Australia once had a fledging 'kei-car' industry

Well, not really 'Kei-cars' but a very similar microcar push.

A lot of people associate ‘Straya’s automotive history with Falcodores and boring locally-focused Mitsubishi/Toyota cars, but once upon a time, there was much more to it.

Yeah. We know there was once Leyland, Chrysler etc. but how about a burgeoning microcar industry? It produced some truly zany cars that sound like they’d be best suited to the streets of Tokyo, with ‘kei’-sized sub 1.0-litre engines to boot.

This is the 1958 Goggomobil Dart.

No doors.

Of course, a weird car like this has an equally weird history. Goggomobil was a very temporary (1955 – 1969) international sensation brought to you by Hans Glas in Bavaria. The original cars were all based on an air-cooled rear-engine, rear-drive chassis. Think Fiat 500 Bambino.

The TS coupe was... less sporty?

Bill Buckle of Bill Buckle motors, which you’ve definitely heard of if you live in NSW, discovered that -  thanks to protectionist import policies at the time - it was potentially profitable to import cars as a chassis only, then re-body them in Australia.

As a result, an all-Australian fibreglass body was developed, inspired by Sunbeam and Lotus cars of the era, and sold on by Bill Buckle as the most unique Goggomobil variant in the world.

If you're of a certain age, you might even remember this famous Yellow Pages commercial.

The windscreen was apparently lifted from the rear of a Renault Dauphine.

Unlike the donor TS coupe which weighed 420kg thanks to steel construction, the Dart only weighed a mere 380 kilos. This meant top speed was up from 95km/h to 105km/h. The engine was a two-stroke 300cc producing a whopping 11kW. 0-100km/h time? Hah. Not quoted, but the TS coupe could go 0-80km/h in 27.9 seconds.

Before the end of production, the Dart received an update. This included a 400cc engine and, for the first time, doors! (of the 'suicide' variety, which is fitting, given the car’s relative safety…)

Even just a low-speed collision would amount to certain death.

Out of the 5000-ish Goggomobiles produced in Australia, reportedly only 700 of them were Darts. It’s likely not many of them remain. On the one hand, they were fibreglass, so rust isn’t really a problem. On the other hand, they were last built in 1961 and aren’t exactly shining beacons of safety… or power… or practicality…

The legend doesn’t end with the Dart’s demise in 1961. (likely due to Bill-Buckle’s sell-out to Hong Kong investors.) There was another ill-fated start up from Adelaide in the same vein.

This is the 1963 Lightburn Zeta.

The Lightburn Zeta 'sedan' - also referred to as a 'runabout' probably because it's not a sedan.

Produced from only 1963 – 1965 (for reasons that will soon become apparent) the Zeta had three variants: A ‘sedan’ which was actually a hatchback. A ute, which is now one of the rarest Australian cars ever made with only eight ever having been produced. And the ‘Zeta Sports’ roadster.

Look at that bonnet scoop. Sporty stuff.

Lightburn, a manufacturer of whitegoods, thought that it could give automotive a go based on the fact that it already produced similar machinery and had an existing fibreglass plant. (and hey, Goggomobile just failed so what can go wrong, right?)

The Zeta ute is one of the rarest Australian vehicles ever made.

The problem was the final product was just a little bit garbage. The ‘sedan’ didn’t sell well, with only 363 being produced. The engine had to be restarted backwards to get into reverse gear, the gearbox unavoidably crunched between gears, the fuel gauge didn’t work and the general build quality was poor to the point where ‘flexing of the driveshaft’ caused sudden loss of power. To top it off, loading anything into the back wasn't easy, because there was literally no rear opening.

The Lightburn Zeta Sports, still no doors.

The Sports roadster was a slightly better proposition, though not by much. The car was based on the unfortunately named ‘Frisky Sprint’ from the UK. Like the Dart, the Sports was fibreglass, had no doors and a similar power-to-weight ratio, weighing 400kg and putting out 15.5kW from a two-stroke engine.

The perceived quality problems were compounded by the fact that the slightly better built and technically more capable Morris Mini cost only £60 more at the time.

The Frisky Sprint on which the Sports was based.

Thanks to all those factors, plus the fact that the cars were sold obscurely in Alfa-Romeo dealerships meant that only 28 cars were ever sold of the 48 built. By 1966, Lightburn was done.

*life insurance void upon ignition.

So died the sub-1.0-litre kei-esque car industry in Australia.

Is there a lesson here? Um. You can’t just make dodgy cars out of fibreglass that are slower and less safe than public transport and hope that they’ll sell, no matter how 'sporty' they look, I guess...

Would you catch public transport, or risk your life in one of these? Tell us what you think in the comments.