The mystery of the car in the attic – a one shot story

We have all heard of barn finds – abandoned cars, tractors, sometimes even whole classic car-collections that were left to collect dust and grime in barns and garages until someone finds them decades later. But what about attic finds? OK, these are of course also a thing. But I mean an abandoned car – in an attic?

It had already been a long day on the road for me, checking out a few lost places in the Bavarian countryside. All of them were duds more or less, so morale was already rather low. The last location for the day also didn’t seem to be a treasure trove for interesting photo motifs. It turned out to be an almost entirely cleared out former car and construction machine workshop including a connected residential building. The latter was one of these places that is stuck in a state of half finished renovation, so basically mostly an abandoned construction site filled with some garbage. Not the most exciting place. Still, I decided to check out the whole building, and I’m happy I did.
Climbing up the ladder into the attic, my eyes fell upon some old concrete mixers. A good amount of them actually, but back in a dark corner I spotted something different… a car! Which is, of course, something that is rather rarely found in an attic.

The vehicle turned out to be a “Goggomobil” (or “Goggo”). This car was a product of Germany’s post-war “Wirtschaftswunder” (economic miracle) era and a direct rival to the famous and popular VW Käfer (Beetle). Exactly 284.491 of the three different model variants were built between 1955 and 1969 in Dingolfing, Lower Bavaria by Hans Glas GmbH (1966 bought out by BMW). From 1955 to 1961 Goggos were even exported to the US.
The Goggomobil was deemed to be very reliable, easy to maintain and had already become a cult classic by the 1980s. Today, about 2.500 Goggos are said to be still driving around. Unfortunately, the one I found was in a state of neglect and had been sitting there for at least two or three decades.

So we’ve answered the question of what type of car I had found, but not how it had ended up there. Goggos are relatively lightweight, but still, lifting a vehicle with a weight between 418kg and 480kg up a ladder through a narrow opening into an attic is obiously impossible. So how did it end up there? I guess we will never know…

Just kidding! As mentioned earlier, part of this buildung had once been a vehicle and construction machine workshop. Up in that attic I also discovered what seemed to be the remainings of a dismantled hoist system. With it, it should have been possible to lift all these concrete mixers and also a small car from the outside up into the attic. So I’m pretty sure that’s how this car was brought up there.
Unfortunately, with the building being abandoned and the hoist system not being in place anymore, this Goggomobil’s future is pretty uncertian. So we can only hope that one day, an enthusiastic collector will happen upon this piece of german post-war history and save it. Although I sadly rather doubt this. Only time will tell.

The photo of the Goggomobil was shot on Ilford FP4 plus with my Pentax Spotmatic SP 1000 paired with a Super-Takumar 28mm f3.5 lens. A tripod and a small portable video-light were also used.

Thank you very much for reading my third article! If you want to see more of my photos feel free to visit my page on flickr.

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