Q770 - solved - Kieft 650

[Quiller]

What's the make and model designation of this car?

[Quiller]

x=pert

[gilescooperuk]

VW Beetle based?

[Quiller]

VW Beetle based?

No VW connection...

[shamrock]

2 seater built by John Cooper

[HiRich]

Not Cooper, but Kieft.
It was announced in 1952 but (although styled on the 1951/2 Formula III cars) it used the chassis from one of the 1950 production Formula III cars (known as either C50s or Mk 1s). It used a BSA 650cc engine. Like the C50, it would run double wishbones all round, with Metalastik bushes as the springing medium.
Other Formula III manufacturers were skirting around motorcycle-engined road & sports cars (H-prod to Americans and popular across Europe with the likes of DB). Cooper had already produced the Cooper-Triumph T4 prototype (which survives and occasionally still competes) and Iota had demonstrated the P2 roadcar (which survives, but I don't believe is running).
It's not clear how serious Cyril Kieft was, and the car seems not to have been registered for the road. It is believed to have been either scrapped or converted back to Formula III spec. Apart from the ridiculous mudguards, she's rather cute, and I wouldn't mind building a replica - if only we could turn up a C50 chassis.

[Quiller]

Correct! And it's a pleasure to award you your first AP point.
I have heard one report that this car was exported to Germany as a road car but there's no hard evidence.
I agree it would be great to see a replica...

[Quiller]

Here's a question for Autopuzzlers: could this be the world's first commercially available mid-engined car?
1952...

[D-type]

Here's a question for Autopuzzlers: could this be the world's first commercially available mid-engined car?
1952...

Presumably VW, Porsche, and Mercedes 170H were all rear-engined, ie the engine centre of gravity behind the rear axle.
Was the Tatra rear-engined or mid-engined?
But in the early days of motoring when  the motor car was evolving rapidly some of the early cars had mid-engines.  The curved dash Oldsmobile comes to mind.  If not the first, it was certainly one of the first commercially available mid-engined cars.  Come to think of it, didn't the first Benz also have a mid-engine?

[Wendax]

The Benz Patent-Motorwagen's engine was placed on top of the axle, so I wouldn't call it a mid-engined car. But Daimler's Motorkutsche from 1886 had a mid-engine layout.