AutoPuzzles - The Internet's Museum of Rare Cars!
AutoPuzzles Today => Features, Stories and Photos => Topic started by: Wendax on March 10, 2016, 01:43:36 PM
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As you might have noticed over the years, one of my main interests in old cars belongs to the very rare ones. Especially the home built cars of the late 1940s and early 1950s caught my attention. Unfortunately there is hardly any information available anymore. So they can't be used as puzzles, if you don't want them to end up as eternal guests in the Black Hole. In the last years I gathered some of them in my Enigma Variations puzzles, even though I was quite sure most of them will remain a mystery. Unhappy with that situation I want to try a new approach to present some of these jewels to you: the Eigenbau of the Month. I chose that word, because it is one of the rare situations where a German word seems to have found its way into this community and, furthermore, most of the cars presented here will be from Germany or Austria. I will supply any information I have about the pictured cars, so don't ask for more. But feel free to add information you might have about them. I hope you will enjoy this feature.
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This sounds fantastic!!! Thanks very much for coming up with it and I really look forward to reading the material.
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Eigenbau of the Month: March 2016
Two happy girls standing by resp. sitting on a sports car that - on first impression - looks like a Veritas. Its builder surely must have been influenced by the Veritas Nürburgring, as you can see by comparing this Eigenbau to the Veritas drawing below. There are some differences though where the craftsmanship of a single person meets his limits compared to a professional workshop. But it must have been a well-skilled panelbeater who created this piece of metalwork and fitted it on a (probably) prewar BMW chassis. And by looking at the license plate you might notice that this car was created in Eastern Germany, in the Bezirk Dresden, in the town of Tharandt, to be precise. At least that was the (only) information that came with the picture. It must have been a dream car in socialist Eastern Germany back then.
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Eigenbau of the month: April 2016
Last month I started this feature with an East German sports car that owed much of its appearance to the postwar dream car Veritas. This month continues where we stopped last. This time I am delighted to present you a West German sports car registered in Frankfurt am Main. You might have guessed it: another wannabe Veritas. A long hood, a front end like a Veritas Scorpion, two seats and a convertible roof. Its builder knew what he was doing and he did it quite well. The track is a bit small for the body, resulting in the need of small wheelarches. But at first sight I wasn't sure it was not a Veritas. It must have been used for quite some years, as this kind of license plate was not offered before 1956. Too bad, no other pictures of this nice car are known. For comparison reasons I've added a picture of the real Veritas Scorpion Cabriolet.
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Eigenbau of the month: May 2016
This month I want to continue the sports car theme. The picture is a contribution from Pal. Thanks for that!
The car presented here was shown in a 1949 magazine and comes from Stuttgart, Germany. Undoubtedly it is based on a Volkswagen chassis. Its low rounded body makes it look even more like a beetle than the Beetle does. Some chrome bars at the front serve as a substitution for the missing grille, a single high beam light corresponds with the horn on the other side. The rear ends of the front wings seem to be part of the doors, so these must have been quite heavy and voluminous. The lack of a fabric hood, the low windshield and the rear wheel spats create a general impression which remind me of the Vollmer-VW by Hebmüller, of which I added a picture below.
October 2020: Two more views of the Stuttgart Eigenbau added.
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Eigenbau of the month: June 2016
This month's Eigenbau was also built onto a VW chassis. That was rather popular, because quite a few Kübelwagen survived the Second World War, but they were not the ideal everyday car. Even more I've read that at some time Kübelwagen owners in the Eastern part of Germany were forced to rebody these cars for political reasons. While some were turned into lookalike Porsches or lookalike VW buses or racecars, here is something special: a homebuilt camping car. The pictures were made in Zwickau, which corresponds to the car's license plate TV 52-65 (T standing for Bezirk Karl-Marx-Stadt). Even some pictures made during the construction in July 1951 survived.
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Eigenbau of the month: July 2016
This time the Eigenbau of the month is a car already puzzled here at AP (http://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2015-44/solved-neh-4353-german-eigenbau-with-dkw-engine-from-1953). But when it has been puzzled a few months ago, it was just a nameless homebuilt microcar. Now a letter to the editor in a German veteran car magazine has shed some more light on this little vehicle. In 1952, the German automotive engineer Heinrich Stannebein started building this cute little car, powered by a 200 cc DKW engine of 5.5 hp. In 1953, the car has been road registered as the Stannebein 200. Mr. Stannebein dreamed of a series production and had talks with several potential companies, even with Messerschmitt, but to no avail. Frustrated he soon sold his creation and kept his job as chief engineer at the Deutsche Orthopädische Werke Berlin (DOW), manufacturer of invalid carriages. The second owner was a Berlin garage owner and kept the Stannebein 200 for more than 60 years. Unfortunately it spent the last 25 years in a garden, before it reappeared up for sale at the end of last year. The new owner has started to restore it and is looking for some more information. Below two pictures from when the car was new:
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Eigenbau of the month: August 2016
Staying with the microcar theme, this month's eigenbau has the looks and finish of a production car. The bodywork was surely inspired by American car design, but miniaturized in a stylish way. All I know about it is that the picture was taken in Sweden in 1952. There have been less elegant microcars of similar layout that reached (small scale) production, like the Kroboth Allwetterroller pictured below. I know which one I'd prefer...
Update: It is the GMG built by Gullan and Martin Gagnefur. Another view of the car can be found here: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/professional-autopuzzles/grobs-2022-12-11/msg592219/#msg592219
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Eigenbau of the month: September 2016
At first sight this one doesn't look like an eigenbau, but seems to be a regular Mercedes-Benz of the 1950s known as the Ponton. But then again, doesn't it appear to be slightly narrower? Those bumpers don't look right, and the windshield wipers, and and and ...
In fact, it is an East German attempt to modernize a prewar Mercedes-Benz chassis. The picture was taken in Görlitz, nowadays the most eastern town in Germany. Below you can see a Mercedes-Benz 219 for comparison.
See https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg550078/#msg550078 for more pictures of this car.
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Great Idea! and made it better with the comparison to factory built cars.
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Eigenbau of the month: October 2016
This month I'm presenting a car some of you might know from Paul Simsa's book "Dies alles fuhr auf unseren Straßen", a source for many an eigenbau puzzle in the past. When I came across the pictures of this particular car again recently, I remembered another eigenbau puzzled here not too long ago, which certainly must be its successor. Both cars are not only based on VW Beetle chassis and have Stuttgart license plates, but share so many design details that I'm sure they were both built by the same (unknown) man. But see for yourself:
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Wow - those two are really interesting!
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Yes, they are so similar they could even be the same car, before and after he had a better idea...
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Eigenbau of the month: November 2016
This month's featured car - is it an eigenbau, a replica or a recreation? A bit of all, I think. It is a quite recent creation, built in 2002, but looking much older. And there is a reason for that, because its builder, Dr. Jürgen Messer, a retired veterinarian, wanted to bring back to life the only car ever built in his home town of Gettorf in Northern Germany. We had that original car before, the 1949 WUG: http://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2012-41/solved-wendax-450-wug-(werner-uttermohlen-gettorf)/msg194803/#msg194803
The WUG was built by Werner Utermöhlen, a toy manufacturer from Gettorf. His wooden toy cars may have served as a styling model for the WUG, as can be seen on the second picture, showing a surviving Utermöhlen toy. Only two WUGs were ever built. Recently I came across some rare pictures of both cars, showing the black and white car already featured in the former puzzle, and the slightly differing dark car in the second last picture. Both cars were powered by a single-cylinder ILO 250 cc two-stroke engine. The WUG's bodywork was made of wood. The complete car weighed only 175 kg. The top speed was 60 km/h and 4.5 litres of gasoline brought you 100 km far.
The last picture shows a handbuilt model of the WUG, so it finally ended where its design started. :)
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Eventually an Eigenbau ebook is not a far-fetched idea
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Thank you very much for the WUG story - amazing photos...
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Eigenbau of the month: December 2016
This month's featured eigenbau could have been posted in the Cars and Dogs thread as well. I don't have any information about this car at all, not even a front view. It was registered in Celle, Lower Saxony, a ducal residence town between Hamburg and Hanover. The picture must have been taken after 1956. The car looks like it was based on a prewar chassis. So its days were probably almost over when the photo was taken. The bodywork reminds me of a mixture between a Kleinschnittger and the Wendax Aero.
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Eigenbau of the month: January 2017
To be precise, we have more than one eigenbau featured this month. In the middle of the picture we see a ponton bodied coupe. I don't know the chassis it is based on, maybe a DKW. The license plate tells us that it was registered in East Berlin. The general appearance fits in the sports car design of the early Fifties, a little bit of Porsche, but with a large front grille, so we can rule out a VW chassis beneath that slick body. The front reminds me, for example, of the Autenrieth bodies on BMW 502 chassis (see picture below). Very interesting is the small visible part of the car on the left of the picture. It must be another eigenbau of which I haven't seen a full picture yet. So the hunt goes on. :D
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Apparently, according to British scientists, it's year 2017 now. Otherwise a great post again
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Thanks for that!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6N3o4TDYsI ;D
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Eigenbau of the month: February 2017
"I'd just love to have an Alfa Romeo sports car, and all I've got is this old VW chassis." May be those were the thoughts of the builder of this month's eigenbau. Going by the looks, the car must have been built in the late 1950s, early 1960s. The wheels tell us about the Volkswagen base. This roadster was registered in Niederösterreich, the Northeastern part of Austria. The lines are quite pleasing. The goal of having a low sports car body on a Beetle chassis was met. And the added Alfa Romeo-like front grille might have fooled some spectators. I recall that those fake grilles were seen sometimes on VW Karmann-Ghias.
