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Offline Wendax

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #75 on: September 09, 2019, 03:40:50 PM »
Eigenbau of the month: September 2019

This month's featured Eigenbau is from a different time and a different place as the ones before. The pictures were taken in Yugoslavia probably in the 1980s. The car has Belgrade license plates. It seems to be rear engined, going by the mesh grill between the rear lights. That makes it very plausible to assume a Zastava 750 or a VW Beetle base, as the Beetle was built in Yugoslavia, too. Interestingly it bears quite a resemblance to a Swiss one-off by Albert Vicentini we had as a puzzle before: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2015-44/sac652-a-one-off-with-nsu-engine/
« Last Edit: May 18, 2023, 11:09:20 AM by Wendax »
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Offline Wendax

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #76 on: October 03, 2019, 12:26:45 PM »
Eigenbau of the month: October 2019

Finally I managed to get hold of Eigenbau pictures at an ebay auction. The pictures were taken in Eastern Germany, obviously long after the car was built. It must have been in the 1970s or early 1980s, when the owner tried to revive the roadster. The car itself looks like it was built on a prewar chassis (DKW Front Luxus?) during the 1950s. Its appearence could have been influenced by the IFA sports racing car we had as a puzzle before: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2013-42/solved-wendax-927-ifa-f9-by-arbeitsgruppe-chemnitz/msg378779/#msg378779. Let's hope its owner got it back on the road and it rests in some garage.
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Offline Wendax

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #77 on: November 16, 2019, 10:13:54 AM »
Eigenbau of the month: November 2019

Featured this month is a beautiful roadster following American design lines of the 1940s. The car was registered in the Austrian state of Styria (Steiermark). I don't know the car's base, but having a guess I'd say it was built on an Opel chassis. The picture is supposed to have been taken at the 1954 Präbichl hill climb. If anybody happens to have a participants' listing, number 163 is the one to look for. I'd be happy to learn more about this car.
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Offline Wendax

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #78 on: December 05, 2019, 03:22:55 PM »
Eigenbau of the month: December 2019

This thread started in 2016 with two Veritas lookalikes. Today's car is not too far away from them, being a quite elegant convertible on a prewar BMW chassis. The front end treatment is somewhere between Autenrieth and Ernst Loof's BMW 502 Sportwagen below. The vents in the front wings are similar to the Veritas arches. One detail which betrays its quite professional appearance is the single wiper on the driver's side. Mother and daughter look happy anyhow. The registration is from Württemberg in southwestern Germany.
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Offline Wendax

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #79 on: January 12, 2020, 09:55:01 AM »
Eigenbau of the month: January 2020

Starting the new year with something colourful! This little piece of art painted in the best of Bauhaus tradition turned up in former Yugoslavia. It is said to be based on a 1937 Fiat Topolino. The speedometer obviously comes from a Zastava 750. The license plate tells us that the car was registered in Pančevo (Serbia).
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Offline Wendax

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #80 on: February 01, 2020, 03:03:47 PM »
Eigenbau of the month: February 2020

This must be the definite East German answer to the space age craze: Take a prewar chassis and dress it up as a twin rocket. It must have been a first class head turner. It might have been inspired by Taruffi's twin shell record cars Tarf I & II (see below). I have no idea what car served as base, perhaps a DKW. The Eigenbau was registered in the Güstrow district in the northern part of the GDR.
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Online Oguerrerob

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #81 on: February 01, 2020, 04:24:06 PM »
Very similar to this Ford Anglia chassis, wing tanks T-33 jet trainer Chevy, Austin Bantam, 1940s Ford windshield built by USAF Lt Cl EH Risher USA
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Offline Wendax

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #82 on: February 01, 2020, 04:37:05 PM »
Indeed! I thought I had seen a similar car before, and that's the one.
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Offline Wendax

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #83 on: March 01, 2020, 12:35:04 PM »
Eigenbau of the month: March 2020

When you built an Eigenbau in postwar Germany and it should become a sports car, you had two popular alternatives: if you started with a BMW chassis there was a big chance your car would look like a Veritas. But if you started with a Volkswagen chassis (or most probably a Kübelwagen chassis) what would you do? Correct, build your own Porsche. And that's what this guy from Frankfurt has done. While the body itself was quite bulbous, the front boot lid and the windscreen show the limits of the artisan's work by being very angular. The picture was taken after 1956 as you can tell by the number plate, and the car is obviously beginning to lose its fresh looks. Anyhow, another nice car, long gone now.
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Offline Wendax

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #84 on: April 04, 2020, 05:26:58 AM »
Eigenbau of the month: April 2020

In times when the coronavirus forces us to keep distance from each other and to avoid long-distance trips, this vehicle might just be the right one. It should take us to the next grocery store and our potential passenger is seated well behind us. The picture was taken in Vienna, and it must have been around 1933 when the movie "Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse" by Fritz Lang came to the cinemas. The poster can be seen behind the car and below.

