Hungarian microcars

Hungarian Wikipedia, German Wikipedia and Pál Négyesi all tell it the same way: in the early 1950s Comecon barred Hungary from making passenger cars, so its planners looked for a new class of vehicle between the motorcycle and the car, the törpeautó.source 1source 2source 3 The archival account on magyarjarmu.hu never mentions a ban. It describes ministries pursuing a microcar, and a Western licence, until 1957.source 4 Hungary’s planners believed, or were told, that cars were off limits; whether a formal ban stood behind it is not settled. When the programme began is disputed too: 1952 or 1953 by some accounts, about 1955 by the archival one.source 3source 5source 1source 4 Six makers tried; the four that left the most record have sections of their own below.

Endre Surányi, from 1946

The first was Endre Surányi (1913–⁠1996), a motor technician and inventor who became a motoring writer, nicknamed “Rákosi’s garage master”. He built a dwarf car with a 50 cc engine in 1946, then one of 125 cc that the Communist leader Ernő Gerő is supposed to have tried, then one of 250 cc. The boat-engine maker MITÉSZ planned to build them, but none went into series.source 6 Surányi went on to write for Autó-Motor, Autósélet, Népszabadság and Magyar Hírlap, and to publish 16 technical books and four collections of anecdotes.source 6

The dwarf-car programme, from the early 1950s

The Ministry of Metallurgy and Machine Industry gave the work to the Székesfehérvár Engine Repair Company, a former aircraft-repair works whose staff were skilled with aluminium (see aircraft makers). The team included the aircraft designers Pál Kerekes and Ernő Rubik Sr., father of the inventor of the Rubik’s Cube, and Géza Bengyel of the Danuvia motorcycle works.source 4source 3source 1 Other people’s prototypes were collected at Székesfehérvár too: Debrecen’s Úttörő of 1954, below, and the Fecske.source 4source 3

Jenő Markhót Jr.’s Fecske, about 1955

The Fecske, the Swallow, was a half-finished car built at an industrial school in Dunakeszi to the idea of Jenő Markhót Jr., chief engineer of the Commercial Quality Control Institute, with the sponsorship of the Ministry of Domestic Trade. It too went to Székesfehérvár.source 4

1956: a parade, a verdict and a revolution

By early 1956 the works had two aluminium-bodied prototypes of its own, the Alba Regia and the Balaton.source 4source 3 On 1 May 1956 they paraded through Székesfehérvár with the Úttörő and an Isetta.source 4source 3

The Research Institute of Automobile Transport, ATUKI, tested them against a Goggomobil, whose 247 cc twin gave 14 bhp (10 kW). They could not match it, and the institute advised either building the Goggomobil under licence or developing the Alba Regia.source 4source 3 The minister, János Csergő, asked the Rákosi Mátyás Works, makers of the Pannonia motorcycle, for its view.source 4

Az a véleményünk, hogy a végleges típus kialakításához teljesen új konstrukciót kell kidolgozni. A mintapéldányoknál ugyanis a nagy személyautók konstrukcióját másolták le kisebbített méretben, és ez még nem alkalmas a mi viszonyaink között a sorozatgyártás megszervezésére.

In August the ministry, still not satisfied, launched a design competition, which drew 261 entries.source 4source 1 In September the first Messerschmitt Kabinenroller arrived in Hungary. Its owner, László Urbach, got a press-and-forging works at Budaörs to prepare for building it under licence.source 4 Then came the revolution of October and November 1956. József Horváth and József Zappel, the leaders of the Alba Regia and Balaton teams, had led local forces at Székesfehérvár, and both left Hungary, at the end of 1956 or early in 1957 by different accounts; Horváth died in Switzerland in 1990. ATUKI’s Goggomobil was damaged in the fighting, and later destroyed.source 1source 3

Early in 1957 the competition’s result was announced, with no first prize.source 4 In May a ministerial meeting set the line.

Elsősorban magyar szellemi termékre támaszkodó járművet kell kialakítani. A Nyugat-Német Messerschmitt vagy egyéb nyugati érdekeltségű licenc vásárlása nem kívánatos, bár az nem teljesen elvetendő.