November 2020: By looking through my Unknown files I came across a very small rear view of what should be this car, see below.
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Not a bad little effort!
He should have left the hubcaps off though...
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Suggestion: a book about Eigenbaus
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Great topic! :thumbsup:
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Eigenbau of the month: March 2017
Italy , the land of dreams for postwar Germans. Working hard to save some money for a vacation in Rimini, that was what the generation of my parents was longing for in the 1950s. How much more desirable it must have been for those in Eastern Germany. Perhaps an attempt to have at least an Italian looking car is this month's Eigenbau of the month from the Dresden district. I don't know anything about the chassis or the technical details, but we might assume that a prewar chassis of an Adler, Hanomag or something else served as base for this homebuilt car. And the goal was reached: there are more than just slight similarities to Fiat's modern 1400, as you can see when you compare the two pictures. The two-tone paintwork on its sides was up to date. It must have been a headturner back then.
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Congratulations Wendax on the first anniversary of sharing your fascinating Eigenbau vehicles with us every month. Bravo, and long may they continue... :)
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I totally agree,please keep,em coming! :)
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Eigenbau of the month: April 2017
A few days ago I came across a picture of a car that already has been part of one of my Enigma Variations puzzles of unknown cars. It even has been identified, so why should it be featured here as Eigenbau of the Month?
Having a close look at the newly unearthed picture you can see a name not mentioned here before. This microcar had been identified as the Müller & Schmidt-Mobil, homebuilt by Albert Hahne of Thale (http://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/the-black-hole/enigma-variations-(postwar-edition)/msg213975/#msg213975). But that name might be a nickname or a later invention. In fact its right name was Harzperle (Pearl of the Harz mountains), Thale being a small town in the northeastern part of the Harz.The car was built in 1950 by Albert Hahne and his father. The roadster body on the backbone chassis housed a 200 cc Framo engine of 3.5 hp, bought from a scrapyard in Eisenach. The car was only 1.6 m wide, but Albert Hahne and his wife Herta surely didn't mind, as you can see on the second picture below. Hahne even planned to show the car at the 1951 Leipzig spring fair, but that didn't happen, because Hahne was accused and jailed, having bought the wheels illegally in West Germany. Tragedy took its way, as Hahne's father felt guilty for this and committed suicide shortly after. Albert Hahne regained freedom and got his car back in 1952. Six years later, he left the GDR without permission together with his wife and his two daughters, but he had to leave the Harzperle behind. Hahne died in 1973, never seeing his car again. After the end of the GDR, the Harzperle went into ownership of the Hahne family again. Three years ago it was restored and one of Hahne's daughters was surprised with a ride in the Harzperle at her 70th birthday. Pictures of her sitting in the car together with her nephew can be seen here: https://www.kreiszeitung.de/lokales/diepholz/syke-ort44535/zeitreise-dreieinhalb-3416738.html. Quite a resemblance of her parents sitting in the Harzperle.
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This is a fantastic thread, thank you
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Eigenbau of the month: May 2017
A picture taken at some alpine frontier. As I can see French and Italian numberplates, perhaps at the French-Italian border. What really caught my eye are not the Citroen, Ford or Fiat, but the car moving into the picture at the right hand side. A pontoon body hiding the rear wheels - or is it just a single rear wheel? The louvers at the back are hints for a rear engine, perhaps it used a VW chassis? But are the front wheel caps really VW ones? The body seems to be well finished, hard to believe it is an eigenbau at all. But although the car doesn't look very old at the time the picture was taken, the driver's door is already hanging a bit too low. The door handle has left its horizontal position, too. Certainly an interesting car, maybe someone around here knows more about it? At first sight I was reminded of the Altona Condor, but that one has a much more angular bodywork, as can be seen on grob's picture below.
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Eigenbau of the month: June 2017
This month I will present you a rather unusual vehicle. Three wheels like a small van, but only a small compartment behind the rear axle to carry goods. A low front with the engine behind the front wheel which leaves the space for the passenger's bench just in front of the rear axle. The high-rising windshield makes it obvious, how low the front is. How would you call the body style? Well, the front half is of sheet metal, the rear mainly made of wood. I guess the French would name it a Normande. The two pictures don't reveal whether the elderly owners could steer this vehicle by handlebar or steering wheel. The license plate tells us that it comes from Niederösterreich, the Norteastern part of Austria. The number belongs to the district of Waidhofen an der Thaya, close to the Czech border.
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Eigenbau of the month: July 2017
He reached his goal. The Continental tire banner in the back says it all: Ziel = finish. This little sports car seems to be a rebodied VW, probably a Kübelwagen chassis which survived the war. The body follows the long-and-low fashion of the early postwar years with its sloping back. The overall appearance, as with many VW-based sportscars of the 50s, reminds me of the contemporary Porsches. In this case, the 540 America Roadster comes to mind, even though that one has doors, which the featured car seems to lack. This month's eigenbau was registered in Hamburg, the license plate dates from before 1956. Obviously, the driver had his doubts about the cars rigidity. How else can you explain the straps around the car's body on the heighth of the axles?
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Concerning the Karmann Ghia with the Alfa grille you have mentioned above, I am sure it was a regular aftermarket part:
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Eigenbau of the month: August 2017
Not a completely self built car this time, but a nice homemade modification. A prewar Tempo E 200 van turned into a stylish coupe when it wasn't needed as a daily workhorse anymore. Do I detect a styling similarity to the Riva speedboats at the back? ;) The proud owners from Hessia had a vehicle looking like a passenger car, that was the important thing. There even was a VW rear bumper attached to it. I think you would get much more attention at a veteran car meet nowadays than with many other cars.
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Supercool
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Eigenbau of the month: September 2017
This time I may introduce to you a neat little sportscar. At first sight one might think of a Porsche Speedster, but probably it isn't even based on a Volkswagen chassis, as one can see a little bit of a radiator frame up front. I like these homemade Brooklands-like windscreens. The odd shape of the door cutout may find its reason in avoiding to put hinges in the curved upper part of the door. The lady drivers (!) seem to enjoy this little beauty very much, and I'm sure the spectating boys would love to take a ride. All I know about this sports car is that the picture is supposed to have been taken in Lünen, a city at the Northern border of the Ruhr district.
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Eigenbau of the month: October 2017
When we talk about German eigenbau cars, we have to talk about the Dixi resp. BMW 3/15 PS. It was the German licence built version of the Austin Seven, very successful and not requisitioned by the German army during WW2. So there were quite some left after the war, but the chassis must have been more solid than the bodywork. At least when you take into account, how many privately built bodies have been created on this chassis, not to talk about the famous Ihle bodies already done in the early years of the Dixi's existence. This month's eigenbau is a saloon body following the BMW lines of the late 30s, but probably done after the war. The short wheelbase ruins the proportions a bit, the radiator grille is a mixture of BMW and DKW Sonderklasse. The license plate is East German, from the Gera district in Thuringia.
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:thumbsup:
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Eigenbau of the month: November 2017
This month not another Dixi-based Eigenbau as planned, but a quite professional looking convertible from the 1950's. I don't know anything about its underpinnings, most probably prewar, perhaps a larger Hanomag judging by the wheels. The bodywork surely was inspired by contemporary American cars or its European stylemates like Opel Olympia Rekord or Borgward Hansa 1500, where the rearlights come from. The split windscreen and the missing trunk lid as well as the high pile formed by the opened hood tell of the problems building a one-off. Interestingly it seems to have window rails on some pictures, but not on all of them. This convertible surely was the closest you could get to a personal dream car back in those days in Germany. The car was registered in North Rhine-Westphalia sometime between 1950 and 1956.
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Eigenbau of the month: December 2017
This month's car is not a total mystery like some other cars featured here before. It appeared for sale some days ago, but the ad has already disappeared again. So instead of creating an unsolvable puzzle I decided to present it as an Eigenbau of the Month. It was built by W. Schütze of Halle/Saale in Saxony-Anhalt in 1950. Powered by a 198 cc DKW engine of 5.5 hp, it weighed 280 kg and was allowed to carry another 150 kg, which makes it officially a two-seater. You can still see the remains of its GDR number plate KH 22-72 (?) for Halle district. Looking similar to other contemporary microcars like a Rovin, for example, it surely was built by someone familiar with coachbuilding. Good to see this nice car has survived in some shed or garage and hopefully it will appear in better shape some day again.
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I have been absent from this wonderful forum for too long. Have som catching up to do. I just want to say that I really enjoy the Eigenbau thread. This stuff is right up my alley. The Swedish three wheeler has been a mystery for me as well for some time. And the great VW Camper – wow! Thank you for showing this amazing stuff!
Best Regards
Claes Johansson, Stockholm
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Do stick around.
It just gets better and better all the time!
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Eigenbau of the month: January 2018
Happy New Year to all of you. This year starts with a prewar Eigenbau, a threewheeler from the southern part of the Donaukreis in Württemberg around Ulm. The picture was sent by some Dolf on Christmas 1927 with the caption that it shows a gentleman driver looking for help. The general lines of the car follow other three-wheeled cars like the Mops.
