Brütsch Mopetta 1956-1958
were produced. Production was licensed to former
Opel dealer Georg von Opel, who planned to build the Mopetta at a former Horex motorcycle factory, however this plan appears to have resulted in nothing more than the production of sales literature. Due to its unusual design and rarity, the Mopetta has been subject to many replicas.
About the designer
By Gerry Frederics
Egon Brütsch was a handsome, rich playboy race car/motor-cycle driver, engineer and visionary. He had independent means, but rather than wasting them like so many `rich kids´, he designed some of the more spectacular vehicles of his time, revolutionary in every way. It was at the age of 46 that he, in 1950, stopped racing and started designing full time. His design experience was `limited´ to building his own race cars, using Bugatti and Maserati engines which he modified and tuned himself. With these creations he registered many a success against formidable international competition. In short, despite being a rich playboy he was one hell of a guy.
Even though he had no body-design experience and knew nothing of fiber glass construction, it as this medium he chose to dabble in with some rather spectacular results. One must remember that at that time, no one knew much about the properties of fiberglass – even GM with their unlimited resources and technical prowess had severe troubles developing the proper technique. The fiberglass design of the Chevrolet Corvette was conducted in an atmosphere of secrecy, so much so it looked as if they were developing some secret weapon; it took GM millions of Dollars and thousands of man-hours (of highly trained engineers) to finally arrive at the proper formula, distribution of stress-loads etc. The same thing took Brütsch one year, alone in his little design studio.
To be sure, his lack of body-design experience and lack of stress-testing equipment caused him grief but the point is, he did it alone without the assistance of top-secret formulae arrived at by a dozen chemists with post graduate degrees - invariably with German-sounding names, even if they were far from the genuine article - dressed in white uniforms in some multi-trillion Dollar laboratory. The eventual failure of his enterprise can be attributed to his `Sturm und Drang´ personality. This guy never could finish anything he started before starting on a new venture. He simply never thought any of his brilliant designs through to their logical conclusion. He never spent enough time testing his products, making sure they performed as well as he thought.
This restlessness resulted in a myriad of different designs which were either structurally flawed or were simply out of touch with the realities of the market place; it also resulted in a chaotic amount of different engines being used, when one or at the most two suppliers would have served the purpose just fine. As it was, the result was confusing and had to be a logistical as well as an engineering nightmare, causing additional problems. Hans Glas of Goggomobil - fame made the same cardinal error much later, on a much larger scale yet; see the essay on Goggomobil.
Brütsch designed away and created a myriad of prototypes, anywhere from a tiny thing with a 48-cc Ilo engine to a 1.2 liter full-size car powered by a Ford-Cologne 4-cylinder engine. His possibly most lovely machine was the 1952 Brütsch 400 powered by the 400-cc Lloyd engine. This car was built by no less than Wendler (designers of the lovely Maico-500 Sports Coupe) but for some reason this pretty and efficient micro car failed to penetrate the market. A plethora of folks who showed great interest distanced themselves from his creations, usually because they feared the development and investment costs. This included no less a personage than Georg von Opel, heir to the Opel fortune who wanted the motor cycle company Horex (see the essay on Horex) to built 100.000 of the Rollera types; he had even decided on a name: `Opelit´ but decided at the signing of the contract to back out of the deal. There is no doubt that with von Opels backing and Horex as the builder, it would have been a success, not only for Brütsch, but for Horex as well. Alas — `the best laid plans of mice and men´----.
As an aside, when looking at some of these very small models, one is tempted to smile condescendingly, but wait --------- tiny micro-cars like to Mopetta, or the Rollera make all the sense in the world if viewed as an alternative to a moped or bicycle with an auxiliary engine. Brütsch was not at all incorrect in his thinking along those lines, in fact he was a utopian; I think the reason these creations did not catch on was a lack of propagandizing them, in short, lack of money!
Some of his designs were sold to a French airframe manufacturer who re-designed the cars adding sub-frames and strengthening the whole creation considerably; aside from that they equipped it either with the excellent Maico 250-cc 2-stroke engine or the F & S 200-cc powering the Messerschmitt Karo 201. They did a bang-up job and aside from the Victoria and the Burgfalke built the very best Egon Brütsch designs ever. Alas, the French market was unkind to the idea and sadly production was halted after a year or so; see the essay on Societe-Air-Tourist.