Stay healthy!
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Offline Wendax

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #85 on: May 01, 2020, 12:13:42 PM »
Eigenbau of the month: May 2020

Do you really want to impress your neighbours? Well, an American car would have served you well in postwar Germany. But you are afraid your 1953 Chrysler begins to look outdated? Nothing easier than to change that. Just apply some fashionable tailfins and some huge front fender extensions. Some more chrome strips and a few Dagmar bumpers will complete the make-up. A new two-tone paint job and ready you are! The contrast to your grey home next to the factory couldn't be bigger. They will turn green with envy!
« Last Edit: May 01, 2020, 05:15:17 PM by Wendax »
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Offline Wendax

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #86 on: June 02, 2020, 10:40:48 AM »
Eigenbau of the month: June 2020

Cool car, cool guy. A perfect car for cruising on a summer's day. But what is beneath it? The only parts I can identify doubtlessly are the VW hubcaps. The rest rather looks as if the body was built on a front engined car than on a Beetle chassis. The front seems to come from another car, the middle section looks homemade, the rear fenders look almost like Opel Olympia ones, but they aren't. Where is the dashboard from? At first I thought of Panhard Dyna X as a donor, but there are differences. The car still has semaphores instead of turning indicators, but the fake portholes on the fenders surely improve the optics. Too bad there are no other views known of this real bitsa.
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Offline Wendax

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #87 on: June 02, 2020, 11:33:04 AM »
Update on the Eigenbau of the month April 2019

Today I stumbled across the builder's name of the Porsche lookalike from last April: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg484729/#msg484729.
The car was built by Rudolf Oehler of Windischleuba and his son Klaus. They started in 1953 with two VW Typ 82 (Kübelwagen) axles and a bespoke tubular chassis. The engine was a 25 hp VW unit. The car featured quite a few IFA parts and started its life with a Tatra-style finned rear lid when it was road registered in 1956.
There is a nice web page about this car with lots of photos: https://www.oldtimerclub-windischleuba.de/oehler-eigenbau/
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Offline oko94

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #88 on: June 02, 2020, 11:59:27 AM »
Great stuff, keep it coming !
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Offline Wendax

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #89 on: July 13, 2020, 06:46:46 AM »
Eigenbau of the month: July 2020

I just came back from a two-weeks vacation in Prague, so I think it to be appropriate to post a Czech Eigenbau for this month. The picture was taken around 1960 at the premises of the automobile club AMK Zbrojovkva Brno. One can only guess what cars were used as donors. Was the body taken from a Tatra 57B and altered at the front? If so, it was done with more style than the Tatra below I came across recently which was turned into a fake Mercedes-Benz.
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Offline Wendax

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #90 on: August 01, 2020, 04:07:26 AM »
Eigenbau of the month: August 2020

Another picture I bought recently. At first sight I noticed that the car looked unusual, half fastback, half notchback. What might it be? A rare picture of a Staunau? Then I recognized the chrome bar above the number plate, and yes, the car is a modified Gutbrod Superior. But it was none of the rare four-seater cars built at the factory (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2015-44/solved-wendax-1507-gutbrod-superior-viersitzer and https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2014-43/sac793-1953-gutbrod-4-seater-one-off-prototype). It must have been a private conversion, probably done in order to seat the growing children. I couldn't find out so far which donor the roof came from (if it wasn't custom-made). The location where the picture was taken is easy to find, because the "Wirtschaft zum Krabbenstein", the oldest tavern in Ebersbach, Baden-Württemberg, still exists. The picture must have been taken after 1955, because  this kind of license plates was issued beginning in 1956.
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Offline Wendax

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #91 on: September 02, 2020, 11:31:20 AM »
Eigenbau of the month: September 2020

This month brings us an Eigenbau from East Berlin. A nice little roadster probably based on a Dixi or BMW 3/15 PS. Its body follows the fashion lines of its time and could be described as a mixture of a Champion Ch-2 and a Gutbrod Superior Sport, both of which I have added a picture below. I like especially the elegantly adapted BMW grill in the front hood. The car on the left with its Ihle (or at least Ihle-like) body has appeared here before: it is the right car on the picture of the January 2017 Eigenbau of the month (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg424676/#msg424676). Both pictures must have been taken on the same occasion, I guess a meeting of Eigenbau builders. Next month we will meet this car again, so stay tuned.
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Offline Wendax