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Eigenbau of the month: February 2018
As the carnival season in Germany is about to reach its peak within the next days, I will present you a more humorous approach to the Eigenbau theme this month. According to the "number plate" it is a 90 years old creation from Thuringia with interesting detail solutions. Have fun and I'll be back with a more serious car next month!
:joker: :joker: :joker:
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Eigenbau of the month: March 2018
Starting into the new classic car season with some engine trouble, this car has been redesigned to look more modern than it really was. The front resembles the coffin noses of the Cord 812 or the 1939 Opel Kapitän. The car itself might be a DKW, but that is just a guess. The car carries a postwar German AE license plate, which stood for Amerikanische Enklave (American enclave). That was the description for the American occupied Bremen and Bremerhaven within the British occupation zone. I love the ADAC roadside assistance motorcycle with sidecar.
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Eigenbau of the month: April 2018
This month the featured car is a small roadster from Eastern Germany. It has already been part of one of my enigma puzzles, but it deserves a feature of its own, as I have quite a few pictures of it. The base car is a BMW 3/15 PS, like with so many postwar Eigenbaus. The bodywork is a clean design of a pontoon-bodied sports car in the heritage of BMW Mille Miglia and Veritas. For the colder time of year there even was a hardtop, so the young family could keep the severe weather outside. The car was registered in the Frankfurt (Oder) district in Brandenburg, but later changed to Leipzig district in Saxony.
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Eigenbau of the month: May 2018
This one I don't know anything about. I guess that it is a postwar German Eigenbau. Although its size and overall appearance is quite similar to some invalid carriages (e.g. the Westfalia M50: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2009-37/solved-djetset-31-westfalia-m50), I think it is not one of those, but an ordinary microcar, because of the steering wheel. Invalid carriages most often had a handlebar instead, because it was easier to incorporate other manual controls on that than on a steering wheel. The electric motorcycle headlamps make me think that it was engine-powered rather than propelled by pedals. It seems the proud builder / owner had just finished his task and presented himself and his work.
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Eigenbau of the month: June 2018
A new month gives me the opportunity to present you an absolutely stunning car. This low and streamlined coupe from Vienna was probably built on a VW Kübelwagen chassis like the one right next to it, but its design even makes a contemporary Porsche look slow. The rear window is hidden under the engine cover, a feature we know from the streamline Tatras or the VW prototypes. The bodywork above the waist line is rounded so much that the door windows couldn't be wound into the door, but had to be flipped open. I'd love to see a front view of this car in order to know what the windscreen looks like, and whether the front design is more Beetle or more Porsche. As a comparison I add a picture of a modern custom car on an old Porsche base, one of the Runge Flyers, the FF007.
November 2021: Side view added. :)
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Eigenbau of the month: July 2018
Vacation time just ahead, today I present you a motorhome which probably is an Eigenbau. It was built in 1961 based on a 1954 DKW Schnellaster. The old black and white picture shows a license plate from Karlsruhe in the southwestern part of Germany. What really makes it different is the fact that it is an integrated motorhome of quite harmonic lines. Usually a platform van was taken and an older camping trailer put on the chassis just behind the cab, when a camper van was built privately. This one rather reminds of the Mikafa motorhomes (cf. https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2012-41/solved-wendax-616-hans-helfritz's-mikafa-camper-on-vw-chassis/msg232128/#msg232128). And of course, the dust gives it a beautiful barnfind look.
Additon: In April 2019 it was featured in a German veteran car magazine, but the owner doesn't have any information about the builder of this motorhome.
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Eigenbau of the month: August 2018
A small roadster might be the right thing for this hot and dry summer? Here is one! A home-built car from Austria, probably built on a Hanomag 2/10 PS ("Kommissbrot") chassis, judging by the large wheels, the rear mid-engine and the rather large right-hand steering wheel. Below a picture what it might have started as.
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I guess you might be right!
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Eigenbau of the month: September 2018
Staying with the same base car as last month, this Eigenbau kept a little closer to the original. It is a nice attempt to update the looks of the Hanomag Kommissbrot. Going by the license plate which is prewar German (not clearly visible, IIA would be Munich) it was done in the late 1930s. The design was quite up to date then and except for the wings it even reminds me quite a lot of the postwar Champion 400, of which I attached a picture below. A nice detail on the Hanomag is the mascot, probably taken from an Adler bicycle.
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:applause:
Outstanding...
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Eigenbau of the month: October 2018
Not really an Eigenbau in the strict sense this time, rather an attempt to keep an old car going. But it needs a second look to identify the base car, as one characteristic detail has been changed. This month's Eigenbau looks like having a radiator up front, but in fact it is a rear-engined car. Did you find out what it once was? It is a second series Standard Superior from 1934/35, built by Wilhelm Gutbrod after a Josef Ganz design. The picture was taken between 1948 and 1954, when the Eastern part of Berlin had the GB license plate, GB = Groß-Berlin, before changing to the system kept until the end of the GDR. Below you can compare the shape of the door and the front wings to verify its origin.
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:thumbsup:
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Eigenbau of the month: November 2018
Like in October this month's featured Eigenbau is just a modification of an older car. With lots of Volkswagen Typ 82 aka Kübelwagen having survived the Second World War, there was the wish to make them look more civilized when they were used privately. The range of solutions went from completely new bodywork (like https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2011-39/jc-visits-the-smurfs-solved-'hans'-ddr-eigenbau-from-1958-based-on-a-1944-kdf-ku) to slight alterations like fitting a solid roof, of which I attached two photos from Austria at the end of this post. The builder of the car we look at today preferred to give the Kübelwagen a more car-like appearance by changing the front and adding some running boards. There is some Fiat Topolino air around it, isn't it?
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Eigenbau of the month: December 2018
Besides the VW chassis, I think the Dixi resp. BMW 3/15 PS chassis was the one used most often for homebuilt cars in Germany. This month I present to you a nice bodywork surely inspired by the Mille Miglia BMWs of the late 30s and - following similar lines - the Jaguar XK 120. This eigenbau surely looks much faster than it really was. The license plate tells us that the car was from East Berlin. Well designed it must have been a dream car in its time and place.
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Supercool...
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Eigenbau of the month: January 2019
Something different to start the year with. This month's Eigenbau should rather be called a Voiture Artisanale. It is a Renault from the 1920s which was converted into a light farm truck, supposedly done in 1941. That happened somewhere in the Département Seine-Maritime in the north of the Normandy. The simple coachwork gives it a quite modern look, not unlike the Basic Transportation Vehicles of the 1970s, such as the Bedford Harimau.
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Really unique - thank you for sharing it!
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Very interesting,looking forward to more,Thanks.
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Eigenbau of the month: February 2019
This month I'd like to share some pictures of a car that turned up on coachbuild.com where its owner is looking for some information about it. This barnfind is based on a 1934 BMW 315/1 chassis. It was certainly rebodied in Germany after the war. While the front bears some similarities to the mid-1950's Autenrieth BMWs, the side view reveals that it was rather built in the early 1950s, as the flowing fenders were added to the pontoon shape of the body. It looks quite well finished, so it might not be an Eigenbau at all, but done by a professional coachbuilder. Or maybe it was someone's masterpiece: Think of all the nice bodies that came from the Kaiserslautern master school.
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Vielen Danke as always Wendax for another excellent (and unknown) monthly Eigenbau. This one nicely combines the 'formality' of a typical German front-end with the flourish and flair of an Italianate rear section, helped by using the Italian (early Fiat1400-1900 I think?) tail lights :).
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Thank you, I was wondering where these tail lights originated from.
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It's not homemade, the owner now knows that it was done by Graber
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Good news! I'll leave it in this thread anyhow. If I had known the Graber origin before, it would have made a nice puzzle.
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Eigenbau of the month: March 2019
Last month's Eigenbau turned out to be a rather unknown creation by a known coachbuilder. I hope this month's Eigenbau is really home-grown despite its rather professional looks. When I saw this picture first, I thought of a Pobieda M-20 or perhaps its Polish equivalent, the Warszawa M-20. Then I noticed the three-piece windshield. As the Tatra 87 is one of my favourite cars, I was immediately excited what kind of bitsa this vehicle may be, a modified Tatra or was just the Tatra body put on another chassis? Upon closer look you can see that the huge rear engine lid is missing, but the small rear window (usually leaving the possibility to look through the engine bay and the louvers to what's behind the car) was kept. I would love to see what this car looked from behind: Does it have a notchback? Is there a trunk instead of the engine bay? Probably yes, because the car now has a front radiator opening and the letters above the grille look like AULT, so the Tatra body was perhaps mated with a Renault engine. I doubt that there will be any information about this car in any book or online. The license plate tells us that this car was located in Timișoara in Romania. Timișoara was the historical capital of the Banat region and until 1944 the majority of the population was German, followed by Hungarians. So maybe the Tatra was left behind when the German population fled resp. was deported after the war. There could be an interesting history around this car.
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They had plenty of cars like this in Romania. Here's a 1927 Citroen with a Wanderer front end and an Erskine engine!
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:thumbsup:
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Another picture:
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Eigenbau of the month: April 2019
We have seen some Porsche 356 lookalikes from Eastern Germany here before:
- the widely known Lindner-Porsches (aka Miersch-Porsche) built by the Reimann brothers (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2011-39/solved-neh-953-miersch-porsche-356),
- the Hallore built by Kurt Schröder (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2015-44/solved-pj640-kurt-schroder's-hallore-1950s),
- a Porsche Eigenbau from Wurzen (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2016-45/neh-4833/) and
- an Eigenbau of unknown origins (the blue one pictured here: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2011-39/solved-neh-953-miersch-porsche-356/msg153680/#msg153680).
