Maus Gatsonides was a Dutch rally driver and inventor. In 1948, he cobbled up this, initially called the Gatford, since it was Fprd-based. But Ford objected, either because it sounded too much like their Matford, or maybe because it was not very good looking.
Gatsonides learned his lesson, and in 1949 built something much better looking (below). It too flopped, but Maus went on to invent the modern speed camera, which was a success.
The Gatso 1500 Sport was Fiat-based, and looks considerably better.From Wikipedia:
It was nicknamed the “Platje” (English: “Flatty”) because of its aerodynamic shape. The car caused a sensation at the Dutch Zandvoort Racetrack, passing all of the opponents including MG‘s. Maurice was forced to sell the Flatty to pay creditors after trying to put his own V8 sportscar into production. The Flatty however, survived. It was found abandoned in the 1970s and has now been restored by Joop Bruggeman. It is the last-known surviving Gatso car.
Gatsonides won the Monte Carlo Rally in 1953 driving a Ford Zephyr.
Gatsonides originally invented the Gatso Speed Camera for his own use, so he could time himself on the track during practice.
Since ‘platje’ more commonly refers to ‘crab louse’, I’m not quite certain it was better received than his earlier efforts.
That grainy B&W pic gives me the warm and fuzzies, remembering late nights falling asleep with my Dad’s 1967(?) copy of Georgano’s Encyclopedia of the Motorcar on my belly. It was the doorway to many wondrous , weird and innovative short lived, stillborn and never produced vehicles, made all the more fantastic by the heavily airbrushed, silhouetted images the author managed to collect in a time when it was an infinitely more involved and lengthy process, involving phone calls, air mail packages and reproduced silver prints.
Some 10 years ago, when I was at Hershey, and able to stand under the same tent as an actual steel and plastic Spohn-bodied Veritas, created in an American serviceman’s ridiculous wet dream of the 1951 Buick LeSabre, I felt I had walked right into the pages of Mr. Georgano’s masterwork. The car was in a low-resolution state of patina identical to the the encyclopedia’s pictures. Even though the same photos are now all over the net, I still like to doze off, paging through the original.
Looking at the expressions of the 4 people riding in the Gatford/Aero-Coupe (“Gatford” is a much better name, IMO), I can’t help but think that they know exactly how ridiculous they look inside of that thing. They can barely keep straight faces.
This was probably taken just after Maus had made them all climb in via that tiny little right side door.
https://nihilistnotes.blogspot.com/search?q=Cyclops
Tatra in the 1930s was one of the first to do it in any volume but for a few years in the early post-war period, the cyclops headlamp attracted quite a few designers.
The Aero-Coupe has a Tucker-style third headlight. I wonder if the designer was copying Preston Tucker’s innovative design.
Was Preston Tucker copying the Rover 60/75 Cyclops?
Gatsonides, I thought that name sounded familiar yes rally winner in a MK1 Zephyr thats where Ive seen that name before hes one of the reasons people here thought highly of the old MK1s but his had overdrive and a Raymond Mays cylinder head the cars we could get didnt and were quite brittle in the gearbox and rear axles, also the bolt stub axles on the front could come off with startling results and the swaybar which located the mac phearson struts could fracture folding a front wheel under the car giving a very wild ride,
he has a lot to answer for not to mention speed cameras.
Interestingly is that the Gatso company (that still produces these dreaded speed camera’s) is still operated by the Gatso family: his grandchildren now run the business.
I am guessing that the Gatso Speed cameras catch more attention than the cars. They got my attention more than once!
I’d come across the name Gatso in reference to speed cameras in British magazines but never knew the origin of the name. Thanks for ticking that learning experience off my list. By the way, we have radar-activated speed warning signs, and red-light cameras, but I’ve never heard of speed cameras in use here in California. 🤞🏻