Ancient pedalcars

Hello folks

Today I want to make a short journey into the world of antique pedalcars

Mochet

When it comes to talking about the ancestors of my pedalcar project,

 the best known name is Charles Mochet.

He produced his Velocars in Paris between the late 20s and 40s of the last century.

Velocar advertisment from the 30s

Mochet Velocars at display

Two ancient photos of Velocars with their happy owners

 Fantom

Another well known name ist the Swedish Fantom.

Although never produced by a manufacturer, 

the Fantom became popular as a cheap plan for self builders.

More than 100.000 plans have been sold over the years, but just a handful of Fantom were built by skilled Swedes.

The two pics above showing a two seated Fantom recreation of the Fordonsmuseum in Arvika/Sweden 

This one seater was build by Claes Johannson, the author of the book Folkhemmets Farkoster, from which the photos were taken.

Ardex

Ardex was another manufacturer of microcars.

During the German occupation of France in WW2 gasoline engines were forbidden, so Ardex changed the powerplants to electrical and human power.

Julien

This is my latest find.

Engineer Maurice A. Julien was formerly involved in the development of the famous 

Citroen Traction Avant. 

His pedalcar design, which he called the "Neocar" is in my taste the most sophistcated and elegant pedalcar of that era.

It featured also the then revolutionary front wheel drive and the whole body was made from aluminium.

It's supposed that just very few examples of this design were built, 

so informations about this fancy pedalcar are very rare.

Williams-Mourlot

One of my blog posts in 2014 was dedicated to a book written for self builders by Max Williams-Mourlot.

It contains a lot of plans, ranging from trailers and sidecars to small gasoline powered sportscars.

Among them were several plans for pedalcars with one or two seats.

Two different single seaters with rear steering:

 

A two seater with FWD:

Single seated velocar with front steering and rear wheel drive:

Sociable velocar with closest similarities to the Mochet models

 

All pages of this book can be found here.

Still, I have no knowledge of vehicles built to this plans.

Maybe somewhere there are still some forgotten old pictures, parts or dusty vehicles in old barns, waiting for their discovery.

Although there's a bare probability, I'm still dreaming about.

If you have informations in any form, I would appreciate to know from you.

Kai

Slow progress

It is a long time now, since my last post.

The woodwork on the tail is finally done.

Now I will seal it in epoxy for proper protection of the wood, then sand and paint it.

Actual weight of the tail is 8kg.

With tailgate and backseat added, I assume to end up with 10kg, so I'm very close to my previous estimations.

I placed the pedalcar beside a middle class estate for size comparison

The open design of the rear gives a lot of possibilities.

Instead of a simple tailgate, I could build a pickup style trunk with more stowage space.

If I want more, an additional hardtop turns the pickup into a van.
All these parts should be exchangeable within minutes, so I'm able to get the most suitable car version just in time.

But now, the building of the front hood has started.

Kai