Sorry, but I can’t get the image of the front of this car out of my head–it looks like it’s puckered up for a kiss! We have covered Goggomobil’s before here at Barn Finds, but this one is a little different. For one thing, it’s the smaller engined TS250 rather than the TS400 that seems more common. Secondly, this is a car that has spent some time in a museum and is only showing 42,310 km, which translates to 26,290 miles! It’s for sale here on eBay at no reserve with bidding well below $3,000 as I write, and is located in Woodbridge, New Jersey.
As best as I can tell, the styling didn’t change much from the original coupe in 1957 until the end of production in 1969, but there are a lot of extras on this car, including front and rear bumper guards and a luggage rack. The seller has helped themselves with some nice photography, and the underneath shot of the car looks every bit as nice as the top side. I don’t know if it’s been restored or just incredibly well-preserved (the ad copy implies both) but it sure does look cute!
Here’s that cute front end, all puckered up! The paintwork and brightwork both look to be in fabulous condition; wouldn’t it be nice to own a car that actually needs nothing? I wouldn’t know what that was like!
It’s just as nice on the inside too, with pristine upholstery, carpet, headliner and door panels. It really is spectacular, with some discoloration on the white plastic dash knobs the only minor issues I can see. I’m not a Goggomobil expert, though, so please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. I think, based on a close up of the shifter that this has the optional pre-selector electrically controlled gearbox, but again, perhaps one of you knows better?
13 horsepower. Yes, 13. Probably less than your riding lawn mower. However, the engine is probably a lot smaller as well, only displacing 245 cc. Believe it or not, there were 66,511 of these little coupes produced over that long lifetime, so you won’t be alone and there is a large club that deals with both Glas and Goggomobil cars here on the web. So, tell me–do you want to bring this car home and give it a smooch?
Back in the 70s when I was in my teens, my older brother and I went across town to buy a 16mm movie projector. The seller had one of these in his driveway, facing the street. I’d never seen a car like it so we looked around and found the Goggomobil name on the back. It’s hard to forget a name like Goggomobil. It remains the only one I’ve ever seen in person.
Better to look like puckered lips than duck lips.
My first thought was that it looked like a teenage girl taking a selfie. Lol Yolo hash tags and stuff.
Many years ago a college mate had a Goggomobil in Bethlehem, NH. It was a different body style but the electric pre-selector transmission poked straight out of the dash. I got the engine running but could not get the transmission to recognize anything but neutral, that was the only thing it would select. Thanks for the memory though.
I was considering buying a Gogo in the late fifties at a used car lot in Detroit Mi. One thing I remember that is different from this one is it had a pre-selector for the transmission. Their was a small toggle on the instrument panel that you would put in gear without touching the clutch. When you were ready to shift into gear to start or go into a higher gear you would first put the toggle into the gear you want. push in on the clutch pedal and then it would go into gear.
Its a manual gear change, the gear stick being on the floor. There is no junction box on the top of the engine blower cowling.
Alan, thanks for the expertise! We can always count on our readers to help–it’s great that you have the knowledge and are willing to share. So I should look for the gear lever placement; the manuals are on the floor and electros on the dash?
These were ubiquitos in Germany, but most sported the larger 400cc engine. Even with that installed the machine was no car for the autobahn – just simply too slow especially during acceleration. Lord Snowden, the late husband of Princess Anne of GB drove one. The trouble with Goggo was too many models, all with different engines, air cooled, water cooled, 2 strokes, 4 strokes, opposed cylinders, in line 4´s and even a V8 in what was dubbed the ¨Glaserati¨, since it looked similar to the Maserati 3500GT.