AutoCult Ruhrfahrzeugbau Pinguin II (1955) (Germany)

About the Original:

In May 1953 the „M.E.V.-Studiengesellschaft für Kraftfahrzeugentwicklung“ was founded in Herne by Romanus Müthing, a former agent for agricultural machines. Heinz Eschenbroich and Kurt C. Volkerath, who was a free engineer and who developed the famous Opel rocket car in the 20s were also involved.

Volkerath, who managed this project, was building a central tube frame for the planned three-wheeler, and he called his project “Pinguin”.

In the rear of the car, a 200cc, 9.5 hp, one cylinder, two-stroke engine was installed from the company “Ilo”. The car had a closed front, indicator lights on the front fenders, rear-hinged doors, and sliding windows. The Pinguin’s front wheels were semi-covered, and it had a big tailgate at the rear. The Pinguin could achieve a top speed of 85 km/h and had a fuel consumption of 5.0 liters per 100 km. The cost of a brand new Pinguin at the time were 3,775.00 German Marks.

The test drives started very soon with the first chassis around Herne in 1953. The form of the first prototype consisted of wood, which was covered by metal.  The second prototype received many improvements with help from the experts of the “Vereinigte Metallwerke” (VDM) in Wehrdohl. They developed body from aluminum sheets.

The project was first displayed at the exhibition “Zweirad-Salon” in Frankfurt at the end of 1953. The interest of the public was enormous, and they jokingly described the Pinguin as “the Porsche on three wheels”.

The Pinguin had a couple big problems though, weight and stability. The plan was to achieve an empty vehicle weight of 280 kg, but the Pinguin was weighing in around 450 kg. Also, even though Volkerath was drawing this elegantly lined vehicle, he overlooked the coordination of the chassis which resulted in stability problems for the Pinguin.

Müthing had already invested 80,000 German Marks into the development of the car, and he was in danger of having the entire Pinguin project fail.

This caused Müthing to reach out to Norbert Stevenson, an engineer of the Fuldamobile, and had him start the complete development of the Pinguin from the beginning.

After the original 2 prototypes, only 10 production examples were ever built, before the project was finally doomed.
The company was liquidated and all 12 Pinguin cars were sold.