About what is it? Quiz #475: B.E.F. Wagen

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Congratulations! I didn´t expect that amount of correct answers for last week´s quiz. And I also didn´t expect so much detailed knowledge about the B.E.F.-company. All answers together give a good overview so I can write the “About-Quiz…” only by quoting your answers:

This is a 1913 BEF (Berliner Elektromobil-Fabrik), the brainchild of engineer Victor Harhorn who started building this electric three-wheeler under his own name in 1906. In 1907 he went to BEF, where it was mainly built as a van for the Prussian and the Bavarian post offices, but also e.g. as a taxi landaulet. You could buy BEF cars with two and four seats. BEF was a subsidiary of the Accumulatoren-Fabrik AG (AFA) located in Berlin. In 1910 Harhorn left BEF and founded Geha (Gebhardt & Harhorn) to build a new version of his electric car. The BEF vehicles featured an electric engine with an initial output of 2.5 kw (1914: 3.7 kw). Max. speed was 25 km/h and max. range was 80 km. They had a stable chassis made of steel profiles, available as two and four-seater. The electric motor sat above the single front wheel and the power was transmitted via a cardan shaft. Rear-wheels provided with semi-elliptical leaf-springs. In 1917 Geha closed down and Harborn went to Elite who carried on building these cars. Meanwhile, BEF continued building the Harborn car until 1913. GEHA was taken over by the Elitewerke AG in 1917, as was BEF in 1922. In 1922 Elite started to built 4 wheeled cars until 1927 then merged with Diamant and became part of Opel in 1928.

We had nine answers and seven of them were correct. Verner Johnsen was very close with his GEHA solution, but Thomas Ulrich, Gerd Klioba, Fritz Hegemann, Fried Stol, Michael Schlenger, Anders Svenfeld and Robbie Marenzi wrote the correct answer. It is very hard to declare a winner, as all answers were really good, but as we are always looking for the little details, Michael Schlenger wrote the cherry on the cake with his "1,50 Mark per charge" knowledge. Congratulations Michael!

Top 3 in the six month competition, sponsored by Hans Compter Rare Cars:

1: Gerd Klioba

2: Fried Stol

3: Frits Hegemann

Words by Hubertus Hansmann. Photographs by Hubertus Hansmann and Rutger Booy.

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