Now here is another one not mentioned anywhere so far. Its nickname was Mondfähre, the German word for lunar module and literally translated a moon ferry. Unlike the cars mentioned above, the Mondfähre was not based on a Volkswagen resp. KdF-Wagen chassis, but built around Skoda and Wartburg parts, according to the little poem that came alongside these pictures in an album. It translates a follows:
Children, children, I can tell you,
This was anything but a Volkswagen,
The Mondfähre was put together
From Skoda, Wartburg and Eigenbau,
and made a mighty noise while driving.
The license plate tells us that the car was from the Erfurt district in Thuringia. The rear lights came from a Wartburg.
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Eigenbau of the month: May 2019
While in April we had an Eigenbau with Porsche looks from East Germany, this month brings us one from Austria. And again, our wannabe Porsche is not based on VW mechanics, but was most probably built around a DKW chassis. At least that's what the front grill with its four rings implies, and there would be no need for a front air inlet for a rear-engined VW chassis. The car's number plate was issued in Vienna.
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Eigenbau of the month: June 2019
This month's car is somewhere between an individual rebuild and an Eigenbau. In 1964, a young man bought a wrecked Volkswagen Karmann-Ghia and restored it with some additions to make it look more stylish. A large front grill was added (and later modified) and some decent tailfins added some edgy contours. The frontal appearance has a bit of a Mercedes-Benz 190 SL. The car was registered in Essen. What amount of work must have been behind this task is obvious when you look at the photos of the wreck.
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Eigenbau of the month: July 2019
This time we have the rare case that the builder is known by name. Anyhow I decided not to make a puzzle out of it as I think that it is almost impossible to find. This little three-wheeler was built in 1951 by Willy Müller from Wiesbaden. In its principal design, three wheels on a tubular frame around a sidecar body, it follows a pattern we have seen before on the Juwel Flitzer by Alfred Jokisch: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2014-43/solved-wendax-1199-juwel-flitzer-by-alfred-jokisch. I like the radiator grille similar to those on Veritas sports cars.
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Eigenbau of the month: August 2019
As I came across yet another picture of a car that is part of my first Enigma Variations puzzle, I decided to post all pictures of this car together in this thread. The car is a convertible registered in Eastern Germany in 1950. It was most probably built on a prewar chassis, my guess would be a Hansa 1100. The first registration plate (SN 55-1489) is from Saxony-Anhalt, as is the later one (KH 66-22) issued after 1953. In fact it is from the Gräfenhainichen district near Dessau. The first three pictures seem to have been made when the car was rather new. In the next pictures the car appears lighter, perhaps it was repainted sometime in between. Also a small red cross sign can be seen above the front bumper, so the owner might have been a medical doctor. In the last picures some fog lights have been added to the front. The design was really up to date in 1950 and the coachwork looks professionally made.
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Eigenbau of the month: September 2019
This month's featured Eigenbau is from a different time and a different place as the ones before. The pictures were taken in Yugoslavia probably in the 1980s. The car has Belgrade license plates. It seems to be rear engined, going by the mesh grill between the rear lights. That makes it very plausible to assume a Zastava 750 or a VW Beetle base, as the Beetle was built in Yugoslavia, too. Interestingly it bears quite a resemblance to a Swiss one-off by Albert Vicentini we had as a puzzle before: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2015-44/sac652-a-one-off-with-nsu-engine/
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Eigenbau of the month: October 2019
Finally I managed to get hold of Eigenbau pictures at an ebay auction. The pictures were taken in Eastern Germany, obviously long after the car was built. It must have been in the 1970s or early 1980s, when the owner tried to revive the roadster. The car itself looks like it was built on a prewar chassis (DKW Front Luxus?) during the 1950s. Its appearence could have been influenced by the IFA sports racing car we had as a puzzle before: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2013-42/solved-wendax-927-ifa-f9-by-arbeitsgruppe-chemnitz/msg378779/#msg378779. Let's hope its owner got it back on the road and it rests in some garage.
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Eigenbau of the month: November 2019
Featured this month is a beautiful roadster following American design lines of the 1940s. The car was registered in the Austrian state of Styria (Steiermark). I don't know the car's base, but having a guess I'd say it was built on an Opel chassis. The picture is supposed to have been taken at the 1954 Präbichl hill climb. If anybody happens to have a participants' listing, number 163 is the one to look for. I'd be happy to learn more about this car.
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Eigenbau of the month: December 2019
This thread started in 2016 with two Veritas lookalikes. Today's car is not too far away from them, being a quite elegant convertible on a prewar BMW chassis. The front end treatment is somewhere between Autenrieth and Ernst Loof's BMW 502 Sportwagen below. The vents in the front wings are similar to the Veritas arches. One detail which betrays its quite professional appearance is the single wiper on the driver's side. Mother and daughter look happy anyhow. The registration is from Württemberg in southwestern Germany.
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Eigenbau of the month: January 2020
Starting the new year with something colourful! This little piece of art painted in the best of Bauhaus tradition turned up in former Yugoslavia. It is said to be based on a 1937 Fiat Topolino. The speedometer obviously comes from a Zastava 750. The license plate tells us that the car was registered in Pančevo (Serbia).
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Eigenbau of the month: February 2020
This must be the definite East German answer to the space age craze: Take a prewar chassis and dress it up as a twin rocket. It must have been a first class head turner. It might have been inspired by Taruffi's twin shell record cars Tarf I & II (see below). I have no idea what car served as base, perhaps a DKW. The Eigenbau was registered in the Güstrow district in the northern part of the GDR.
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Very similar to this Ford Anglia chassis, wing tanks T-33 jet trainer Chevy, Austin Bantam, 1940s Ford windshield built by USAF Lt Cl EH Risher USA
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Indeed! I thought I had seen a similar car before, and that's the one.
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Eigenbau of the month: March 2020
When you built an Eigenbau in postwar Germany and it should become a sports car, you had two popular alternatives: if you started with a BMW chassis there was a big chance your car would look like a Veritas. But if you started with a Volkswagen chassis (or most probably a Kübelwagen chassis) what would you do? Correct, build your own Porsche. And that's what this guy from Frankfurt has done. While the body itself was quite bulbous, the front boot lid and the windscreen show the limits of the artisan's work by being very angular. The picture was taken after 1956 as you can tell by the number plate, and the car is obviously beginning to lose its fresh looks. Anyhow, another nice car, long gone now.
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Eigenbau of the month: April 2020
In times when the coronavirus forces us to keep distance from each other and to avoid long-distance trips, this vehicle might just be the right one. It should take us to the next grocery store and our potential passenger is seated well behind us. The picture was taken in Vienna, and it must have been around 1933 when the movie "Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse" by Fritz Lang came to the cinemas. The poster can be seen behind the car and below.
Stay healthy!
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Eigenbau of the month: May 2020
Do you really want to impress your neighbours? Well, an American car would have served you well in postwar Germany. But you are afraid your 1953 Chrysler begins to look outdated? Nothing easier than to change that. Just apply some fashionable tailfins and some huge front fender extensions. Some more chrome strips and a few Dagmar bumpers will complete the make-up. A new two-tone paint job and ready you are! The contrast to your grey home next to the factory couldn't be bigger. They will turn green with envy!
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Eigenbau of the month: June 2020
Cool car, cool guy. A perfect car for cruising on a summer's day. But what is beneath it? The only parts I can identify doubtlessly are the VW hubcaps. The rest rather looks as if the body was built on a front engined car than on a Beetle chassis. The front seems to come from another car, the middle section looks homemade, the rear fenders look almost like Opel Olympia ones, but they aren't. Where is the dashboard from? At first I thought of Panhard Dyna X as a donor, but there are differences. The car still has semaphores instead of turning indicators, but the fake portholes on the fenders surely improve the optics. Too bad there are no other views known of this real bitsa.
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Update on the Eigenbau of the month April 2019
Today I stumbled across the builder's name of the Porsche lookalike from last April: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg484729/#msg484729.
The car was built by Rudolf Oehler of Windischleuba and his son Klaus. They started in 1953 with two VW Typ 82 (Kübelwagen) axles and a bespoke tubular chassis. The engine was a 25 hp VW unit. The car featured quite a few IFA parts and started its life with a Tatra-style finned rear lid when it was road registered in 1956.
There is a nice web page about this car with lots of photos: https://www.oldtimerclub-windischleuba.de/oehler-eigenbau/
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Great stuff, keep it coming !
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Eigenbau of the month: July 2020
I just came back from a two-weeks vacation in Prague, so I think it to be appropriate to post a Czech Eigenbau for this month. The picture was taken around 1960 at the premises of the automobile club AMK Zbrojovkva Brno. One can only guess what cars were used as donors. Was the body taken from a Tatra 57B and altered at the front? If so, it was done with more style than the Tatra below I came across recently which was turned into a fake Mercedes-Benz.
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Eigenbau of the month: August 2020
Another picture I bought recently. At first sight I noticed that the car looked unusual, half fastback, half notchback. What might it be? A rare picture of a Staunau? Then I recognized the chrome bar above the number plate, and yes, the car is a modified Gutbrod Superior. But it was none of the rare four-seater cars built at the factory (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2015-44/solved-wendax-1507-gutbrod-superior-viersitzer and https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2014-43/sac793-1953-gutbrod-4-seater-one-off-prototype). It must have been a private conversion, probably done in order to seat the growing children. I couldn't find out so far which donor the roof came from (if it wasn't custom-made). The location where the picture was taken is easy to find, because the "Wirtschaft zum Krabbenstein", the oldest tavern in Ebersbach, Baden-Württemberg, still exists. The picture must have been taken after 1955, because this kind of license plates was issued beginning in 1956.
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Eigenbau of the month: September 2020
This month brings us an Eigenbau from East Berlin. A nice little roadster probably based on a Dixi or BMW 3/15 PS. Its body follows the fashion lines of its time and could be described as a mixture of a Champion Ch-2 and a Gutbrod Superior Sport, both of which I have added a picture below. I like especially the elegantly adapted BMW grill in the front hood. The car on the left with its Ihle (or at least Ihle-like) body has appeared here before: it is the right car on the picture of the January 2017 Eigenbau of the month (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg424676/#msg424676). Both pictures must have been taken on the same occasion, I guess a meeting of Eigenbau builders. Next month we will meet this car again, so stay tuned.
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Eigenbau of the month: October 2020
Last month I told you that this month we will see the BMW 3/15 PS with the registration IA 52-26 again. And here we are: the first picture shows the car as you could see it in the last post. The second picture though shows a nice 50s-style roadster with the same license plate. A Buick style grille sits in a front influenced by the supercars of those days. Looking closely you can read its nickname painted close to the left headlight: Max. The third picture illustrates the side designed much like last month's featured Eigenbau. The rear view in the following picture is not as up to date as the front design, showing more similarities to the 1930's sports cars of BMW or Adler. The builder must have noticed that too, as on the next picture, taken in the garage, we can see a second car with a more modern rear design. Picture #6 shows that the front of the second car which went by the name of Moritz is almost like Max's, just with the chrome teeth being slightly bigger. This picture series ends with a nice setting in the evening light. Max and Moritz of course derive their names from a very popular illustrated rhyming tale about two terrible boys by German author Wilhelm Busch which is considered to be a forerunner of modern comic strips.
Both cars were built by Dieter Wendt (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2017-46/wendax-3390/ and https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2011-39/finally-solved-217-of-all-1961-vw-kubel-based-wendt-wagen/).
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Two more views added of the Eigenbau of the month May 2016.
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Eigenbau of the month: November 2020
No faded pictures of unknown home-built cars this month, but recent pictures of an Eigenbau with a known builder. The car has even puzzled here before. So you may ask why feature it in this thread? Well, I was pleased to see that a car that had disappeared from view for many decades was unearthed and advertised for sale. The lucky survivor is the NSU Prinz 1000-based coupe built by Gerhard Leun, a coachbuilder from Gießen. So far I just knew the two pictures of it in our puzzle thread: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2015-44/gerhard-leun-s-nsu-one-off-sportscar-19651973, one from a NSU book and the other from a 1973 magazine ad. The Leun coupe has a fiberglass body, was built over the period of 18 months and the final costs amounted to 40,000 DM. You could buy a brand new Porsche 911 plus a Mercedes-Benz 250 SE for that back then. Initially the Leun NSU had the stock Prinz 1000 engine fitted, but later on it received a Spiess engine delivering at least 75 hp and rocketing the car to 200 kph instead of 150 kph with the works engine.
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It was advertised for sale back in 1973:
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A rear view added to the February 2017 Eigenbau: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg426777/#msg426777
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Eigenbau of the month: December 2020
Another sports car dream from the 1960s. But this time the engine might not match the car's looks as good as in last month's Eigenbau. The wheels can easily be recognized as early VW parts. So this beast may just have 30 horsepowers, a little less than its brother in style, the Drogo Ferrari 250 GTO which may have influenced our Eigenbau's design. Upon closer inspection I noticed that the car appears to be right hand driven. I don't have any information where the photo was taken, so it might be from the UK or just a flipped picture of a German car. The owner must have had some ideas how to approve the car's appearance, at least the sketched lines at the front may show a future development.
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:applause:
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Eigenbau of the month: January 2021
I'll start this year with a car that at first sight looks like a home-built microcar. Upon further inspection there seem to be no provision for fixing a canvas top to the car which would rather make it a beach car. Well that wasn't too common in communist Eastern Germany back then. Opening the rear lid uncovers a rear engine which came from a Trabant telling by the front decals. But why bother with turning a front-engined Trabant into a rear-engined beach car? The most probable solution appeared to me when I discovered another rear-engined Trabant-based car, the blue mobil shown in the last pictures. It obviously was built as a autocross vehicle. So I assume that despite its more civilian looks this month's Eigenbau was built for this purpose, too. Nice to see these cars survived so far.
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Nice finds!
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Eigenbau of the month: November 2020
No faded pictures of unknown home-built cars this month, but recent pictures of an Eigenbau with a known builder. The car has even puzzled here before. So you may ask why feature it in this thread? Well, I was pleased to see that a car that had disappeared from view for many decades was unearthed and advertised for sale. The lucky survivor is the NSU Prinz 1000-based coupe built by Gerhard Leun, a coachbuilder from Gießen. So far I just knew the two pictures of it in our puzzle thread: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2015-44/gerhard-leun-s-nsu-one-off-sportscar-19651973 (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2015-44/gerhard-leun-s-nsu-one-off-sportscar-19651973), one from a NSU book and the other from a 1973 magazine ad. The Leun coupe has a fiberglass body, was built over the period of 18 months and the final costs amounted to 40,000 DM. You could buy a brand new Porsche 911 plus a Mercedes-Benz 250 SE for that back then. Initially the Leun NSU had the stock Prinz 1000 engine fitted, but later on it received a Spiess engine delivering at least 75 hp and rocketing the car to 200 kph instead of 150 kph with the works engine.
:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Just curious if the "Kirchler" NSU Eigenbau has survived, too
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Eigenbau of the month: February 2021
A few days ago I came across some pictures showing a small workshop, its owner and a three-wheeled car under construction. The technician who ran this workshop was Hans Schertz. His company was located in Woltersdorf Schönblick, a municipality in the Eastern vicinity of Berlin, and seems to have existed from 1926 to 1932. Going by one of the pictures, the main business was bicycle and motorcycle repair. But the one picture that took my interest shows a car with a single rear wheel. The body consists just of a few steel tubes defining the outer shape. A single-cylinder engine sat between the front wheels. No way to tell whether it was thought to drive the front wire wheels or the wood spoke (!) rear wheel. I wonder if it ever was finished.
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Eigenbau of the month: March 2021
When you hear of Avus and Nordschleife you certainly might imagine sleek Silver Arrows speeding on the banking. You can hear the mighty 8-, 12- or 16-cylinder engines roar past you. Well, you might have to take a step back for this month's featured Eigenbau. Although the magic words AVUS and NORDSCHLEIFE (together with a third one I can't decipher) were written on it, the engine roar might turn out to be a two-stroke rattle and the sleekness of the bodywork is manifested in the radiator grill probably borrowed from another car. Here we are in postwar Berlin, the registration KB standing for Kommandantura Berlin. The back side of the picture tells us that the photo was taken in 1951 and that the car belonged to a guy named Wolf. He must have had a sense of humour painting the magic words on his partly weather-protected tricycle.
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Update on the Eigenbau of the month September 2016
Yesterday I got in contact with Oliver Balthun who has some more pictures of the Eigenbau-Mercedes from Eastern Germany featured in September 2016 (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg414318/#msg414318). In his opinion the car might have been built in Görlitz, either by Waggonbau Görlitz or by the Schwarze company known for their Wartburg-Mercedes hybrids (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2011-39/gg-52-wartburg-mercedes-170v/).
Furthermore I noticed that the Eigenbau-Fiat featured in March 2017 (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg428892/#msg428892) not only has a numerically close registration number but also bears stylistic similarities (headlights, flashers, etc) so that it might have been built by the same person(s).
Anyway here are some more views of the Mercedes-Benz:
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Eigenbau of the month: April 2021
Our featured car today is a nice little roadster with pleasing lines. And that's where I thought that the rather simple doorless and windowless body doesn't exactly match the elegant front part of the car. It puzzled me for a while, but finally I recognized the base car, a rarety by itself. Our unknown Eigenbau creator turned a Hercules Motorradwagen which had survived the Second World War into a summer fun car. When you take a look at the original Hercules (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2011-39/hercules-motorradwagen-200ccm-ca-1935/msg498580/#msg498580) it becomes obvious. The license plate is from postwar Berlin and probably a preliminary one.
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Eigenbau of the month: May 2021
This time I'll present to you a kind of academic Eigenbau. The bodywork is somewhere between a beach buggy and a hunting car. It was built at the Meisterschule für Handwerker in Kaiserslautern and surely was the masterpiece for a team of coachbuilders. It is based on a Volkswagen 1500 or 1600 Typ 3 Variant. This Kaiserslautern car, so far unknown to me, was recently for sale. I hope somebody will find the energy to restore this unique piece of design.
