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Biscúter was a microcar manufactured in Spain during the mid-20th century. A microcar is a particularly and extremely small automobile. ...
The Kingdom of Spain or Spain ( Spanish: Reino de España or España; Catalan: Regne dEspanya; Basque: Espainiako Erresuma; Galician: Reino da España) is a country located in the southwest of Europe. ...
Background
Raw material shortages and general economic difficulties in Europe following the Second World War made very small, economical cars popular in many countries. In Spain the situation was complicated by General Francisco Franco's authoritarian government, which was disliked by many Western and Communist states as a remnant of Fascism. Consequently, Spain's economy was relatively isolated from the developed world. It operated at a lower economic level than the rest of Western Europe, and was forced to develop domestic substitutes for hard-to-get imported products and technologies. The Biscúter, tiny, simple, and cheap even by microcar standards, was a product of this environment and was well suited to its time and market. Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km (60,000 ft) into the air. ...
Generalísimo Francisco Franco, caudillo de España por la gracia de Dios Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco y Bahamonde Salgado Pardo de Andrade (December 4, 1892 - November 20, 1975), abbreviated Francisco Franco Bahamonde and sometimes known as Generalísimo Francisco Franco, was dictator of Spain from 1939 until...
For alternative meanings for The West in the United States, see the U.S. West and American West. ...
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Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler Fascism (in Italian, fascismo), capitalized, refers to the right-wing authoritarian political movement which ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. ...
Origins The car actually had its origins in France in the late 1940s, where aircraft designer Gabriel Voisin had designed a minimal car called the Biscooter. The playful name implied that it was about the size of two motorscooters, or a scooter with four wheels. The design drew no interest from either manufacturers or consumers there, however, and he eventually licensed it to Spanish firm Autonacional S.A. of Barcelona. By the time it was introduced in 1953, the marque had been hispanicized to Biscúter. The first car had no formal model name and was called simply the Series 100, but it soon became known as the "Zapatilla," or little shoe, after a low-heeled peasant slipper popular at the time. France - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins/monobook/IE50Fixes. ...
For other uses, see Barcelona (disambiguation). ...
Technical information The Zapatilla was minimal indeed, with no doors or windows or reverse gear. The 1 cylinder, 197 cc, two-stroke motor produced 9 horsepower (7 kW), had a crank starter, and drove only the right front wheel. Braking was by an unusual three-point system involving the transmission and cable ties to the two rear wheels. One genuinely advanced feature was an all-aluminum body, although steel was later used. The two-stroke cycle of an internal combustion engine differs from the more common four-stroke cycle by having only two strokes (linear movements of the piston) instead of four, although the same four operations (intake, compression, power, exhaust) still occur. ...
Starter may refer to an automobile self starter, or starter motor the person who fires a pistol or waves a flag to indicate the start of a race This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...
History Biscúter flourished for about ten years and the cars became a common sight on Spanish roads, as well as a part of popular culture. ("Ugly as a Biscúter" was a common joke.) Amenities such as doors and windows did eventually appear, and several different bodystyles were produced, including trucks, an elegant woody station wagon, and a toy-like sports car called the Pegasin. Estate car body style (Saab 95) A station wagon (United States usage), wagon (Australian usage) or estate car (United Kingdom usage) is a car body style similar to a sedan car but with an extended rear cargo area. ...
The auto firm Fiat had been allowed by the Spanish government to set up a subsidiary called SEAT in 1950, but at first even the most inexpensive of its Italian designs were considered luxury cars, out of reach of the average Spanish consumer. As time went on and a greater degree of prosperity developed, though, SEATs began to take more of the market and crowd out the cheaper marques. By the early 60s, Biscúter sales and production stopped, after a total production run of about 12,000. It is thought that almost all of the cars were eventually scrapped. This article is about Fiat the automobile manufacturer. ...
A white Seat 600 SEAT is one of the leading car makers in Spain. ...
Today Now Biscúters are mostly museum curiosities, although like many vanished marques they have some following among auto enthusiasts. The name is little-known outside Spain, however, and most materials pertaining to it are in Spanish. Their extreme rarity makes it likely that any surviving example would be a genuine collectible, although probably not one of an extremely high value.
External links Biscúter comercial 200 C.jpg The Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum (http://www.microcarmuseum.com/) in Georgia has probably the best Biscúter collection in the United States: A history of the marque in Spanish, with some interesting photos: - Biscúter history (http://grupo7.com/microcoches/biscuter.htm)
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