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In the period immediately after the Second World War, many talented people wanted to “have a go” at producing their own vehicle. One such person was a Michael Hoffmann, a shop foreman from Munich who designed and built this extraordinary vehicle of mostly hardware store and junkyard parts between 1949 and 1951. The tiny engine, […]

  The Passport multi-purpose vehicle seen here was the third and last model produced by the short-lived French manufacturer Hobbycar. Perhaps manufacturer is the wrong term, as even the factory itself liked to remind its customers that nothing was manufactured at the plant – “it simply assembled many components from a multitude of suppliers”. At

  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. Despite its engine being smaller, the Heinkel was just as fast as the BMW

H.R. Harris was a steam engineer employed by the city of Detroit.  Mr. Harris designed and operated steam-powered electric generating plants.  In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Harris was disappointed because of the failures of both the Stanley Steamer and Doble steam cars.  Harris hoped that if he built a unique and stylish steam

The brainchild of Alex Tremulis, famous stylist and Automobile Hall of Fame inductee, and Thomas Summers, a gyroscope expert, the Gyro-X is a two-wheeled, gyroscopically-stabilized prototype vehicle constructed in 1967. Proposed as a possible solution for future transportation, the two-wheeled vehicle provided many thought-provoking ideas for revolutionizing transportation.        Why only two wheels?

  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. The relatively large wheels and leaf spring suspension

  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. Established in 1928, Goliath was known as a builder of utilitarian three-wheeled trucks and small cars, but

While a young man, Henry Ford took a job with the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit, Michigan.  While serving as Edison’s chief engineer, Ford began building his first car.  Like other car makers of his day, he had no ready-made components with which to work.  For the engine, he modified plans found in American Machinist

In 2003 Fiat decided it was going to re-introduce the popular Fiat 500 that had ended production in 1975.  It took years of planning and development to get the new Fiat 500 into production in 2007.  An unprecedented 250,000 fans attended the reveal party in Turin, produced by the director of the 2006 Winter Olympics.