Bouffort - Weird Cars Even For The French

"Jonee" (Jonee)
05/16/2014 at 14:41 • Filed to: None

Victor-Albert Bouffort was an aeronautics engineer who took it upon himself to design and build some pretty crazy cars in the years after WWII. The first was this magnificent streamlined three-wheeler based on a Citroen Traction-Avant.

Three of these were actually built, all slightly different.

This one is the prototype.

In the 50's, he shifted his attention to microcars creating his most famous car, the Peardop which he felt would revolutionize city transportation.

Like most attempts at the time, it didn't catch on, but here's some amazing footage of it driving around London. The way the roof bubble articulates is beautiful.

He tried a few more plastic-bodied microcar designs with fascinating results.

None made it to production, so he tried turning a Peugeot 403 into a handsome roadster. It was well-received, but only two examples were built. Interestingly, the front windscreen is actually the rear window off a Studebaker.

His only real success at a vehicle was a dandy. The Valmobile was a scooter that folded into a suitcase sized package. Around 100,000 were actually built.

Produced in Japan and sold worldwide, the 75lb machine was kind of an adaptation of folding bikes previously only made for military use. Bouffort thought an easily stored scooter would be embraced by city-dwellers and he was right. Although I think a lof people bought them for the novelty. No front suspension and a tiny motor and wheels meant they were a little scary to ride. But, you could get a sidecar.