History
I got my driver’s license in 1967. My parents, who were pensioners, had scrimped and saved and put some money aside to buy me a car. After looking at small British sedans from the mid 1950s, we were attracted to this Goggomobil. My father was a good home mechanic, so I’m not sure why he was attracted to something as unconventional as this, but it probably had something to do with the fact that it was only 6 years old, and was selling for $140. We checked it out, were suitably impressed, and bought it.
In Australia, Goggomobils were imported from Germany by Bill Buckle, and fitted with locally made fiberglass bodies, instead of the original steel bodies. Most were sedans with engines of 250cc or 300cc. (Although there was also the Australian-only Dart sports-car model). Mine was the convertible “coupe” version, with the “big” 400cc engine. The engines were mounted in the rear and were twin-cylinder 2-strokes. So you had to mix the correct ratio of oil in with the petrol.
It had a 4-speed gearbox, with a stubby little gearlever protruding out of a steel tunnel on the floor that carried the appropriate linkages and brake lines etc to the rear of the car. The shift pattern was sideways – 1st across to the left, 2nd across to the right, with 3rd and 4th in similar positions behind those. Being basically the same as a motorbike gearbox, it had the fastest gear-change of any car I’ve driven. However if you were too aggressive with the gear-change the lever would hit the sides of the tunnel with a loud “Clang”. So enthusiastic acceleration was accompanied by the crescendo of a revving 2-stroke engine, broken by periodic clangs from the gearlever. zzzzzZZZZ CLANG! zzzzZZZZ CLANG!
Being a convertible, I thought it was cool! And, although it was a funny little car, I thought I looked cool sitting in the car with the top down.
There was no fuel gauge. There was a reserve section in the fuel tank, with a lever on the rear parcel-shelf. I could just reach this lever from the driver’s seat, enabling me to switch onto reserve when it began to splutter, without having to stop and get out.
Alas, my time with the Goggomobil was to be cut short when, a few months after I got it, I crashed it! I was driving on a dirt road, showing-off to a mate who was in the passenger’s seat. I went into a 90-degree right-hand corner way too fast and the tiny front wheels lost traction and slid. The car skidded straight on and hit an earthen bank beside the road. My mate was thrown forwards, his head breaking the windscreen. I sustained a few bumps and bruises. The front / left corner of the fibreglass body was badly cracked. We walked about 6km back to my home. Every step increased my feelings of guilt: that I had hurt my mate, (not seriously though, thankfully!) and had wasted my parent’s hard-earned savings.
The car was retrieved, and my mate, who happened to be a dab hand with surfboards, was able to do a repair on the body. We sold it with a patched-up front corner, no windscreen and no registration for $30.
