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Hungary: The History of Microcar Production

After the USSR took control of the “satellite states” in the 1940s, the Russians set up Comecon, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, to coordinate economic relations across the Soviet bloc. Under the principles of socialist planning, each country was required to produce certain products, but not others. Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Romania were allowed to produce cars, but Hungary was not, probably because it did not have an automobile industry before. But a national vehicle, like a national airline, was a symbol of patriotic pride, especially in Eastern Europe. The Hungarian Communists were soon determined that their country should have its own car. So they sought and found a Hungarian solution. They devised a way around Comecon’s rules by using a speciality known as the “kiskapu” or “little door”. When a door closes, the “kispaku” eventually opens the door with an envelope of banknotes.



In response to the ban on car production in Hungary, the Hungarian communist leaders decided to make a closed vehicle with a steering wheel and a gasoline engine that could safely transport people, but which could not be called a car because it was too small: a microcar! And since the Hungarian microcar was not really a car, it could be made thanks to both the "kispaku" and the heaviness of the communist bureaucracy. The idea met with some success.


Hungarian microcar manufactured in 1968 by Rezső Denk at the Electrical Research Institute in Budapest.

The microcar is the latest in a long line of Hungarian inventions that have shaped the modern world, including Laszlo Biro’s ballpoint pen, the telephone exchange, and holography. Hungarian scientists such as Edward Teller and John von Neumann also played a crucial role in the development of computers and atomic weapons. This innovative capacity may well be rooted in the complexity of the Hungarian language. Saying something in Hungarian requires a series of instantaneous mental calculations before a sentence with any clear meaning can be constructed. An old joke has it that a Hungarian is someone who enters a turnstile behind you and comes out in front. This innate ability to find solutions to complex problems and a talent for rapid, parallel thinking proved crucial to the Magyar people during centuries of foreign domination and particularly useful under communism.


Despite orders from Moscow, Hungary was a natural candidate for automobile production. The huge Manfred Weiss steelworks on Csepel Island is one of the largest industrial enterprises in the Budapest region and Hungary was already exporting Ikarus buses and Csepel trucks throughout Eastern Europe. During the war, the steelworks mainly produced weapons and ammunition and after its requisition by the Nazis in 1944 it continued to do so. After the war, Janos Pentelnyi, one of the engineers at the plant, designed a small car inspired by the German VW Beetle. Rationing and shortages required the inventor of the car, which was called the “Pente”, to have a light, inexpensive, reliable and easy to manufacture car. Powered by a 500cc 2-stroke engine, the Pente was 3 metres long and 1.3 metres high. Pentelnyi argued that his engine was half the price of the 4-cylinder 4-stroke in the rival Fiat Topolino. Convinced, the factory approved production plans in 1946. By December, the first model was on the road, comfortably reaching a top speed of 60 km/h. Enthusiastic, Pentelnyi built a larger 600cc version, which was successfully tested. The steelworks would draw up plans to mass produce both cars.


But the project fell through. After the arrival of the communists in 1948, the Manfred Weiss steelworks was nationalized and renamed after Matyas Rakosi, the Hungarian Stalinist leader. The order came from Moscow: no more cars. Pentelnyi’s works were thrown out and the factory was condemned to produce motorcycles and rudimentary Csepel trucks. The only surviving Pente 600 is now on display at the Museum of Transport in Budapest. Pentelnyi’s Pente never went into production, but its prototypes served as models for subsequent projects.


The post-war years of austerity and shortages were the golden age of the microcar in Europe. Italy had its popular Iso Isetta, while in Germany Messerschmitt, the aircraft manufacturer banned from producing fighter jets, made the Kabineroller which unsurprisingly resembled a fighter cockpit mounted on three wheels. Poland had the Smyk, a 4-wheeled microcar with a front door, and Czechoslovakia produced the three-wheeled Velorex.


Pente 500

In Budapest, the government had drawn up the specifications for the Hungarian microcar: it should be a closed, four-wheeled vehicle, powered by a motorcycle engine, capable of carrying two adults, two children and some luggage. In 1955, the Hungarian Minister of Metallurgy and Mechanical Industry commissioned a team of engineers, including Erno Rubik, the father of the inventor of the famous coloured cube, to set to work in the town of Szekesfehervar, west of Budapest, in a factory that had previously repaired aircraft. They procured an Isetta, as well as a Messerschmitt Kabineroller. Rubik and his team quickly went to the drawing board, drawing on their own imaginations and ideas taken from Italian and German microcars. The result of their thinking was called Alba Regia, as Szekesfehervar was called in Roman times, and Balaton, after the lake of the same name. Both cars were powered by 250cc Pannonia motorcycle engines and had aluminum bodies with airplane wheels. The doors of the Alba Regia opened conventionally, while the roof of the Balaton slid backwards like on a passenger plane to allow the driver and passengers to climb aboard. Their engine was located at the rear and they had a reverse gear. To reverse, the driver had to stop the engine and pull a lever before restarting the engine.


