Hungary’s Charming Microcars – And Their Secret Sauce: The Motorcycle Engine!
By Maureen Condon
Hungary’s Microcars on Parade
If you love cars and you like history, I’ve got a treasure for you!
It’s a tale of a country determined to manufacture its own cars, despite being occupied by an aggressor with other ideas.
It’s a photo essay about the Hungarian government of the early 20th Century and its auto designers bucking the Soviet Union’s rules and regulations and building their own unique vehicles: Microcars – tiny cars with motorcycle engines!
Here’s an excerpt from the story:
“Caving to government pressure, the Soviet Union’s slave countries set up an economical alliance in 1949. This new organisation, called COMECON, decided which country had the right to manufacture certain types of goods (from boats to airplanes, from mills to refrigerators, and so on). Hungary was the only country not allowed to produce passenger cars. … In the early 1950s, the Hungarian government tried to circumvent the rules and came up with the idea of producing a “microcar”—a vehicle that sits between a normal family car and a motorcycle. The idea was not new: in Western Europe, bubble cars like the Iso Isetta and the Messerschmitt Kabinroller were becoming fashionable.”
“The Hungarian project laid out the criteria for the microcar: a closed, four-wheeled vehicle, powered by a motorcycle engine, capable of transporting two adults, two children, and some luggage.”
This was a tall order for a small car!
They used what they could get their hands on:
Excerpt:
“In the meantime, an Italian Isetta arrived for inspection, followed by a Messerschmitt Kabinroller.”
Messerschmitt Kabinroller
“The thorough study of the two foreign cars, along with their own ideas, led to two unusual microcars in 1955: Horváth’s Alba Regia—named after Székesfehérvár’s designation in Ancient Rome—and Zappel’s Balaton, named after Hungary’s best-known lake….
Both cars had aluminum bodies, airplane tail wheels, and 250-cc Pannonia motorbike engines.”
The Balaton
These designers really pulled it off.
Microcar by Endre Suranyi
Here’s another excerpt:
“One of the most colorful figures of the era was Endre Surányi, a motorbike racer in the ‘40s and ‘50s, who went on to become a driver for Communist party leaders. In 1946, he completed his first microcar, a 50-cc two-seater, a “motorized shoe”. It was rather underpowered, so he quickly created another, bigger model, powered by a 125-cc Fichtel & Sachs engine. The car, which had a length of 2.3 meters (7.5′), weighed only 86 kg (190 lb). The engine was placed right into the rear axle . No one believed it would work, but it did, although the ride was a bit shaky. A few Communist Party leaders took the car for a spin, but nothing came of it.”
“The Pajtás (“Buddy”)—with its quirky shape was enough to attract attention from Popular Mechanics, which featured the car in 1960.”
The Pajtas (Buddy)
To read more about this intriguing history, visit:
http://jalopnik.com/5563048/the-weirdly-awesome-microcars-of-hungary?skyline=true&s=i