The story
History
The man behind it never worked for Messerschmitt. Fritz Fend was an aeronautical engineer who worked during the war at the Rechlin test centre, some of it on the Me 262 programme, and the Messerschmitt Owners’ Club is firm that he “was never employed by Messerschmitt then or later”.source 1 After the war he built the Fend Flitzer, an invalid carriage with three wheels, and in January 1952 he took his ideas to Messerschmitt’s idle works at Regensburg. Willy Messerschmitt would build only a two-seater. The result, the Messerschmitt KR175, went into production early in 1953, built under licence from Fend.source 2source 3source 1 It is the case that best fits the story that the aircraft makers built cars because they were not allowed to build aircraft, and even here the design was not the aircraft firm’s.
The KR200 kept the KR175’s frame and changed much of the rest. The search for a replacement for the 175 cc engine began in January 1954, by the Weiner museum’s account; the specification was being discussed in June, and production drawings were ready in September. A pre-production car existed that winter, still in the KR175’s yellow-ochre primer, and the factory gave it to the American circus entertainer Vic Hyde for publicity. He fitted it to carry his musical instruments and toured Europe and America in it.source 3source 4 On 5 February 1955 auto motor und sport announced the KR 200 for delivery at the end of March. It kept the frame and the wheelbase, but the front track grew from 920 mm (36 in) to 1,080 mm (43 in), there were hydraulic dampers and softer springing, a curved “panorama” windscreen, and a fan-cooled 200 cc Sachs engine, for a claimed 100 km/h (62 mph). It cost DM 2,550, and the Export model DM 150 more; the KR175 carried on beside it at DM 2,125.source 5 It also kept the KR175’s three-wheeler layout: a pair of steered wheels in front, a single driven wheel behind.source 2source 6
The first roof did not last. The earliest KR200s had a transparent Rhenalon top that could be rolled up and stowed above the engine in fine weather. Sun and heat made it brittle, so it was recalled and replaced with Plexiglas, and brochures already printed were blacked out rather than pulped.source 2 The 1955 road test still describes a roof of flexible material that could be taken off.source 6
A cockpit for two
It is less a car than a fuselage. The driver sits in front and steers with a bar that acts straight on the track rods, with no steering box between; the passenger sits behind, on a bench about 65 cm (26 in) wide that could also take a small child. To get in, the driver’s seat slides back and lifts in one movement, so that even disabled drivers could manage it.source 6 Cars were also adapted one by one, with hand controls, for amputees and other disabled drivers; Fend said that as long as a driver still had a head, a car could be adapted for them.source 7source 1 The engine sits behind the passenger, in front of the single rear wheel, and drives it through a shaft and an enclosed chain in an oil bath.source 2source 6 The whole car is 2,820 mm (111 in) long and weighs 230 kg (507 lb) with a full tank.source 6
Dr Paul Simsa tested a Standard model for auto motor und sport in October 1955. His car had covered more than 9,000 hard everyday kilometres (5,600 miles), and the only wear he could find was in the track-rod joints; it did not drum or rattle, and it stayed dry in steady rain. The brochure’s 100 km/h appeared only on the speedometer, but it reached 91 km/h (57 mph) with one aboard and 84 km/h (52 mph) with two. Up to 65 km/h (40 mph) anyone could drive it, he wrote; beyond that it asked for commitment, and then it was real fun. The screen misted quickly in the rain, its top rail sat uncomfortably close to the driver’s head, and the engine noise of the Standard model only strengthened the feeling of sitting in an aeroplane.source 6
„… und man ist versucht, von einem ‚Düsenjäger des kleinen Mannes‘ zu sprechen.“
He defended the direct steering, which the magazine’s 1954 test of the KR175 had counted as a fault. A three-wheeler’s single rear wheel can step sideways, and the slide must be caught at once; the direct bar, which he found extraordinarily sensitive, let the driver do it by instinct.source 6
„Wendigkeit, geringer Raumbedarf im Verkehr, sehr gute Sicht und ausgezeichnetes Temperament räumen dem Kabinenroller auch weiterhin einen ganz besonderen Platz unter den Mobilen ein.“
Backwards, four ways
There is no reverse gear. To back up, the driver stops the two-stroke, pushes the ignition key further in and turns it, and the engine starts running the other way; all four forward gears then work in reverse.source 2source 8source 6 In theory the KR200 is as fast backwards as forwards. A mechanical reverse was available at extra cost, according to German Wikipedia.source 2 Simsa added a practical warning: change down before you stop, or you will not be in first to move off.source 6
Messerschmitt lets go
1955 was the best year any Kabinenroller, or cabin scooter, ever had: almost 12,000 KR200s were sold, and in August a streamlined single-seater set a string of records at Hockenheim.source 2source 8source 9 Then West Germany joined NATO, Messerschmitt was allowed to build aircraft again, and it lost interest in the cars.source 2source 8source 3 The market had turned too. In the first half of 1956 German registrations counted only 2,084 Kabinenroller, KR175s and KR200s together, against 15,043 BMW Isettas and 12,596 Goggomobils.source 10 That spring Willy Messerschmitt promised that the cars would go on.
„Es war von jeher mein fester Entschluss, neben dem Flugzeugbau auch Fahrzeuge zu entwickeln. So ist das Werk Regensburg ausschließlich für den Fahrzeugbau eingerichtet worden und wird auch in Zukunft diesem allein vorbehalten bleiben.“
At the IFMA show in Frankfurt that October the firm showed a de Luxe KR200 with a gold folding top and two open “Me 201” roadsters at DM 1,998, the first Kabinenroller under DM 2,000. On 29 November 1956 the dealers were told that production would stop. The line stood still for two months, and the workers were laid off.source 10 Who then owned the buildings is still disputed: the Weiner museum says the Bavarian state, English Wikipedia says Fend.source 11source 8
FMR, 1957–64
On 17 January 1957 Friedrich Goy, director of Regensburger Stahl- und Metallbau (RSM), announced that a new company, Fahrzeug- und Maschinenbau GmbH Regensburg, would restart production under Fend and Valentin Knott, a supplier of brakes and hubs who in time bought out all of Fend’s shares.source 10source 2source 8 Because Messerschmitt now had aircraft work again, its name could not go into the type name of FMR’s new four-wheeler, which became the FMR Tg500; the three-wheelers kept their Messerschmitt badges.source 2
FMR widened the range. The open KR201 Roadster went on sale in July 1957 at DM 2,200, in Signal Red or white with imitation-snakeskin trim, and a folding hood and side screens cost DM 195 extra; the Kabrio-Limousine, with a fabric top on three hoops, followed in 1958, and then the Sport, which had no canopy at all, only a small aircraft-style screen, so that the driver climbed in over the top.source 10source 11source 2source 8source 7 From 1958 there was also a service car. A mechanic drove it to a customer, fixed a tow bar between the customer’s bumper and a coupling on the Messerschmitt’s left brake back-plate, and drove the customer’s car to the workshop with the Kabinenroller following behind, empty, steering itself.source 2 About 12 were built.source 8
Britain became FMR’s largest export market. The cars arrived without wheels and batteries to avoid purchase tax on imported vehicles, and the petrol rationing that followed the Suez crisis in 1956–57 helped demand.source 10 Germany’s Wirtschaftswunder ended it. Basic economy transport was no longer wanted, the Mini took the British market, output was heavily cut in 1962, and production stopped in 1964.source 8 Fend had left FMR in late 1963. He set up a development institute and later designed the Fend 2000, once again a tandem; it was finished and registered for the road only after his death in Regensburg on 22 November 2000.source 1source 2
