near 65 km/h (40 mph), the TL-250 was a town and village delivery vehicle, as Secret Classics puts it; the TL-400 reached about 75 km/h (47 mph).source 6 Later vans used the 400 cc engine with the lower ratios.source 4 The four-speed gearbox had no synchromesh; on the saloon it could be shifted like a motorcycle’s, without double-declutching.source 1 The whole van is 2,910 mm (115 in) long, 1,316 mm (52 in) wide and 1,695 mm (67 in) high, and weighs 460 kg (1,014 lb).source 2source 6 How much it could carry is less clear: Secret Classics says 440 kg, RM Auctions about 250 kg (550 lb).source 6source 3 No period road test has been found.

Yellow vans and others

About 2,000 went to the post office, in Bundespost yellow; English Wikipedia puts it at more than 2,000 between October 1957 and November 1965.source 1source 2 The rest went to tradespeople and to towns, which used them as service vehicles and for street cleaning and snow clearing, and some were sold in the United States through the Continental Car Combine.source 9source 6source 1 In all, 3,667 were built.source 1source 6source 2

Production stopped in 1965, and no reason for it has been found. The Goggomobil saloon and coupé went on: BMW took Glas over with effect from 10 November 1966 and built them until 30 June 1969.source 1

Little is recorded about the Boy, the small Tempo that, by RM Auctions’ account, the TL replaced at the post office.source 3 From 1950 Tempo built it in Hamburg-Harburg beside the Hanseat, which it resembled, as a smaller sister.source 10 It had a single-cylinder engine of 197 cc, or 250 cc at extra cost; either size could be driven on the class IV licence, which covered vehicles of up to 250 cc. It cost DM 2,390 against DM 3,300 for the Hanseat pick-up, and with its full payload of 420 kg (926 lb) it reached 40 km/h (25 mph).source 10 German Wikipedia’s model table counts 5,950 built from 1950 to 1956.source 10

The trade journal ATZ judged in 1952 that three-wheeled vans of about 60 km/h were useful, but that the trend was moving to four wheels.source 10 When the Boy went out of production, by RM Auctions’ account, the Bundespost turned to the four-wheeled Goggomobil.source 3 Beyond its engine, payload, speed and price, no specification has been found: no dimensions, no power and no photograph of a Bundespost Boy. Almost all of this rests on one source, German Wikipedia, which follows Matthias Pfannmüller’s history of the firm.

No count of surviving TLs has been found. They are the Goggomobils that collectors chase, and the Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum restored four in bright advertising liveries, applied by its restorers and not necessarily ones the vans wore: PEZ, Coca-Cola, Dubble Bubble and Krispy Kreme. When RM Auctions sold the museum’s collection in Madison, Georgia, in February 2013, they made between $92,000 and $172,500.source 4source 9source 3source 5 In October 2020 RM Sotheby’s offered another without reserve; the result has not been found.source 6

The GLAS Automobil Club International and the Goggo- und Glasfahrer Gemeinschaft in Dingolfing look after the Glas cars.source 1 A Bundespost van was photographed at Heusenstamm in 2011, and another in Berlin in 2020.