Cars

Considering that Borgward, parent company of Goliath-Werke, was a pretty small player on the global automotive scene, the Goliath GP900e was quite an influential automobile, setting in place much of the design vocabulary seen to this day.

An unconventional car throughout, this is a car constructed by a Frenchman, Monsieur Grataloup, for his own personal use.  The small motorcycle engine is placed next to the driver so that the majority of the weight is in the center of the car to improve handling.

Ben Gregory was from Kansas City, Missouri, and he believed that front-wheel drive was the preferred method of propelling a car. The roadster you see here is the only one he made, and he also managed to make a couple of sedans.

This German company was producing cars as early as the 1920s but they struggled financially through that decade. In 1931, Hanomag had 25% of the small-car market in Germany, trailed by DKW (19%) and BMW (17%).

The Hansa Automobile Gesellschaft was founded in 1905 to build light cars. Light cars were comparatively rare in Germany at the time. By 1913, the company was building small to medium-sized cars as well as large, luxurious cars.

Heinkel, like fellow airplane maker Messerschmitt, was prohibited from making aircraft after WWII. In 1953 Heinkel began building a high end 4-stroke scooter called the Tourist.  Scooter sales soon began to slow, and in 1956 Heinkel began building bubble cars.

In early 1940, Rudy Stoessel, Paul Erdos, and Burt Chalmers opened a small body shop in Hollywood called Coachcraft, Ltd., and began building custom bodies for movie stars and wealthy locals.