The plan for small road vehicles in 1958–⁠60, drawn up that November, listed scooters, motorcycles and sidecars, and no microcars.source 4 The Székesfehérvár works made one more all-aluminium microcar late in 1957, then turned to buses, and in 1963 became part of Ikarus. Trabants and Wartburgs from East Germany met the demand instead.source 3

János Schadek (1903–⁠1991) was the engineer and technical director of his family’s Neubauer wire and fencing works in Debrecen, and later chief engineer of the nationalised Lakatos és Vasöntő Vállalat, a locksmith and iron-foundry company. In 1934 he and his brother Zoltán had shown a three-wheeler at the Debrecen industrial fair, a two-seater with a 200 cc two-stroke, 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in) in length, for 1,500 pengő; Négyesi dates it to 1930.source 7source 3

The Úttörő, the Pioneer, followed in 1954. Schadek built it with two locksmiths who had repaired aircraft, János Puskás and István Schwanner, with the sponsorship of the Ministry of Light Industry. It had a Csepel 250 cc motorcycle engine on the rear axle, started by a kick-start, a motorcycle gearbox and wheelbarrow wheels. Its steering column was at first joined straight to the front axle, which made it crude and very sensitive, and rack and pinion came later; it was credited with 80 km/h (50 mph).source 4source 3source 7 ATUKI, under László Muzsnay, tested it in May 1955 and proposed changes. Schadek lost interest, and the car went to Székesfehérvár.source 4source 3 It was shown at the Budapest Industrial Fair and photographed in the city’s traffic, rode in the May Day parade of 1956, and was later scrapped.source 4source 3

József Horváth began the Alba Regia at home, in Sárpentele, and brought the drawings to the Székesfehérvár works, where his team built it. Its name is the Roman name of Székesfehérvár.source 4source 3source 5 It had an aluminium body, conventional doors and 2 + 2 seats. A Pannonia 250 cc engine of about 8 hp (6 kW) sat at the back, with a gearbox derived from the Isetta’s, aircraft tail-wheels and suspension from Bengyel’s motorcycles. Reverse was borrowed from the Messerschmitt: you stopped, pressed a button and started the two-stroke backwards, with the help of an added flywheel.source 4source 3 English Wikipedia dates the project to 1952 or 1953.source 5 After the programme ended it lay about the works with the Balaton. In 1960 their owners visited a designer for spare parts, and no trace of either car has been found since.source 1source 4source 3

The Balaton was named after the lake.source 3 Its team was led by the aircraft engineer József Zappel, and it shared most of its mechanical parts with the Alba Regia, including the Pannonia 250 cc engine of 8 bhp (6 kW).source 2source 4source 8 Its suspension was Ernő Rubik Sr.’s work: rubber blocks, like the landing gear of his gliders.source 4source 3source 8 It had two seats, and a roof and door made in one piece that slid back on a handle, like an aircraft canopy.source 4source 3source 8 Hungarian Wikipedia says the team also studied a Kabinenroller and a Goggomobil, and that the 250 cc Goggomobil became the yardstick because the Csepel engine planned for the cars was also of 250 cc.source 1 An MTI photograph of the Balaton and the Alba Regia is in the Hungarian National Archive; no trace of the car has been found since 1960.source 2source 4

Thirty years on, Hódgép, a maker of farm machinery and trailers at Hódmezővásárhely, looked for new products as its Comecon markets shrank, and found one in France. The Puli was built to the French rules for licence-free cars: no more than 350 kg and 4 kW (5.5 hp). The first prototypes were built in 1987, and English Wikipedia dates the car to 1986; exports went through Technoimpex.source 9source 10

It was 2,460 mm (97 in) long, with a glass-fibre body from the Balatonfüred shipyard, a 273 cc Yanmar diesel and later a Lombardini single, a seat of the kind fitted in Ikarus buses and Ikarus tail-lamps.source 10source 9 An electric version had a 7.4 kW (10 hp) motor and ten 6 V batteries, for 65 km/h (40 mph) and about 100 km (62 miles) of range; in 1991 it was called the Puli Pinguin 4. There were closed, open and goods versions.source 9source 10 The Budapest funeral service ran 34 electric Pulis at its peak, and others worked in a zoo and in hospitals. On 7 July 1991 the mayor, Gábor Demszky, was photographed climbing out of a prototype.source 9

Privatised in 1991 as Puli Kft., the firm aimed at Germany and Switzerland with little success. A foreign order for several hundred electric cars was cancelled when the deliveries ran late, the maker was wound up in 1996 and its successor stopped in 1998. Recollections put production at about 400 diesels, mostly exported, and perhaps 150 electrics; no firm figure has been found.source 9 Autónavigátor, looking back in 2014, called it a twisted little cage leaning forward on its wheels, with frightening gaps between the panels.source 9 In 2006 Gábor Prokop revived the name; he holds the Puli trade mark.source 10

None of the 1950s cars is known to survive. The Úttörő was scrapped, and the Alba Regia and Balaton have not been seen since 1960.source 4source 3 Very few Pulis remain; in 2014 Autónavigátor found one that still ran.source 9 The 1950s cars live on in the archive photographs held by the Hungarian Museum of Science, Technology and Transport.source 4