Framo Piccolo - Germany's Cheapest Car 1934

In October 1930, DKW’s managing director, Jorge Rasmussen, challenged his design team to develop a budget car in time for next year's Berlin Motor Show. This was a significant technical challenge for the design team as the show was less than six months away. Nevertheless, the team managed to deliver a true ‘little marvel’ in the revolutionary DKW F1, the world’s first front wheel drive production car. The new car was built around a simple ladder chassis and powered by a newly designed two cylinder two-stroke motor of 500cc capacity. The plywood and leatherette body was spartan, but handsome, and at only 1700 Reichsmark, the car found an instant market.

The Little Wonder, the DKW F1 was the first in Auto-Union's long lineage of front wheel drive cars that continues today in Audi's range. It's worthwhile noting that the early cars only had a single door on the right hand side.

DKW’s motorcycle and small car range went on to become the bedrock of the Auto-Union conglomerate, comprising four Saxon auto brands - Audi, Horch, Wanderer and DKW. DKW alone provided 50% of the group’s sales and one third of its net profits, enabling the other, uneconomical brands to stay afloat through the hard times of the Great Depression. It therefore came as something of a shock to Rasmussen to find himself denied the managing directorship of Auto-Union that he felt was his by right. Open conflict ensured as the board increasingly froze him out of their decision making, until he was unceremoniously sacked in 1934.

As his relationship with the Auto-Union board deteriorated through 1933, Rasmussen initially retreated to DKW’s technical design bureau, however, even here he found himself up against Horch’s domineering design bureau chief, Willem Werner, who was in the process of consolidating each brand’s design bureau under his control. To escape the tensions at Auto-Union, Rasmussen turned to his attention to his non-Auto-Union businesses, including the Framo commercial vehicle company.

Framo had been founded by Rasmussen to manufacture fittings for DKW motorcycles, such as seats, handlebars and brakes. In 1924 the company took possession of a stock of obsolete DKW Lomos scooter parts and used them to construct a simple delivery tricycle. There was a strong market for motorized delivery tricycles in Germany and soon Framo became a dedicated small commercial vehicle manufacturer. By 1932 Framo were competing successfully with the market leaders, Vidal and Sohn’s Tempo Werkes and Carl Borgward’s Goliath Werkes. When the Auto-Union merger took place in 1932, Rasmussen had retained full ownership of Framo and placed his sons, Ove and Anton, in charge of the company.

In 1931,Ove Rasmussen had been working on a three wheeled “microcar” project that targeting a market below that of even DKW. The new car was spartan in the extreme. A 192cc DKW single cylinder, air-cooled stationary engine was mounted in the front, with chain drive to the front wheels. The chassis was a simple, hollow tube, which doubled as the exhaust. The front of the car was reminiscent of the DKW F1 with its metal (false) radiator grill and bonnet. The rest of the body was leatherette covered plywood. The passenger cabin was highly streamlined, which gave the car its name, the “stromer”, but it made for a very tight squeeze and the vision to the sides and rear was poor. At only 300 kgs the car was extremely light weight – but then it had to be given the tiny size of its engine. When the Stromer went on sale in 1932 much was made of its low maintenance and running costs and that it did not require a driver’s license or pay road tax. Nevertheless, the Stromer did not find the market Rasmussen hoped for, partly because the car’s price tag of RM1400 was quite steep for such a tiny vehicle. Only 360 Stromers were built before production stopped in 1935.

By 1933, Jorge Rasmussen's relationship with the Auto-Union board irretrievably broke down. All sides in the dispute recognized that a final reckoning was not far away. Consequently, when Adolf Hitler opened the 1933 Berlin Auto Show with a speech calling on car manufacturers to build ‘the people’s car’, Rasmussen saw an opportunity to trump his former company’s dominance in the small car market.

When Hitler had called for ‘the cheap car’ in 1933, there was little consensus as to what that meant. The DKW F2 was one of the cheapest cars in the market but this was still well outside the reach of the working masses. Jozef Ganz, the motoring critic and microcar enthusiast, believed a car for the working man could not be priced greater than 1000 Reichmarks, and that meant a cyclecar. To meet Hitler’s brief, Jorge Rasmussen would need to build a car that was cheaper than a DKW at 1400 Reichmarks, but more credible than one of Ganz’ cyclecars.

Car manufacture in Europe was an expensive business. Almost no one mass produced vehicles and bodywork was still very much an artisanal trade of steel and wood, so cost cutting meant stripping the design back to absolute basics. The rear engine craze of the 1930s was a symptom of the need to simplify design. Transmitting power from a front-mounted engine to the rear wheels involved a transmission tunnel and differential. These were heavy items that cost energy efficiency. There were only two options to remedy this – front engine with front wheel drive, or rear engine with rear wheel drive. Front wheel drive involved some additional engineering to allow the wheels to turn without losing power, so rear mounting the engine was ultimately the simplest technical solution.

In 1928, Hanomag had pioneered the return to a rear mounted engine in their 2HP Kommisbrot, and many engineers across Germany followed suit. The resulting cars from Hansa, Standard and Bungartz were all very similar in concept, as was the Framo Piccolo. The Framo Piccolo was constructed of a traditional wood frame with plywood panels. Similar to the Big DKWs from the Spandau factory, the body was entirely self-supporting. The chassis, such as it was a single steel spar screwed into the plywood floor, with a cross-member for lateral support. There was only a single door, opening on the right-hand side. There was a traditional looking bonnet at the front, but it did not open. The space underneath was empty except for the steering shaft. Instrumentation was meagre – an ignition switch and a speedometer.