When all of his plans met with disappointment, Egon Brütsch, rather than giving up designed a lovely three-seater (side by side) car made of two fiberglass shells which fit together, one on top of the other and thusly formed not only a harmonious but a very sturdy whole. In order to dispel any doubts as to the strength of his construction, he photographed 12 men standing on top of the body of his latest creation. The car was not only pretty, but it was feasible in a very real sense of the word. It was powered by a 200-cc F & S engine mounted in the rear (of course) had independent suspension, rack and pinion steering and hydraulic brakes. The suspension was handled by a new form of rubber-cushions which allegedly was so effective it made shock absorbers unnecessary. Its weight was a measly 230 kg, giving the pretty little roadster a top/cruising speed of 100 kph, or about 60 mph, certainly sufficient for the times (1954); coupled with miserly gasoline consumption and being quasi maintenance free, this promised to be finally the car to get Brütsch over the top; in fact he sold several licenses, including one to a German company which had a reputation of building excellent machine tools.
There was one thing about this design which was a serious flaw – it had no frame as such, rather the wheels were attached directly to the fiberglass body. Initially, this mattered not, but under hard driving conditions, the body developed cracks at the stress points; this was the end of the production run and Brütsch was sued for having sold a defective design. Whatever became of the law suit I have no way of knowing.
The fact is that the venerable old motor cycle maker Victoria of Nürnberg bought the design and gave the whole thing to Professor Hans Ledwinka of Tatra fame to re-design it properly. Ledwinka, retired and aged 77 at the time went to work, giving the car a real Tatra-like frame, this is to say a back bone tube running the length of the car attached to which were the engine/driveline in the rear and sub frames to handle the front wheels. The whole structure supported the body very nicely; it was the same type of frame Hans Ledwinka had designed for the famed Tatra.
To round out the picture he designed a proper heating/defrosting system, a lovely easy to operate convertible top and added a modified and well-tuned Victoria 250-cc engine with a 5-speed (!) electric transmission. This was an automotive first. Heretofore three-speeds and at the most an occasional 4-speed had been de rigueur. The electric transmission was developed due to the weight savings - and weight was a crucial matter. In short the car embodied the very best of the best and reflected in fact leading edge technology. The result was the lovely Victoria 250 (see the essay on Victoria replete with numerous photos). The added weight slowed the car, but not by too much since the modified engine developed 15 hp, as opposed to the F & S one which developed 10, so an honest 95 kph was achieved, with three people and luggage on board quite respectable all things considered. When Victoria, due to financial considerations decided to halt production of this lovely little car they sold the manufacturing facilities to Burgfalke which produced a few cars some of which were exported to the USA where a number are still in existence. See the essay on Burgfalke.
The sale of a license to an intrepid Englishman who invested his little fortune also flopped – the English market was as unkind to the `Tourette´ as the French market had been to the ideas of Egon Brütsch. Whether the Tourette used a German or an English engine is not known to me; they however invested considerable money and engineering in the little car. Today in the year 2009, a small English body shop is building a repli-car of the Brütsch; whether this was inspired by the Tourette I do not know, but it is a very real possibility.
Egon Brütsch decided to sell no more licenses but to build his own cars. He was overly ambitious (as per usual) and came to market with 3 different models, to whit: 1)`Zwerg´( The Midget) a 3-wheeler with a F & S 200-cc engine, or a 250-cc Maico engine giving it a top speed of 105 kph, 2) the `Bussard´ (Buzzard) with the same engine choices, but a bit broader in body design qualifying it as a three-seater and 3) `Pfeil´ (The Arrow) which beauty could be had with either the 250-cc Ilo Twin or the 400-cc Lloyd engine. This was a 4-wheeler which should have been a success, but as with practically all of his designs, ground-breaking and quite fabulous as they were, it too failed on the market.* There was the V2-N which was built in France in license and used either a 175-cc Heinkel engine or the 500-cc Fiat 2-stroke twin which gave this beauty a top speed of 125 kph, but whether many were manufactured is doubtful, even though the French company had ambitious plans for exporting their little German jewel to England.
* There are some names which ought never to be used, Titan for example because it carries with it very bad Karma (the Titanic disaster) – and so it was with the `Pfeil´. In 1942 Dornier aircraft introduced the fastest propeller-driven fighter plane of all times, the gorgeous Push-Pull design `Dornier Pfeil´. What had promised to be a blockbuster aircraft died an ignominious death due to the incessant interference of Hitler who insisted on modifying the design.
When things again failed to go according to plan, Brütsch hung up his mantle as automotive pioneer and started a business of pre-manufactured homes sometimes in 1958.
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