Many admirers of István Karika's dwarf car at the Budapest Industrial Fair in the City Park-1954

These two microcars were a great success and were presented to the public at the Szekesfehervar May Day parade in 1956, accompanied by an Isetta and an Uttoro (Pioneer) made in the city of Debrecen. They were viewed with a mixture of pride and nostalgia. Pride that Hungary had once again circumvented the restrictions imposed from outside to manufacture cars and a desire to own one. For in Hungary, private ownership of a car was a rare privilege as they were usually reserved for party leaders and civil servants. If Hungary could produce its own economy car, then perhaps one could be allowed to buy one.


Balaton and Alba Regia prototypes

The Uttoro, sponsored by the Ministry of Light Industry - and unknown to the Ministry of Heavy Industry - is one of many microcars built by private inventors. Janos Schadek, an engineer living in Debrecen, built his first car in the 1920s. In the 1950s, he worked as chief engineer at a nationalized locksmith factory. He designed the Uttoro with two colleagues, who had previously repaired and built aircraft engines. It was powered by a 250cc Csepel motorcycle engine with a kick starter on the rear axle. Its wheels came from a wheelbarrow, but the car could still reach 80 km/h!


Endre Suranyi, a former motorcycle racer, built his first microcar in 1946. With a 50cc engine and a narrow chassis that could barely accommodate two people, it quickly became known as the "motor shoe". Despite its fragile appearance, it worked well and Suranyi made a more powerful version, with a 125 cc engine. There were even plans to make a 250 cc model, but nothing came of it. In Vac, Kalman Szabadi was excitedly following all the news that was coming in about the Balaton, Alba Regia and other Hungarian microcars. He was working hard on his own prototype.


The Sigma minicar from the auto repair company Trans-Tisza

Excited by the results and the prospect of being able to manufacture a car in Hungary, thereby circumventing Comecon restrictions, satisfying patriotic aspirations and providing a car to a demanding population, the Ministry of Light Industry commissioned the Automobile Transport Research Institute to analyse Western and Soviet-bloc automobile production. The car the Institute preferred was the West German Goggomobil, whose 250cc engine produced an impressive 14hp, but its capitalist origins were a challenge. The socialist genius was to prevail. If it could be shown that Hungary had the expertise to produce a popular, reliable and cheap car, whether or not it fell into the automobile category, Comecon might agree with a "kiskapu" to have it manufactured!


Goggomobil

The best way forward, the minister had decided, was to hold a competition. So the tender was announced in the summer of 1956. But, as was too often the case in Eastern Europe, the winds of history blew and the October Uprising threw the country into chaos. The following year, the ministry declared that there was no winner and the entire project was abandoned.


Nevertheless, in backyards and garages, Hungarian engineers and inventors did not give up their quest to create the perfect Hungarian microcar. Kalman Szabadi reasoned that if Rubik and Schadek had succeeded, then so could he. In 1956 he procured a 300cc Isetta engine and began work at the Vac shipyard. Four years later he unveiled the Fesztival. It was a car 3.15m long, 1.15m high, weighing 380kg with a top speed of about 60km/h. Built with motorcycle parts and a body made of chicken feathers, pig's blood and varnish, the Fesztival stank, but it ran! Unfortunately, Kalman Szabadi's wonderful car remained unique. A few years later, the body was replaced and after an accident the remains of the car were destroyed. Undeterred, Kalman Szabadi began to design boats and water taxis.



The Hungarian microcars are a blip in the history of the automobile, but they were much more than the whim of a few geniuses. The principles they advocated – economy of design, ease of production and simplicity – are still relevant today. Today, half of the world’s population lives in cities, and this figure is expected to increase to 60% by 2030. Even as transport networks expand, many people will still want to drive their own cars. This is especially true with the rapid growth of new middle classes in India and China.


Microcars, with their low emissions, lower running costs and small footprint, are an obvious answer.

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