The car was powered by a DKW 300cc EL air-cooled stationary engine, of the type regularly used on Framo’s delivery tricycles. Air cooling was facilitated by a fan shroud, driven off the flywheel. The engine was mounted on the centreline in the rear, with enclosed chain drive to the rear axle. A petrol tank was mounted above the engine in the rear.

At only 3 metres long, the Piccolo lived up to its name. Coming as an open, soft top rather than enclosed cabriolet, the car felt larger than its competitors. It was slightly more practical as it was able to seat four (two adults and two children – or four very cramped adults). By comparison, Josef Ganz’ Standard Superior was practically a two-seater with little more than a luggage bench behind the driver’s seat. Sale price was 1295 Reichsmarks.

The Piccolo was unveiled at the 1934 Berlin Auto Show, along with the Standard Superior and the Hansa 500. The small car manufacturers all held high hopes due to Adolf Hitler’s speech the previous year. The new government had followed up Hitler’s words with actions, dropping road taxes and license conditions for light vehicles. They were to be sorely disappointed, however. On the first day of the show Adolf Hitler had toured the main pavilion, inspecting the displays of Germany’s premier auto makers. Prestige brands, such as Mercedes-Benz and Horch, showcased their latest sports limousines and race cars, but the sensation of the show was a foreign import. The Czechoslovakian Tatra company revealed their new rear-engine streamliner, the Tatra T77. The T77 was unlike anything else on show, instantly drawing Hitler’s attention. Although his entourage tried to hustle him along, Hitler stopped for an extended discussion with Tatra’s director of engineering, Hans Ledwinka. Despite his Czech name, Ledwinka was a fellow German speaker and Hitler conversed as easily with Ledwinka as he would his fellow Austro-Hungarian, Ferdinand Porsche.

Hitler briefly toured the secondary hall, where the smaller producers, motorcycle manufacturers and truck makers showcased their wares. Jorge Rasmussen was on hand to present the Piccolo to Hitler personally. A sign on the windshield of the car mirrored Hitler’s language of the previous year, declaring the Piccolo “the people’s car.” Hitler was not impressed with what he saw, and he dismissed the Piccolo with a comment that it “wasn’t half a grape.”

If any of the budget car makers thought Hitler would be satisfied with their response to his call to build a cheap car for the German people, they were soon disappointed. For the avoidance of any doubt, Hitler clearly articulated that he expected the German motoring industry to deliver a modern steel car, not a motorcycle-engined, plywood cyclecar or three-wheeler. By the end of the year the tax breaks for small vehicles that the companies were relying on were revoked. Small speculative players, such as Bungartz, a tractor maker, withdrew from the market, while the bigger players, such as Hansa, reverted to building standard cars.

Nevertheless, Rasmussen and Framo were not deterred. They had a viable budget car which found a small market. The international press, who may not have fully understood Hitler’s vision for the Volkswagen, assumed that the Piccolo, the cheapest car on sale at the Berlin Motor Show, was the promised Volkswagen. Many articles appeared in the motoring press discussing the small car’s merits.

Small numbers were sold in 1934 and 1935. The 1935 model abandoned the coal scuttle bonnet, replacing it with a rebranded DKW F2 false radiator grill. Amazingly, the company even offered a cheaper version, powered by a 200cc engine, which really must have struggled to move the little along. 737 Piccolos were sold by the time production stopped in 1935.

Rasmussen attempted two more budget cars after the Piccolo. The most promising was the handsome Framo Rebello, which featured the sporty looks of the Stromer on four wheels. The engine remained the 300cc DKW sourced two-stroke. Unfortunately, the car never went into series production due to the restrictions imposed by the Nazi Schell plan, which reorganized and regulated the German motoring industry.

The other car was the eponymous named ‘volkswagen’, which closely resembled the contemporary Austrian Steyr Baby. A single prototype was exhibited at the 1936 Berlin Motor Show but went no further.

Under the Schell plan Framo were restricted to manufacturing a single model of light commercial lorry, the V500. The lorry came in two versions, the V500 powered by a water cooled 500cc DKW two-stroke, and V501 powered by an air-cooked 500cc DKW engine. Both lorries were otherwise identical. Interestingly, the V501 air-cooled engine built by Framo under license from DKW would evolve into the Trabant 500cc engine.


Links:
Framo company history: https://heinkelscooter.blogspot.com/2013/12/framo.html
Standard Superior: https://heinkelscooter.blogspot.com/2015/07/standard-superior.html
DKW history: https://dkwautounionproject.blogspot.com/2017/07/dkw-germanys-wonder-car.html
Origins of the Volkswagen: https://heinkelscooter.blogspot.com/2012/03/volkswagen-world-beating-peoples-car.html
Tatra streamliners: https://heinkelscooter.blogspot.com/2014/02/tatras-streamliners-yesterdays-car-of.html
Tatra vs Volkswagen lawsuit: https://heinkelscooter.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-tatra-versus-volkswagen-lawsuit.html

Video of a Framo Stromer in action