The story
History
Professor Ernst Heinkel (1888–1958) had designed aircraft; after the war his company in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen built the Tourist scooter and supplied engines to other firms, among them Tempo’s vans and the Maico.source 2source 3 In 1955 auto motor und sport noticed that, apart from BMW, the firms taking up the small cabin car were outsiders, above all aircraft makers: Messerschmitt, Heinkel and then Dornier, whose Delta became the Zündapp Janus.source 4 So the Kabine is often called the car an aircraft maker built because it could not build aircraft (see aircraft makers). The record is plainer than that. Heinkel was already a scooter and engine maker, the car used its scooter’s drive, and the firm let it go once aviation and scooter work needed the room.source 4source 1source 2
The magazine showed the prototype early in 1955 under the caption “Ei auf 3 Rädern”, an egg on three wheels. It had the scooter’s 175 cc four-stroke, hydraulic brakes on the two front wheels only, a door at the front like the Isetta’s but with the steering column fixed, a Plexiglas dome with swinging quarter-lights and a folding roof, and two seats side by side with a generous luggage space behind. At a careless glance, the caption said, you might take it for a cross between a Messerschmitt and an Isetta.source 5source 6 It missed the Frankfurt show that September, though the show’s data table listed it: 9.5 PS, four gears, 250 kg and 85 km/h.source 7
Lighter than an Isetta
Production began in December 1955, at Speyer by the Heinkel Trojan Club’s account, and the car was on sale in 1956.source 8source 6 It was built round the Tourist scooter’s complete engine, gearbox and swinging-arm drive, almost unchanged, and auto motor und sport knew of no other attempt to drive a vehicle with more than two wheels with an unaltered mass-produced scooter unit.source 1 The four-stroke single sat at the back and drove the rear wheel by chain, inside a cast, oil-filled chaincase that was also the swinging arm.source 1source 6 The body was sheet steel on a tubular cage, with a big Plexiglas glasshouse and a roll-back roof as standard. The front door opened as the Isetta’s did, but the steering column did not swing out with it.source 6source 1 Behind the bench for two was room for luggage, for one larger or two smaller children, or at a pinch for a slim adult of up to about 60 kg (130 lb).source 1 Unlike some of its rivals, it had a proper reverse gear.source 1source 9
At about 245 kg (540 lb) it weighed some 100 kg less than the Isetta, 28 per cent less, so its 9.5 PS had as little weight to pull per horsepower as the Isetta’s 13 PS: 27 kg each.source 1 A price of DM 2,300 had been talked of in mid-1955; once the series began it cost DM 2,750, DM 200 more than the Isetta had cost in 1955, but the Isetta 250 had gone up by as much, so the two cost the same. The Messerschmitt cabin scooter cost about DM 2,200, and a Goggomobil DM 2,940 or 3,050.source 1source 10
The coffee cup
Dr Paul Simsa tested a Kabine for auto motor und sport in September 1956. At first sight, he wrote, it looked like Isetta at the front, Messerschmitt at the back and a Heinkel scooter engine inside, but that was unjust: Heinkel had gone its own way and made clear improvements.source 1 The little four-stroke got its power from revs, not capacity, and wanted changing up at 20, 35 and 55 km/h and keeping on the boil; the gate change on the left was simple and light, and the driver’s left hand hardly left it.source 1
Beim Volumen einer dreiviertel gefüllten Kaffeetasse kann man nicht erwarten, daß der Motor in den oberen Gängen des Vierganggetriebes viel Kraftreserven hat.
Yet over a 200 km test route on which a Renault 4CV usually averaged 75 km/h and an Isetta 66 km/h, the Kabine averaged 65 km/h (40 mph) with three adults and a child aboard. It never used more than 4.5 litres per 100 km, even driven hard, and most owners reported about 3.5: Simsa called it undoubtedly the most economical small vehicle on the German market.source 1 Its ride was clearly better than the Messerschmitt’s and a notch better than the Isetta’s, and its handling astonishingly good, though the three-wheeler was very sensitive to tram rails in summer and icy ruts in winter.source 1 He disliked the very low seats, and the fixed column made getting out awkward, so much so that he doubted it would serve as a car for disabled drivers. The engine hatch was inside, so checking the oil meant crawling back, unloading the luggage and removing the children. The plain cabin, he wrote, strongly recalled an aircraft, and for a scooter rider the car was a revelation.source 1
Over 200 cc, then under it
At the IFMA show in October 1956 Heinkel showed a four-wheeler, the Type 154. Its two rear wheels sat either side of the chaincase arm, only 220 mm (8.7 in) apart, so it needed no differential: the arrangement of the Fuldamobil.source 11source 6 Its engine was enlarged to what the magazine called a curious 204 cc. That put it over 200 cc, so a commuter could claim 50 pfennigs per kilometre against tax, as for a car, instead of the motorcyclist’s 22. The price stayed the same, and the magazine thought the second wheel would make the car less sensitive to rails and easier to start on slippery ground: a step forward without a drawback.source 11 The three-wheeled Type 153 came with it.source 2source 8
In the spring of 1957, in March by the Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum’s date, the engine was cut to 198 cc by narrowing the bore from 65 to 64 mm. The museum says this was for insurance, the club that the first enlargement had gone too far, German Wikipedia that the aim was to get back under 200 cc.source 2source 8source 6 The type numbers are muddled too. The club makes the 150 and 153 three-wheelers and the 154 the four-wheeler, and the magazine confirms the 154; German Wikipedia’s table labels them differently, and we follow the club.source 8source 11source 6 Britain and Austria kept to three wheels, which paid less tax, and in Austria could be driven on a motorcycle licence (see three-wheelers).source 6 In 1957, 68 per cent of the cars built went abroad.source 12
Flown in by Dakota
Britain was the big market. Noble Motors of Piccadilly began importing in July 1956, at £398 15s 0d with purchase tax, when the cheapest Ford, the Popular, cost £443 17s 0d. After Suez brought petrol rationing and a 30 per cent rise in the price of petrol, five cars a day came from Hanover to Croydon aboard a Dakota, and from February 1957 consignments of 60 arrived through Rotterdam every ten to twelve days, until that summer.source 8 York Noble, through whom RM says half the cars reached England, later built a small car of his own, the Nobel 200.source 13
Sold to Ireland
The Weiner museum says that the factory made about 50 cars a day and still lost DM 400–500 on each, a claim no other source makes.source 2 Ernst Heinkel turned 70 on 24 January 1958 and died within days.source 14source 2 In March the magazine reported that the Kabine was no longer built in Germany: the rights had been sold to Dundalk Engineering in Ireland, and Heinkel would go on supplying the engines.source 15
Die Tatsache, daß eine Firma, die nicht davon leben muß, aus dem Kleinwagenbau aussteigt, sollte zu denken geben.
The club records the last 174 cc cars in February 1958 and the last 198 cc cars that June.source 8 The Weiner museum puts the sale down to Heinkel’s death, the return to building aircraft and the need for space for the scooter and engine work; the death was one reason among several.source 2 Dundalk made it as the Heinkel-I from about October 1958 to early 1961, and Trojan then made it in Croydon as the Trojan 200 until 1964 or 1965 (see built under licence). A third licence went to Argentina.source 8source 9
