Peardrop

[Rusty Chrome (Malcolm Parker)]

Don't know if anyone else has seen this video or knows the car shown

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=101308554

[Peelpower]

No idea what it is mates, but i do like it.

[Bob Purton]

No idea but I want one!  Looks like a cross between a Paul Vallee,Avolette and a Tourette! Also liked the music!

[marcus]

Brill.

[blob]

That beats the Mopetta hands down any day, love the bubble rear screen/windscreen combo! 

[bruetsch-freak]

Thank you so much for the video!!!! Thats great stuff.

This is the microcar Bouffort (named after its constructor Victor-Albert Bouffort). During the WWII he was an aeronautic ingenieur. In 1945 he produced his first car. It was a streamlined vehicle based on the Citroen Traction Avant. Only very few prototypes were made and all survived! Later (1952) he developed a scooter which could be "folded" to a small luggage. He called the construction Valmobile. (Find more information: www.valmobile.ch.vu). In the same year he had the idea to produce the whole body of his newest microcar out of plastic. He made a tour through Germany in 1953. One year later Egon Bruetsch came up with some plastic-microcars. Although he was claiming that the concept was his own idea, it seems that he simply overtook the system of Bouffort.

After a few other cars he made (from which nonereached bigger productions) he disappeared.

[Bob Purton]

Very interesting! So who really did it first Bouffort, bruetsch or Merkelt? The plot thickens!

[marcus]

Interesting, thanks for the info.

[bruetsch-freak]

In connection with Bouffort or Bruetsch I´m shure that Bouffort was the first. Of course nobody can prove that Bruetsch had stolen the concept but it seems so. Bruetsch himself told all the time that the idea comes up when he had seen the Chevrolet Corvette. I´ve never heared of Merkelt. Can anyone send a picture?

[Bob Purton]

We have discussed this before. Mr Merkelt was the designer of the Progress Supreme Tourette. First in aluminium and then in fiberglass. His wife swears that he had never seen a Breutch car before designing the tourette. Its not inconceivable that designers could come up with similar looking cars quite independent of each other.

[Chris Thomas]

Dear Bob

When you get to the bottom of this mystery of who was first with the design It would make a great article for Rumcar News.

The design is so pure being the shape of a rain drop, It would be nice to see a modern day equivalent design using 21 century technology. Anybody fancy building such a vehicle?

Chris Thomas

[bruetsch-freak]

oh yes! Now I remember the discussion. As far as I Know were of the Tourette only 26 cars between 1956-1957 built. Some of the Bruetsch cars were offered on british motor shows one year earlier, so Mr Merkelt maybe got inspired of them.

[Bob Purton]

You may be right but I think the aluminium on ash frame prototype predates that. As Chris pointed out its a shape we see in nature, the tear drop so I guess God thought of it first!

[Jean]

When Edwin acquired our Tourette from Mrs. Merkelt she was most insistant that her husband had sketched out the shape of the future Tourette as far back as 1946 and that he was in no way influenced by Brutsch.  Sadly, she passed away some years later and all the information about the cars went to her son.  I doubt if the real truth will ever be known now unless his son has any of those early sketches still.   Jean

[Bob Purton]

Hi Jean, You never told me that before, the date that is! That makes it pretty conclusive then that its an original design which is what my heart was telling all along, as you know I'm a big fan! Thanks Jean, that's made my day.