Goggomobil - Reader Ride

By: Graeme (aka Argus Tuft), Photography by: Getty Images, Unique Cars archives

Date: 23.01.2022

No, it is not the Dart, it's the family-friendly T 300

Way back pre decimal currency and before the imperial measurement system went west, in 1961 to be exact, I purchased for my retired Mum a small car to enable her to get about in the big smoke of Sydney. Yes...I bought her a Goggomobil T300. It had an overgrown European-built two-stroke lawnmower engine with a motorcycle type gearbox.

It was my Mum’s baby and we bought it damaged, with ‘the thing’ being hit from the rear and featuring a busted near side quarter panel. Of course the whole body was fibreglass with two doors and a weird gear pattern (at 90 degrees to conventional selectors) and who said anything about horse power when in fact it was donkey power.

Jackie Collins in a Goggomobil T300, at the Earl’s Court Motor Show, London, 1956

The car had been traded on a real car and the sales guy from the used car lot was just happy to unload it at any price.

It was two years old not too badly damaged but nobody was keen then to have a crack at repairing it and I got it with some rego on the windscreen for the princely sum of 80 quid (remember those?).

I made up a cardboard mould and proceeded to build up a repair using chopped strand mat and lots of resin two pack. I was pretty happy with the finished repair and Mum was tickled pink in her little grey Goggo.

She often stole fuel to run it from the can of Victa mower fuel in the shed as in those days you mixed SAE 30 oil with the 1 gallon of standard petrol and everything survived on that medicine.

She pedalled that thing around for six years and on one occasion she was hit in the right side, rolled over back on to the wheels and promptly got out and abused the guy who hit her. Mum had a friend in the car and they were on their way to play lawn bowls! I don’t think the guy driving the other car even saw her coming.

| Read next: 1959 Goggomobil dragster

On that bingle she suffered no real damage except a bent door hinge and a few minor scratches which I cleaned up and away she went on more adventures.

She could park that thing in any tiny spot and it was her conversation piece at the local lawn bowls club.

Over the period of ownership she blew three pistons. wrote off a clutch diaphragm, and gathered a whole lot of new friends who I am sure wanted her committed. The piston repairs were orchestrated by a friendly block welder in North Parramatta and I could take the blown piston to his dimly lit workshop and he would yell at me from the back of the shop...."it will cost you ten bob and youse can pick it up tomorrow after lunch".

The perfect car for a motoring holiday

He was a man of his word and a dollar the next day gave me a beautiful repaired aluminium and polished cast piston which I promptly popped back in the relevant pot and away Mum went again until she blew the next piston.

Now I was pretty green and not so familiar with two-stroke donks and it was some time before I found out that two-stroke engines need a bit of back pressure to function properly. Because the previous owner had fitted a Lukey muffler (remember those days?) it apparently was not compatible with the engine and caused overheating of the tops of the pistons thus we blew holes in the darn things.

Perhaps one of the Unique Cars gurus can better explain that process to the uninitiated as it took me a while to grasp the issue. Help on that aspect please guys!

I borrowed the Goggo a few times when my VW beetle was off the road and on one occasion during work lunchtime I challenged a workmate to a drag on Grand Ave, Camellia, as he claimed his Fiat 500 was quicker than my Mums Goggo 300ccs of dynamite.

T-series Goggo assembly line in 1955

We took off down beside Rosehill racecourse with driver and passenger on board each and neither could get in front of the other. It was a draw and it proved the 500cc four-stroke was no better than the 300cc two-stroke, at least on the flat! I did later challenge the guy on an uphill run beside Oatlands Golf Course on the way home and we won over the Fiat but I believe my gear changes were the key to success on that run.

Eventually Mum decided to upgrade her wheels and we sold the Goggo for $75 dollars (yep we went decimal currency) and purchased a Fiat 850 with a centrifugal oil filter. More great fun ensued until Mum gave up driving and dear old dementia took away her fond memories of driving weird vehicles.

The sale of the Goggo was a lesson in itself as I inserted an advert in the local rag and eventually a couple fell in love with the little beast, but I failed to take a holding deposit to clinch the sale and they never showed up again thus the car was sold in desperation to Continental Cars in Punchbowl where it sat amongst Citroens, Peugeots and the like from whence it went thereafter is unknown.

Weird cars indeed but lots of colourful memories.

Ed: Graeme, that is a legendary story – amazing. Thanks so much for sharing.

From Unique Cars #457, Sep 2021

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