BUSINESS ABROAD: Buy-Eyed Over Bugs

The fastest-growing segment of the West German auto industry (world’s No. 2, after the U.S.) is the midget-car business. Last week crowds at the opening of the 38th International Automobile Fair in Frankfurt hurried past the halls filled with big, sleek U.S. models, slowed down only slightly in the rooms where a new Porsche hardtop convertible, a new face-lifted Mercedes, Opels, Volkswagens and other German-made regular cars were on display. They finally came to a halt and milled around in the pavilion where midget-auto makers, some of them motorcycle manufacturers, were showing a half-dozen new models added to the score they brought out last year. Among the new bug-sized eye-catchers:

¶ A four-seat version of Bavarian Motor Works’ two-seater Isetta. The Plexiglas front still opens up to admit the driver and front passenger. The two back passengers enter by a new narrow door in the right rear.

¶ The Janus, a four-passenger, one-cylinder, 14-h.p. car from the Zündapp motorcycle factory. Both front and back of the car open; the passengers sit back to back, with the motor under and between them.

¶ Three new models of Hans Glas’s Goggomobil. The T 600 line is expected to sell for about $1,000, has a bigger (25-h.p.) engine than the older models, goes faster (up to 70 m.p.h.) but burns more gas (maximum: 45 miles per gal.).

¶The racy Messerschmitt Tiger, only 50 in. high with two seats arranged tandem fashion under a lift-up plastic dome. Fastest of all the midgets, the Tiger has been clocked at 87 m.p.h.

¶The NSU Prinz, an almost grown-up-looking car, although barely 9 ft. long, 4 ft. high.

¶ The Mopetta, a tiny (only 3 ft. high) one-seater with three wheels, a plastic body, and a motor the size of a cabbage head, which sends it scuttling along at 30 m.p.h.