The cheapest diesel passenger car in the world
12/31/2012
In January 1963, a press release made the rounds stating that the Belgian company Sobimpex was installing Perkins 1.6-liter engines in the Russian Moskovitch and thus producing the world's cheapest diesel passenger car "Scaldia Moskovitch". The press release also stated that some of these vehicles had already been tested as cabs in Brussels. The findings have been incorporated into the "series version", of which 1,200 units are now to be produced per year. The car was also shown at the Brussels Motor Show in January 1963. Sales brochures were printed, but the expected success did not materialize.
Sobimpex also installed diesel engines in other Russian vehicles, and later models are better known.
However, it would be years before diesel engines became established in mass-produced vehicles.