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Eigenbau of the month: June 2021
Stepping back in time a few decades this month I present to you a car where I'm not sure whether it was an Eigenbau or the work of a local coachbuilder. But surely it was an early post-WW2 one-off. Based on a prewar Mercedes-Benz it carries a quite classic roadster body not unequal to the one fitted to the derelict Maybach Zeppelin chassis from Denmark we've seen on this site before: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2012-41/maybach-zeppelin-ds8-roadster-wreck-(1938)/msg226598/#msg226598. But our coachbuilder combined it with a postwar grille denying the Mercedes-Benz roots. The front end treatment leads the way to the pontoon body design of the years to come and reminds me of some late 1940s Wendler designs, although less elegant. The picture was taken in Berlin some time before 1956. It blends quite well with the residential building in the background which survived the war without major damage.
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Eigenbau of the month: July 2021
A classic roadster with a huge chrome radiator, exhaust pipes like a supercharged Mercedes-Benz, double spare tyres at the rear, large shiny wheels, a low windscreen and a two-tone paint scheme emphasizing the flowing body lines. If that is your personal idea of a classic car, this month's Eigenbau is the one for you. Most of all it comes in combination with an economic mid-engined chassis! Well, it is hard to understand why this Hanomag 2/10 PS "Kommißbrot" conversion remained a one-off. :D
At least it has a lot more style than most VW-based Bugatti, Bentley or Mercedes-Benz replicas of the 1970s and 1980s. Hard to tell when this Hanomag was converted, but I'd guess sometime in the late 1950s, early 1960s.
Addition June 2023:
My guess was wrong! This terrific little roadster was built in 1927 by Otto Wächter, a craftsman trained at Ruppe & Sohn in Apolda, the builders of Apollo cars. He not only built this aluminium body, but also transferred the original radiator to the front and added a water pump for better cooling. Below attached is a picture of Otto Wächter with his Hanomag in 1925, so before the conversion.
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very cool
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This is a perfect tuned "Kommissbrot" :applause:
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Eigenbau of the month: August 2021
Today we are following last month's theme and turn the looks of a car towards a classic appearance once again. Do you remember the neoclassic conversion of a Mercedes-Benz 600 by Rainer Buchmann for a Saudi king in the 1980's? It must have left a deep impact on the owner of a Mercedes-Benz 250 SE Coupé in France. Unfortunately the result was not just of doubtful taste as the Buchmann car, but our customizer also lacked the skills and the talents of the Buchmann company. But compare for yourself. ;)
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Where did you get the pictures of my cleaner's car?
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Eigenbau of the month: September 2021
Over the years I have collected some pictures of East German VW Typ 2 copies (and lost some of the most interesting ones when my then brand new laptop had to be reinitialized after denial of work :(). These vehicles, mostly minibuses, were based on leftover Kübelwagen chassis. Most of them were built by coachbuilders, we've had some before:
https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2014-43/solved-wendax-999-volkswagen-bus-on-kubelwagen-chassis-(probably)-by-deckwerth/
https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2013-42/solved-tgf-277-fleischer-minibus-on-vw-kubelwagen-base-1948/
https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2019-49/wendax-2875/
But some were private Eigenbau buses. A few days ago I stumbled across one that is especially nice, because it tries to copy the impression of being a VW bus without really pretending to be one. Its builder probably knew his personal skill limitations quite well, but that makes it look even more authentic. The picture was taken in Erfurt, capital of Thuringia, a nice city I visited this summer. Even most of the pictured buildings are still in place, looking much better than in the 1950's when the picture was probably taken.
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Eigenbau of the month: September 2021
Over the years I have collected some pictures of East German VW Typ 2 copies (and lost some of the most interesting ones when my then brand new laptop had to be reinitialized after denial of work :( ). These vehicles, mostly minibuses, were based on leftover Kübelwagen chassis. Most of them were built by coachbuilders, we've had some before:
https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2014-43/solved-wendax-999-volkswagen-bus-on-kubelwagen-chassis-(probably)-by-deckwerth/ (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2014-43/solved-wendax-999-volkswagen-bus-on-kubelwagen-chassis-(probably)-by-deckwerth/)
https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2013-42/solved-tgf-277-fleischer-minibus-on-vw-kubelwagen-base-1948/ (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2013-42/solved-tgf-277-fleischer-minibus-on-vw-kubelwagen-base-1948/)
https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2019-49/wendax-2875/ (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2019-49/wendax-2875/)
But some were private Eigenbau buses. A few days ago I stumbled across one that is especially nice, because it tries to copy the impression of being a VW bus without really pretending to be one. Its builder probably knew his personal skill limitations quite well, but that makes it look even more authentic. The picture was taken in Erfurt, capital of Thuringia, a nice city I visited this summer. Even most of the pictured buildings are still in place, looking much better than in the 1950's when the picture was probably taken.
:thumbsup: It looks like a very large paper model!
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Indeed! :D
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Eigenbau of the month: October 2021
Today I want to show you an Eigenbau that was photographed during construction. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the completed car. I don't even know whether it was ever finished. The car was built in postwar Austria and it looks as if its builder knew what he was doing.
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Eigenbau of the month: November 2021
This month's Eigenbau is more of a modification, but it comes with a nice series of photographs. We can see a Fiat 500 A Topolino with a nicely altered rear end to provide larger luggage space an. A full-length chrome strip connects the new rear end with the rest of the car. New bumpers add a modern horizontal touch. The headlights were placed lower reducing the mouse-like impression of the front view. Picture 3 even shows a two-tone paint giving the car a different appearance, too. The registration number is from Eastern Germany and was issued in the Leipzig district in Saxony.
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A side view added for the Eigenbau of the month June 2018:
https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg462526/#msg462526
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Eigenbau of the month: December 2021
Attracting the ladies' attention! One of the best known motives for driving a sports car has been obviously working with this Eigenbau. I hardly know anything about this cute three-wheeled roadster. Looking at the rear wheels it might have been built on a late Goliath F 200 or a Borgward FW 400 chassis, but the wheels might have come from another car as well. The women's clothing makes me think that the picture was taken in the first half of the 1950's, probably somewhere in Germany.
Certainly the little boy in the second picture, leaning onto a stock Goliath would have preferred the sports car, too. :)
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Eigenbau of the month: January 2022
Half a year ago I showed you a Hanomag 2/10 PS turned into a supercharged sports car, at least by the looks. Today we move on about 30 years finding ourselves in the late 1950's. This month's featured Eigenbau is also an upgraded microcar, a Goggomobil sedan converted to look like the very fashionable Ford Taunus 17M P2, Germany's ultimate adaption of American Chrome and Fins styling of the late 1950's. Nowadays you might call it "hip" and that's what the license plate on our Goggomobil says. But that is not a marketing gag, but just the code for the Hilpoltstein district in Bavaria. The conversion looks professionally made like an upmarket version of the Goggomobil, but its design was outdated quite soon just like the Ford Taunus 17M P2 which was already succeeded in 1960 by the Linie der Vernunft design (line of reason) of the P3 model.
At first I thought I had a front and a rear view of the same car, but I was wrong. The builder of this Goggomobil must have built two of them, similar but different. While HIP-J 620 is a miniaturized Ford Taunus 17M, the other car HIP-J 31 just follows the general style of its time with headlights and rear lights at the top of the fins and a low set horizontal grill. It was the identical side chrome strip and color scheme which made me think of only one car at first, but I found a front picture of HIP-J 31 in one of Thyssen-Bornemissza's books which makes the difference apparent.
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Eigenbau of the month: February 2022
Today's eigenbau is one of the numerous attempts to rebody VW Kübelwagen chassis in postwar Austria. Apart from rebodied Jeeps these seem to have been the most popular conversions of used automobiles back then. They were done by individuals or small bodyshops. Quite a few pictures of them have survived, because the registration papers required a photo of the registered vehicle. This month brings us a woody-style station wagon from Vienna built in 1951 whose front end follows the looks of a VW Beetle. It lacks the elegance of the better-known Kohlruss creations (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2013-42/solved-wendax-960-volkswagen-woody-by-kohlruss/msg286261/#msg286261) or the professional finish of a Wendler bodywork (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2012-41/solved-neh-1810-wendler-holz-kafer/msg416386/#msg416386), but it would have made a perfect pair with our featured VW bus from Erfurt (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg562051/#msg562051), don't you think?
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And a similar one from Austria: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/new-board/pn-1498/
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Right, I had forgotten about the Schuh woody. :)
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Eigenbau of the month: March 2022
The attentive visitor of this site might remember this month's Eigenbau. It was already part of my Enigma Variations (Postwar edition), opus 3, as car #6. I saw a second picture of the car just a few days ago, so I decided to feature the car right here. I tried to eliminate an ugly watermark, I hope I didn't fail. The car is based on a prewar BMW six-cylinder chassis and has a pontoon body formally not too far away from the Eigenbau of the month April 2018 (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg459288/#msg459288). it just looks more adult due to its much bigger base. The convertible was registered in Eastern Germany in the Frankfurt (Oder) district, just like its smaller counterpart. The registration fits in with the photo shop's stamp at the backside of the picture from Fürstenberg (Oder), a town that was merged with Stalinstadt to become Eisenhüttenstadt. The car is bodied as a sports car with a quite low beltline. The bulge in the front hood is characteristic for so many bodies on prewar BMW six-cylinder chassis. The newly found picture shows a winter cover on the front grille. I like the little search light on the A-pillar.
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I often think of how much fun it would be to research properly the background of these Eigenbaus. But with my limited German and even more limited time I can't do it
Just to give you an idea. When I researched Hungarian home made cars, I looked at old regional newspapers and also had reader's letters and/or articles published in local newspapers, magazines which resulted in plenty of interesting correspondence, photos, documents etc.
