What can you fit in the back of an Avalanche? A Kleinschnittger.

"Jonee" (Jonee)
09/08/2014 at 13:20 • Filed to: Kleinschnittger, microcars

During last week's QOTD, "What's The Most Useless Truck?", the Chevy Avalanche-based Cadillac Escalade EXT was mentioned due to its less than practical pickup bed, but did you know you can fit a whole car in there? If you remember !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! from 2002, you probably said yes, but you may not know what that car was. Because it was a real car manufactured in Germany after the Second World War, not some prop the ad company threw together. It was called the Kleinschnittger, named after its builder, Paul Kleinschnittger, and it was one of the first postwar microcars.

Paul Kleinschnittger was a tinkerer who had emigrated to Germany from Russia, and it was his dream to manufacture his own car. But, Germany in the 1930's wasn't the ideal place to start a car company, so Paul did what he did best and cobbled together a tiny vehicle using whatever crap he found laying around. And, it just so happens that a world war creates a lot of detritus. Using bicycle wheels and bits and pieces of airplanes, he made by hand a little single-seater runabout. He used his self-taught engineering skills to survive the war, doing what, I'm not sure (somewhat worryingly since it was Germany after all, but there is no mention of him being a member of the Nazi party or fighting in the army, so we'll move on). After the war, he set about making a proper prototype for an affordable car that could be mass produced. Still, resources were scarce, so he went back to recycled metal, shaping motorcycle fenders into wings and stealing plexiglass from a crashed fighter to create a windshield. He put a 98cc DKW engine in the back and, by 1949, had himself a pretty decent minuscule and minimal motorcar.

He was talented and when he drove the car around it got a lot of attention due to its refinement, and size. As you can see, it was absurdly small; it almost doesn't look real. I think soapbox derby cars weigh more. But, people then struggled to afford even a scooter, and here was a 4-wheeled vehicle that would cost about the same. It would even have a fabric roof to keep you dry.

A Hamburg businessman named Walter Lembke recognized an opportunity and decided to help finance a small factory. But, with its single headlight and bicycle tires, the prototype wasn't suitable for widespread production. So, in just a couple months, Paul designed a new car that was ever so slightly bigger, a cute little roadster with aspirational style called the F-125.

Weight was his biggest concern since he knew it had to be extremely fuel efficient. He chose aluminum for the body and designed a very slight, tubular backbone frame. He even eliminated the heavy starter motor; you pulled a rope like starting a lawnmower. Although many skinned wrists from yanking the under-dash mounted puller led to him offering a dynastart as an option on later cars.

Employing 50 people, the cars were hand made in the centrally located town of Arnsberg starting in 1950. Lembke had convinced the civic leaders to put up money to build the production plant with the promise of much needed jobs. In the early days of production, aluminum for the bodies was literally sourced from old large army cooking pots and pans left over from the war effort. They would be hammered flat, shaped, and then riveted together.

The engine, mounted in the front and driving the front wheels, was a 125cc air-cooled two-stroke Ilo unit that made 6 horsepower. That engine was actually redesigned after a couple years to boost that to 6.5. Top speed was 70 kph and it was said to use 3 liters of fuel every 100 kilometers. I'll leave it to a math nerd to convert that to mpg's.

Transmission was 3 on the tree with no reverse since the car was light enough to pick up and spin around.

Suspension was rubber bands. No joke, it was rubber bands. Since it was pretty much the first of its kind in Germany, and with a 2300DM price, the F-125 did alright in the early years. The cars were quite reliable and surprisingly durable despite being so basic.

They were exported to Belgium in "kit form" which I think just meant no interior. In this somewhat famous photo, you can see 4 Kleinschnittgers being transported to Ghent by one 23 horsepower VW bus.

Here's another great picture of cars being towed through Arnsberg to the train station by a Fiat.

There was a rally class for microcars in those days and Kleinschnittgers were pretty competitive probably due to being a front wheel drive featherweight. An F-125 even finished second (!) "on handicap" behind a Porsche 356 (!!) at the 1954 Madrid-Lisbon Rally.

Paul also built this little F-125 based monoposto racer with dual carbs, and an enlarged 150cc engine that he competed in himself in the under one liter class.

After 7 years of production and nearly 3,000 cars, sales dwindled and the Kleinschnittger factory shut down. The cars were primitive and had been surpassed by other microcars like the Isetta and Goggomobil, and the increasingly popular VW Beetle. Kleinschnittger did make several prototypes for larger cars (as well as a 50cc scooter) that would have had a 250cc engine; some with fully enclosed bodywork.

This sporty one had a fiberglass body, and 26 were made before the factory closed.

The bigger cars were all quite handsome like this little droptop, but Paul could never find another financier, and Kleinschnittger filed for bankruptcy in 1957. He did manage to buy back all leftover parts and kept servicing and supplying spares for his beloved kleinwagen until his death in 1985 by which time he had become a beloved figure in the microcar community. Curiously, 2 years after production stopped, he sent two F-125's he assembled from those leftover bits to Oklahoma, for what reason, no one is sure. A friend of mine in Boston has one of these cars and it still runs and drives.

Incidentally, a few modifications were made to the tiny Kleinschnittger in the Cadillac ad so it would fit in that Escalade bed. There is still no truth in advertising. Although, I think you could probably squeeze a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in there.

Most b&w photos from Otto Künneke and Andy Schweitzer's book: !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .