‘ELECTROMATIC’ STUDEBAKER

by Distler

Despite the push towards using electric cars, recharging them is still a major issue

Toymakers in the 1950s faced similar problems with battery-powered model cars. Batteries inside the car could make it too heavy to do more than crawl across the floor, while batteries inside a cable-linked control box would restrict its movement

Then the German company Distler came up with a clever solution Distler, the origins of which go back to the late 19th Century, when Johann Distler started making tinplate toys in Nuremberg, had a track record of producing toys with innovative mechanisms Its most famous product was the 25cm-long ‘Electromatic’ Porsche 356, operated by batteries located in the rear of the car, which had steering and even working gears

But the ‘Electromatic Strom-Tankstelle’ or ‘Power Filling Station’ Studebaker took things a stage further. Working with the German Edison Accumulator Company (DEAC), Distler developed what was claimed to be ‘the smallest accumulator cell in existence’ Two large batteries were concealed in a tinplate replica of a Shell filling station, and a ‘hose’ from the petrol pump could be plugged in at the back of the car to transfer power to the accumulator inside the car A three-minute charge allowed the car to be driven for six minutes; a ten-minute charge gave 20 minutes’ use, and so on

The plastic bodyshell is quite an accurate replica of a 1955 Studebaker coupe – it was marketed in the US by Louis Marx, the world’s largest toy company of the time – and a really good boxed example is now worth about £200