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Eigenbau of the month: April 2022
What's the worth of progress if it isn't understood? This month's Eigenbau is based on a car whose bodywork was far ahead of its time, the Hanomag 2/10 PS. Omitting fenders allowed a whole-width body with maximum interior space preceding the post-WW2 pontoon body style by decades. But sometimes in the 1930s this car's owner had the idea of turning its appearance into more common looks and mated the original rear end with a usual wide fenders / non-integrated headlights / tall narrow radiator front and a two-seater coupe middle part. When passing by, one might think it was a contemporary DKW or something alike. So the owner's task was fulfilled and he could cruise happily on the streets of Berlin where the car was registered. I'd like to see what the fake radiator looked like.
We have had some Hanomag Eigenbau cars here before, one coupe keeping the general looks (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg468566/#msg468566), a postwar streamlined interpretation (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg466537/#msg466537) and another one adapting the more common looks as well, but with a humouristic approach (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg558941/#msg558941).
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Eigenbau of the month: May 2022
Turning from prewar cars to the golden age of Eigenbau cars, the 1950s. This time we leave Germany and go to the neighbouring Netherlands. Here we have what probably started its life as a bubble car, because according to the registration information this month's Eigenbau was built from a 1957 Heinkel Kabine 150. As a three-wheeled specimen it must have been a Kabine 153 to be precise. It was first registered in 1961 with this license number, so that might have been when the conversion took place, maybe after the original body was damaged. The Isetta-inspired body style was outdated by then, so a three-box design with a fashionable reverse raked rear window was chosen, like the Ford Anglia 105E or Citroen Ami 6 had it. Due to this choice one of the advantages of the Heinkel Kabine over the BMW Isetta, the rear seats, had to go. The fabric roof of our sporty microcar is a rather simple weather protection and I don't think there were any wind-up windows hidden in the doors. Not the ideal vehicle for a Dutch windy and rainy day, but better than a bicycle for sure. Anyhow, the car must have survived for quite a while, because it looks as if it was photographed when somebody rediscovered it decades after it was built.
Attached you find a picture of a stock Heinkel Kabine 153 for comparison.
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Eigenbau of the month: June 2022
This month's Eigenbau is almost a complete mystery to me. All I know is that the photo was offered in France, so that one may assume it was taken there. I don't know whether this vehicle has an engine at all . Maybe it is just human-powered. The hand lever could be part of the propulsion mechanics, so it may be an early handcycle. Or is it just a brake lever next to an ordinary steering wheel? Hard to tell. Is it a rich boy's toy or rather an invalid carriage? The large wheels positioned quite close to the body must have led to a huge turning circle. Furthermore they make the access quite uncomfortable which speaks against it being an invalid carriage. The body design reminds me of Mochet Velocars of the 1930s and 1940s, but the low windscreen really makes it a sports car. ;D
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Eigenbau of the month: July 2022
This time the car wasn't really the point of interest for the photographer. Instead it was the little child that kept his attention. The car just served as a background. Regarding our priorities the quality of the two pictures is less than optimal, one shows the whole car quite fuzzy, the other one rather clear, but the front of it escaped the camera lens. Anyhow we see a home-built body on an unknown chassis. The vents on the rear fenders implicate a rear engine, as well as the missing front grill. The base might have been a VW Kübelwagen chassis, although the wheels aren't VW ones. I guess the car was built in the mid-1950s, the sweeping fender line already blending into the side panels giving an idea of the future pontoon style. The divided windshield and the high roof above the windows make our featured Eigenbau look older than it probably was, but are surely owed to limited possibilities and parts access. The structure of the unreadable number plate points towards East Germany. This assumption is confirmed by a closer look onto the child's tricycle. That is the Doblina, a Sputnik-inspired toy vehicle built by the VEB Döbelner Beschläge- und Metallwerke from Döbeln in Saxony.
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Eigenbau of the month: August 2022
Due to my vacation a little bit later than usual this month I want to present to you a nice home-built microcar. A three-wheeler from Württemberg-Baden in southwestern Germany. The photographer's stamp at the back of the photograph names Photo-Wessendorf in Heidelberg. The car probably has a rear engine, a small motorcycle unit I'd guess. The headlights seem to come off a VW, the windscreen might be from a prewar car, attached to thick A-pillars. The styling is one with clean lines of almost professional looks. Its builder could have been proud of his work.
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Eigenbau of the month: September 2022
What a peaceful setting! This month's picture was taken at Krumpersdorf, a small municipality at the northern shore of the Wörthersee in southern Austria. The Eigenbau was obviously built on a VW chassis, probably a leftover Kübelwagen. Despite its voluptuous pontoon body it seems to be just a two-seater. It lacks the sportiness of let's say a Denzel, but tries to impress with its protruding front wings and a hint of tailfins. There is no visible convertible top and the windscreen frame seems to be too fragile for fixing it there. The lack of bumpers adds a sports car touch. There is a chrome lettering at the front wing telling the car's name. Unfortunately I can't read it completely. I'd say it could say Gela, Geha, Geho or something similar. The car was probably built in the first half of the 1950's, its front reminding me a bit of the 1953 Le Mans Panhard.
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Eigenbau of the month: October 2022
This month we are leaving the 1950s and take a 20-year-step forward to find ourselves in the space age seventies. The featured car is as angular as you can get except for the wheels, wheelarches and lights. Well, the rear engine cover has some round holes too, I must admit. All I know about this car is its French origin and that it is based on a rear-engined 1966 Renault. Its design is a mixture of a futuristic sports car with its sharply pointed nose and a buggy at the rear end. There are some traces of other wedge cars like the Lancia Stratos HF or (in order to stay in France) the Meyrignac. The car was for sale in 2014, so maybe it still exists.
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Eigenbau of the month: November 2022
Back to East Germany again. Whoever built this car was successful in creating the appearance of a Wartburg 311 as some 60 years later these pictures were offered for sale with the description of showing a Wartburg. But when you look closer it is probably just the rear lights which stem from that car. I don't know the base of this Eigenbau. I couldn't even find out where the windows were taken from. The car was registered in East Berlin.
For comparison I've added a Wartburg 311 rear view and a picture of the Borgward Hansa which shared the general style of this month's car.
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Builder's names of the Eigenbau of the month August 2016 added.
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Builder's names of the Eigenbau of the month August 2016 added.
Great :) Congrats to everybody involved
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Eigenbau of the month: December 2022
I will end this year with an impressive VW Beetle conversion. It is not just the added Mercedes-Benz grill often seen in the 1970s (on Citroen 2CVs as well), but an entire front end restyling in the fashion of the mid-fifties. The trunk must have been gigantic compared to the stock VW one. The running boards were taken off and strangely the trafficators were moved from the B-pillar to the panels in front of the doors. The car was registered somewhere in Germany before 1956, but I can't read where. A similar grill design (well, with a bit more elegance ;)) was used by Figoni & Falaschi on their Simca Aronde Florida and on the Rosengart Sagaie.
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Sharp! :)
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Eigenbau of the month: January 2023
One of the more common Eigenbau variations is the combination of two cars that usually don't belong together. Quite known are the Austrian postwar Steyr 50 bodies on VW Kübelwagen chassis. Today let me present to you a rather unusual pair: a 1939 Ford Taunus with a Hansa 1100 front. I can't tell which other cars might have donated parts for this "hybrid". The rear wheel might originate from an Adler Trumpf Junior, the front wheel we'll never know. ;D
I can't even identify for sure where the licence plate comes from. At first sight I thought it might be a GDR plate, but it doesn't match the AB 12-34 pattern. Romania could be possible, especially as that country is known for its postwar bitsas (see Eigenbau of the month March 2019: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg482152/#msg482152).
Stay tuned for some more Eigenbau cars based on the Ford Taunus. :)
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Eigenbau of the month: February 2023
Now I want to continue with last month's theme: modified Ford Taunus G93A. This time I'll show you a VW Kübelwagen / Ford Taunus hybrid, and not only one of them but two. The first one is more down to earth, a no thrills no frills adaption of the Ford Taunus body to the VW Kübelwagen chassis. Air scoops added for the rear engine cooling, the rear fenders widened for the larger track, the headlights altered to circular ones set atop the front end and the trafficators just attached and not incorporated. A practical way to change the military vehicle into a usable car, done in Austria after WW2. The second car is Austrian as well and follows the same principle, but the conversion was done with more refinement and an added touch of luxury. The headlights were also changed but incorporated into the fender and turning lights were also added to the front. The side view reveals running boards and rear spats. There are chrome stripes attached to the front fenders and the spats. The rear end has multiple louvers for engine cooling and even a non-stock "Ford Taunus" chrome lettering. The appearance of the car is more that of a shrunk Ford V8 than that of a compromise solution to get some kind of transport. And looking at the pictures it seems the car was used for far away traveling. You surely needed a reliable car for that aim, and I wouldn't be surprised if the conversion was done by a professional garage.
PS. The rear view was taken from Alexander Storz's book "Ford Taunus Story". He wonders if the car was some kind of Czech prototype, but I don't think so.
