Le magazine et marché mondial pour les passionnés de voitures classiques, par des passionnés.
Le magazine et marché mondial pour les passionnés de voitures classiques, par des passionnés.
An email from Christian Günzel came in. With attached this photo of a small but very crowdy 'family' car and he would like to know what it is. Quite often we receive this kind of photos, which we really enjoy. Sometimes they come with no information at all, but Christian gave us something we were a bit surprised of; the owner of the car. Namely, 'Emaillierwerke Vieweg & Förster, Penig, Saxony, Germany'.
When we googled this name, we found a message that the company was founded on May 5th, 1903. This would mean the photo was taken after that date. But would the car be of 1903?
It looks like it is an air-cooled engine, and the license plate is visible.
Christian thinks it is a Piccolo.
They made those little Voiturettes with air-cooled engines from 1904 until 1912. But we are not sure if they in the beginning already had a bonnet.
Well, you know probably exactly what it is. Please, share your thoughts with us.
Enjoy your week.
If you have a good mystery photo, please send it in >click<
First of all the protection screen in the front entrance of the bonnet has of course the typical Piccolo shape, though the bonnet itself is non-typical for the Piccolo. Still I could find a a few examples of ca 1907 with more or less similar louvres, though the bonnet was slightly longer and fitted more closely around the frontal protection screen. The steering column arrangement with the typical downward bending steering wheel spokes as well as the lever arrangement is exactly identical to that used in the Piccolo cars. The shape of the dumb irons and wheel hubs fit well, and even the body seems to be fairly identical to the period (ca 1907 to 1909) bodies fitted on the Piccolo.
Circumstantial evidence is the fact that Penig is not too far from Apolda (slightly more than 100 kms) and that the owner was an industrialist, who, besides being a client, could even have had a business-relationship with the Piccolo factory.
Though dating of the car is difficult because of lack of similar examples, my idea is that we see a transition model between the earlier model with the curved dash and the later models with the more conventional bonnet, with a likely production date of 1906 or 1907.