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Known as the APE (ah-pay), Italian for “bee”, this little three-wheeled workhorse often found itself as busy as its namesake. Designed by the inventor of the Vespa scooter, aircraft engineer Corradino D’Ascario, it was seen as a means to re-mobilize Italian businesses after the war during the period of the Miracolo Economico. In continuous production since […]

In 1891, Panhard built a batch of four identical cars, followed by series after series of increasing numbers. While Benz and Daimler had built cars earlier, they were individual examples. Chronologically, this makes Panhard et Levassor the world’s first marque of car in continuous, series production. Panhard et Levassor was also the first manufacturer to

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The “L-Category” is a class of cars and mopeds in France that can be driven without a driver’s license. This new category called sans permis (without license), began in the mid-1970s, and ACOMA became a large manufacturer of these modern microcars, taking 30% of the market. In fact, in 1979 ACOMA was the largest manufacturer

In 1926 brothers Otto and Wilhelm Maisch formed Maisch & Co. to produce small 2-stroke engines of JLO design, plus bicycles and parts. In 1932, the brothers began producing scooters and motorcycles under the Maico name.   Seeing an opportunity to enter Germany’s thriving small car market for pennies on the DM, Maico bought Champion’s

After World War II, Carl Borgward started Lloyd as a lower-priced alternative to the higher-end Borgward family of cars. Lloyd’s first car, the LP 300, was introduced in 1950. Due to the lack of steel available after the war, the LP 300 infamously had a wood and fabric body, leading to the well-known phrase “Wer

VAZ is a Russian auto maker that began producing cars, in collaboration with Fiat, in the late 1960s. The Model 1111, commonly branded for export as a Lada Oka, was developed out of a need to replace the simple and cheap ZAZ Zaporozhets, the Russian “People’s Car”. It was to be the car that “every

Ben Gregory was from Kansas City, Missouri, and he believed that front-wheel drive was the preferred method of propelling a car. From 1920-1922, he tried to put a car into production, and it is believed that about ten were made. Funding ran out, and Gregory gave up on the car business. After WWII, he again

The Fiat Panda was introduced in 1980, and was meant to be a city car for the masses; simpler but in the spirit of Citroën’s 2CV. It was a no-frills utility vehicle designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro of Italdesign. Giugiaro compared the Panda to a pair of jeans – simple, practical, and without frills. For practicality,