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Eigenbau of the month: March 2023
After last month's Volkswagen disguised as Ford Taunus I'll show you another rebodied VW with - surprise! - Volkswagen body parts. All I know about this car is that the picture was taken sometime in the 1950's in Königs Wusterhausen, a town in the south eastern vicinity of Berlin. The most interesting thing about it is the use of an original VW front hood incorporated in a pontoon style body. It reminds me somehow at the rear end of Anycar I. ;D
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Eigenbau of the month: April 2023
One more VW Kübelwagen rebodied in Eastern Germany: this time done by Robert Fromm of Krensitz, 20 km north of Leipzig in Saxony. The Fromm family owned a garage specialized in VWs which had found their way into the GDR and continued to do so until after the German reunification. The socialist officials didn't make it easier for them by forbidding the Fromm garage to work on cars built in socialist countries in 1961. The pictured Eigenbau was built in 1954 with body parts of an Adler 2,5 Liter "Autobahn", so there was an extra side window and a more streamlined look compared to the standard VW Beetle. You can see the body origin by looking at the bottom picture showing an Adler Autobahn from the long defunct Wolfegg museum, photo taken in 1985.
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Eigenbau of the month: May 2023
It's a rare opportunity for me to present you an Eigenbau that still exists and has survived almost untouched for the last 70 years. Except for the decay caused by the time gone by, of course. This convertible with pontoon body and doors opening to the bottom has been built in 1951 in the winegrowing city of Zell at the banks of the Mosel river. The engine was taken from a VW 166 Schwimmwagen, telling by the engine number. Very special is the engine's position at the front of the car, driving the leaf-sprung front axle, probably using DKW mechanic parts. The car carried the licence plate FR 52-3062, but was taken from the road in December 1954 already and hasn't been registered since.
The car is for sale right now: https://www.kleinanzeigen.oldtimer-markt.de/anzeige/Fahrzeuge/Autos/Sonstige-Automobile---Eigenbau_57172
Let's hope that some enthusiast will keep this car as a whole and even restore it. It would be too bad if it was just cannibalised for the VW 166 engine.
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Another picture added of the Yugoslavian Eigenbau (September 2019 entry).
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Eigenbau of the month: June 2023
After a series of VW Eigenbau cars of the 1950s I show you a more modern one, built in Italy on a VW 1200 chassis. I guess that it was built some time in the 1970s, showing some styling influences by sports cars of that decade, like De Tomaso Pantera or Maserati Merak. Unfortunately I don't have any other information about that car except the plate showing a dealer from Asciano Pisano, a suburb of Pisa.
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The builder's name of the beautiful Hanomag roadster featured in July 2021 has come to light, as well as a picture of him and his car before conversion, see here: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg558941/#msg558941
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Eigenbau of the month: July 2023
After last month's trip to more contemporary cars back again to those breathtaking homebuilt sports cars of the 1950s: A sleek pontoon-bodied two-seater convertible on a large chassis giving much room for an engine compartment occupying the front half of the car. The design has a touch of Veritas like many of the sporty postwar Eigenbau cars. Just compare it with the Eigenbau of the month from March 2022 (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg574335/#msg574335). I am not sure though whether there is a BMW chassis underneath it this time, because the usual hump covering the high-rising carburetors is missing. The picture was taken in Leipzig, Saxonia. It surely was an exciting car not only for the pictured adolescents.
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Eigenbau of the month: August 2023
Today I'll show you a car that wouldn't have been the most suitable for this year's rainy summer: an open sports car based on a VW Beetle chassis. It rather looks like a British or American kit car, but I couldn't find anything maching it. So I guess it is an Eigenbau from Germany where it was registered in Duisburg, a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area known for its iron, steel and chemical industries. The half open fenders are quite unusual for German homebuilt cars from the 1950s and I can't find any traces of a windshield either. At least it doesn't make up the perfect car for the young family in the photo. Unfortunately I don't have any other details about that car. I would love to see a front view of it.
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Eigenbau of the month: September 2023
This time I know where and when this month's Eigenbau was photographed. It was in September 1951 in the Danish town of Silkeborg at Drewsenvej 34. But that is about all I know about this convertible that was most probably built on a prewar chassis. The design shows the transition from the classic flowing design of the 1930's to the pontoon style of the 1950's. Its angular fenders, perhaps owed to the limited possibilities of its builder have a bit of an expressionist touch. Quite interesting is the construction of the door trying to hide the high-level frame (maybe even from an army vehicle) in order to obtain a lower silhouette.
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Eigenbau of the month: October 2023
This month's Eigenbau was just solved as a puzzle a few days ago: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2017-46/fw-470
As I have found a lot of recent pictures of the still existing car I thought it would be fine to have it featured here.
I'll start with a translation of the article shown in the puzzle thread:
"A car called Robrahn
The ingenious tinkerings of a new citizen
For one and a half months the Opel Robrahn has been running in Krefeld - the only one in the automotive world. Its owner is its builder as well: Erwin Robrahn, aged 65, expatriated from the GDR in September of this year, a trained construction and art locksmith with almost brilliant abilities.
The TÜV (German technical inspection association) was puzzled. A 1.5 tons heavy vehicle, like it never has been in a catalogue and never will be, a car without a type label. The engineers had that changed first. And so there is now a standardized label in the huge engine compartment: 'Opel Robrahn'.
In the beginning there was a 1953 Opel Kapitän. All that is left from it now is the front axle: the spare parts shortage in the "workers' and farmers' country" makes you inventive. For 25 years Erwin Robrahn has been tinkering in his spare time - his own workshop was only 500 meters "on the other side" near Lübeck. Seven makes from tgree countries had to serve for creating this home-built "battleship". Engine and gearbox are new and come from a Moskvitch. A short time before his removal Erwin Robrahn invested 6,100 GDR Mark in his car. The 1.5 liter engine with overhead camshaft (!) turns out 75 hp and accelerates the car up to 125 km/h. "A requirement for that is of course Western Super gazoline", the owner says. The radiator grille is a shining chrome symbiosis of Opel, BMW and Trabant parts., the bumpers come from a Russian Volga. Headlights and taillights come from the East German Wartburg. The only stock parts of the bodywork are the doors from the Soviet Pobieda. The rest is his own quality workmanship made of 1.2 mm thick sheet steel.
Erwin Robrahn followed his son to the Lower Rhine region with a trailer full of spare parts and tools. He found a new home at Ritterstraße 118 where is is now thinking about selling his life's work: "At some point this all has to come to an end." Because the open-minded man from the coast has seen that you can buy almost anything in the West - except for fitting chrome wheelcaps which would suit his car's wheels just fine."
The article must have been from 1980/1981, because the Moskvitch engine was installed in 1980.
The car was for sale right now. Its current owner acquired it in 1982 and drove it until 1998, often with a trailer at its back carrying a prewar car, even all the way down to the Pyrenees. Unfortunately the windscreen was destroyed by vandals.
It seems that the car was sold for 2,850 €.
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And the article again:
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The text of the advertisement (sorry, German) attached to this reply
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Eigenbau of the month: November 2023
It may look like a boat on three wheels, but this month's Eigenbau is a wooden microcar from France. It was built around 1955 and is powered by a Flandria 50 cc motorcycle engine, like the one pictured below. You can see the kick starter at the left rear side of the car, and it looks like there is a rest of a handlebar beneath the steering wheel. The car is for sale right now at a price tag of 2,000 €.
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Eigenbau of the month: December 2023
Christmas time is coming, so how about a kit car project as a gift for long dark winter nights? I recently came across the sales ad for a fiberglass body made to fit on a VW chassis. It is of course unfinished as it can be, resting for several decades as a constant reminder of the dream car it was supposed to be. One interesting statement was contained in the description: there were two bodies made of this form and one of it made it to a complete car that was registered long ago. Curiosity aroused and I had a look at some old sales ads concerning homemade kitcars. I did not find a perfect match, but one from 1975 that was very close. You can see it at the bottom of this post. Let your imagination flow, add a rear window to the currently pictured body shell, forget about the extra vent in front of the rear wheels and the miniature Testarossa-like applications at the end of the driver's door. The result looks very much like the car built on the 1972 VW 1300 chassis. It might even be the completed car mentioned in the recent description. Will we ever know?
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Eigenbau of the month: January 2024
Starting the new year where the old one ended we see a home-built sports car based on a German rear engined chassis. But there the similarities almost end. This time we have an open top Spyder rather than a coupe. Its body was made of steel, not of fiberglass, telling by the large rusted areas at the front. And it wasn't built on a VW platform either, but on the smaller but sportier NSU chassis. I don't know though whether it used the more powerful four-cylinder engine or the diminutive two-cylinder Prinz one. The styling seems to originate from the late sixties with its targa roof, if that ever existed as I can't see any means to fix it. Besides the NSU base and these pictures which appeared a few years ago in an online ad I don't know anything about this car.
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Eigenbau of the month: February 2024
We stay with last month's theme as we have a NSU-based Eigenbau again. This one used the two-cylinder NSU Prinz 4 chassis. In contrast to last month's car we have a fiberglass body this time, a coupe with gullwing doors. It seems the small sports car was never finished, like so many private projects. Despite the pictures which appeared on a well-known auction site some years ago I don't have any information about that little sports car.
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Eigenbau of the month: March 2024
No, this is not the new Mercedes-Benz MUV (micro utility vehicle :)), but the last one in this row of NSU-based Eigenbau cars. This little wannabe Jeep was built on a shortened chassis of a NSU Prinz 4. The rear engine made it look quite tail-heavy. I don't know whether it was supposed to be an offroad fun car or a child's car (perhaps with a limited top speed by blocking the top gears) or if it was even road legal. All in all it follows the same concept as the Trabant-based buggies featured here before: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg536669/#msg536669.