Volugrafo ‘Bimbo’ 46

I can hear the sad trombone now as you open your email— “What’s this? I’ve never heard of that car make before!” And you hurriedly opened up this latest message and… “Is that even a car?”

By our standards, today, definitely not, but I saw it when researching something else and figured it’d be nice to remember a time when new things were constrained to use as few materials as possible.

You’re probably right in thinking that engineer Claudio Belmondo was probably less a car designer than his better-known peers, and that the ‘Bimbo’ 46 is not exactly a car.

I should mention now — before you stop reading — that Belmondo was also somewhat of a racing driver. (It looks kinda like an old Alfa Romeo Mille Miglia car that shrunk in the wash, or a baby tadpole of one, no?)

That said, with a Second World War hangover and material shortages to contend with, it’s an interesting example of a cheap, austere car that doesn’t look all that bad.