AutoCult Vulografo Bimbo (1946) (Italy)

About the Original:

The Little Four Wheeler

It is not a secret that Italians have and had a tendency to love very small cars. A lot of examples in the history were showing this.

In the immediate post-war-period the publicly known vehicle Volugrafo Bimbo was created. The car was exceptionally too small with its basic information of a length of only 2,4 meters, a track width of nearly over 80 centimeters, and a height of only 90 centimeters. Moreover, with a weight of 125 kilograms it also weighted very little. Its four wheels, in the size 3,5 x 8 inch, were made from a wheelbarrow’s wheels!

Despite of the small size of the small car, two persons could take a seat inside. Because of missing doors, they must squeeze themselves into the already quite small opening of the red colored car body. But there was another problem while sitting on the thinly padded seat, as the steering wheel was centrically installed and made a right sitting position difficult and the gear lever on the left side also had to be operated. A longer journey for two was not planned, as the Bimbo had not even a trunk and inside of the car was no space for travel accessories. The Volugrafo Bimbo was sufficiently powered for the Italian city traffic with a speed of 60 km/h. An OHV-four-stroke engine, sized at 125 cm³, was used for the drive, had a performance of 4,5 hp and was air-cooled. The drive was installed immediately on the left rear wheel and was forwarding its power by a chain over a 3-speed transmission to the left rear wheel. The idea of the small car was not well received by the Italian population, as there were almost no buyers. Even if the small car was already presented to the public in November 1945 – bearing in mind that as late as May 1945 peace returned to Europe – the people had much greater problems to master their everyday life as to think about purchasing a funny small car. From spring 1946 the production was starting in the factory halls of the company Officine Meccaniche Volugrafo. This company was located in Turin and was converting their war production of aircrafts parts to civil production of trailers and pumps.

The production of the Bimbo was maintained until 1948, however only 60 copies were delivered in total.