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #92 on: October 01, 2020, 12:00:28 PM »
Eigenbau of the month: October 2020

Last month I told you that this month we will see the BMW 3/15 PS with the registration IA 52-26 again. And here we are: the first picture shows the car as you could see it in the last post. The second picture though shows a nice 50s-style roadster with the same license plate. A Buick style grille sits in a front influenced by the supercars of those days. Looking closely you can read its nickname painted close to the left headlight: Max. The third picture illustrates the side designed much like last month's featured Eigenbau. The rear view in the following picture is not as up to date as the front design, showing more similarities to the 1930's sports cars of BMW or Adler. The builder must have noticed that too, as on the next picture, taken in the garage, we can see a second car with a more modern rear design. Picture #6 shows that the front of the second car which went by the name of Moritz is almost like Max's, just with the chrome teeth being slightly bigger. This picture series ends with a nice setting in the evening light. Max and Moritz of course derive their names from a very popular illustrated rhyming tale about two terrible boys by German author Wilhelm Busch which is considered to be a forerunner of modern comic strips.

Both cars were built by Dieter Wendt (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2017-46/wendax-3390/ and https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2011-39/finally-solved-217-of-all-1961-vw-kubel-based-wendt-wagen/).
« Last Edit: June 21, 2021, 03:37:18 PM by Wendax »
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Offline Wendax

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #93 on: October 15, 2020, 01:50:55 AM »
Two more views added of the Eigenbau of the month May 2016.
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Offline Wendax

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #94 on: November 01, 2020, 05:31:05 AM »
Eigenbau of the month: November 2020

No faded pictures of unknown home-built cars this month, but recent pictures of an Eigenbau with a known builder. The car has even puzzled here before. So you may ask why feature it in this thread? Well, I was pleased to see that a car that had disappeared from view for many decades was unearthed and advertised for sale. The lucky survivor is the NSU Prinz 1000-based coupe built by Gerhard Leun, a coachbuilder from Gießen. So far I just knew the two pictures of it in our puzzle thread: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2015-44/gerhard-leun-s-nsu-one-off-sportscar-19651973, one from a NSU book and the other from a 1973 magazine ad. The Leun coupe has a fiberglass body, was built over the period of 18 months and the final costs amounted to 40,000 DM. You could buy a brand new Porsche 911 plus a Mercedes-Benz 250 SE for that back then. Initially the Leun NSU had the stock Prinz 1000 engine fitted, but later on it received a Spiess engine delivering at least 75 hp and rocketing the car to 200 kph instead of 150 kph with the works engine.
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Offline grobmotorix

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #95 on: November 02, 2020, 03:33:37 AM »
It was advertised for sale back in 1973:
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Offline Wendax

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #96 on: November 22, 2020, 09:02:25 AM »
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Offline Wendax

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #97 on: December 04, 2020, 03:15:12 PM »
Eigenbau of the month: December 2020

Another sports car dream from the 1960s. But this time the engine might not match the car's looks as good as in last month's Eigenbau. The wheels can easily be recognized as early VW parts. So this beast may just have 30 horsepowers, a little less than its brother in style, the Drogo Ferrari 250 GTO which may have influenced our Eigenbau's design. Upon closer inspection I noticed that the car appears to be right hand driven. I don't have any information where the photo was taken, so it might be from the UK or just a flipped picture of a German car. The owner must have had some ideas how to approve the car's appearance, at least the sketched lines at the front may show a future development.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2020, 03:17:40 PM by Wendax »
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Offline grobmotorix

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #98 on: December 05, 2020, 04:36:59 PM »
 :applause:
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Offline Wendax

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Re: Eigenbau of the month
« Reply #99 on: January 02, 2021, 06:07:31 AM »
Eigenbau of the month: January 2021

I'll start this year with a car that at first sight looks like a home-built microcar. Upon further inspection there seem to be no provision for fixing a canvas top to the car which would rather make it a beach car. Well that wasn't too common in communist Eastern Germany back then. Opening the rear lid uncovers a rear engine which came from a Trabant telling by the front decals. But why bother with turning a front-engined Trabant into a rear-engined beach car? The most probable solution appeared to me when I discovered another rear-engined Trabant-based car, the blue mobil shown in the last pictures. It obviously was built as a autocross vehicle. So I assume that despite its more civilian looks this month's Eigenbau was built for this purpose, too. Nice to see these cars survived so far.
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