Passers-by on the Bavarian Ammersee were amazed on the last weekend in May. A whole armada of rare FMR Tg 500s rattled merrily along the lakeside road. However, the small cars are much better known by their colloquial name "Messerschmitt Tiger". In terms of top speed and performance, they are the top models among the cabin scooters, which once also included the BMW Isetta and Heinkel Kabine.
The four-wheeled Tigers are the fastest members of the cabin scooter family developed by Fritz Fend from the end of the 1940s. The three-wheeled scooters were later also produced in the former Messerschmitt aircraft hangars. This is how they got their popular name, which is still used today.
The Tiger technology is more sophisticated than that of the three-wheeled variants. This is because its two-cylinder engine was originally designed by the manufacturer Sachs. Fritz Fend adopted the two-stroke design, which was not fully developed at the time and still causes thermal problems today. He increased the displacement to 500 cubic centimetres and designed a gearbox to go with it. Nevertheless, the engine sometimes has airs and graces.
Why Tigers like to climb mountains
The four-day meeting in Upper Bavaria also included a trip to nearby Lake Tegernsee. From here, we continued on to the Wallberg in the Alps at lunchtime. There, at earlier races on the wild and romantic mountain racetrack, wild tiger rides once thrilled spectators along the track from 1959 onwards.
Even now, at the end of May, the Tiger tamers really let it rip up the Wallberg. The sporty handling combined with extremely direct steering and a vehicle weight of less than 400 kilograms means a lot of riding fun despite only 20 hp. Taking a break at the top of the pass.
One of the four British drivers was particularly admired. Mark Smith had driven all the way from England to Bavaria on his own, proving that the Tg 500 is also suitable for long distances. However, the drivers should not be too sensitive to temperature: It got pretty hot under the glass dome in the sometimes summery temperatures in Bavaria. Some participants therefore also drove the version with a convertible top.
When refueling, it's important to remember: as there are no longer any petrol pumps with a two-stroke mixture, the driver must first add a dose of self-mixing two-stroke oil to the tank before pouring in the appropriate amount of super.
22 individual pieces
Among the more than 30 participants at the meeting at Ammersee with a total of 22 cars was the last Tiger built, which was delivered in 1961. But there were also vehicles that were not entirely original, with either a four-stroke Honda engine or a two-stroke Trabant under the hood instead of the Sachs engine.
Each vehicle was unique anyway. Back then, the Tigers were built by hand. There were constant minor changes and modifications in series production. In total, only around 320 Tigers were produced by FMR - 167 survivors are still known today.
Like the owners of the KR175 and KR200 models, the Tiger riders are organized in the Messerschmitt Club Germany. The club was founded in 1974 and currently has 785 members, 83 of whom live abroad, from Europe to the USA. The club publishes a monthly magazine and organizes regional and annual meetings. It also has a large stock of spare parts for all types of Messerschmitt and FMR cabin scooters. Club chairman Alfred Barth from Mannheim also took part in the meeting in Upper Bavaria - after all, he rides a Tiger himself.
