Introducing the Dachshund: the world's lowest car, or the world's largest slipper?

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If you like strange inventions, odd discoveries, general scientific silliness and all things mechanical and technical, Popular Science magazine was the periodical to go for in the 1930s, with motoring oddities appearing on your doormat every month.

The November, 1933, issue was another edition which presented no shortage of peculiarities, from illustrated pipe dreams about electric ships to mono-wheel military tanks. However, the real object of interest, from page 43, seems relatively grounded in reality. The image is edited, but it seems to be a real photograph. Unfortunately, the information provided with it is limited. We reproduce the original caption in full here: “With an overall height of only twenty-seven inches, a dachshund car recently appeared on the roads in England. It is believed to be the lowest automobile in the world, the distance from the top of the windshield to the pavement being less than three times the height of this page. It was built by a Bradford engineer.”

It must be said that the Dachshund (which seems an appropriate name, but was it really called that?) must have been a most extraordinary vehicle. How did our Bradford man manage to build it? Unfortunately, we couldn’t find anything else at all about his crazy creation, which seems odd and leaves us with a few questions. What was the base vehicle he used to build it? How did he alter the chassis in order to make it so low? What engine is under that bonnet? Where did it go? Could the registration be a starting point? It looks like KY 4777.

Words: Jeroen Booij; 
Picture: Popular Science Monthly

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