Glass has been largely forgotten, but one is shining at Interclassics.
This is a contribution from Robert van den Oever and Maarten van der Pas
The German car brand is not very well known to the general public in the Netherlands, but it made beautiful and smooth-driving sports cars based on its own technology and designs of the name: Glass. The car manufacturer only existed for a short time, until BMW was forced to take care of it. At Interclassics in Maastricht we found a beautifully restored Glas 1700 GT Coupe. It is a sleek and elegant compact sports car designed by the Italian designer Pietro Frua and with a 1.7 liter four-cylinder engine of 100 hp.
The green 1700 GT comes from the United States where it was delivered new in California in 1967. The car was restored in the early 1980s with the help of Hans Glas himself (founder of the car brand) and in 2016 it came to Germany. The car has recently been completely overhauled and is offered as a fully restored car with only 400 kilometers on the odometer.
The model came onto the market in 1964 with a 1.3 liter engine block and was joined a year later by the more powerful 1.7 liter version. This GT meant the big breakthrough for the small Glas, previously known for the Goggomobil, the two-cylinder dwarf car with which founder Hans Glas took his first steps in the car world in 1955. More than 5,300 units of the GT were produced as a coupe and convertible together. In the same period there was also a Glas TS four-door sedan, of which 13,000 were built. These were large production numbers for Glas, but it was too little to survive independently as a car manufacturer.
Tired of ambition
For Glas, the problems started when it took the next step towards larger coupes with a larger engine. The easiest way was to stick two 1.3 four-cylinders together to form a V8 and thus the Glas 2600 V8 was born. Frua re-signed the design, which was nicknamed 'Glaserati'. Because the 2600 V8 showed strong similarities with the Maseraticoupes from those days that were also of Italian design. Glass wanted to go even higher by developing a stronger V8, first 3 liters and later 3.2 liters.
But the ambitious Glass was satisfied with the rapid development of its new models and in 1966 BMW took over the company. The existing models were continued. The large coupe was allowed to pass as the BMW Glass 3000 V8, but after only 666 units BMW pulled the plug. The GT had to produce larger numbers and received the BMW logo on the hood and trunk lid, and the well-known BMW kidney grille. That looked wonderfully natural, as if it had never been different.
An important reason for BMW to incorporate Glas was Glas's advanced engine technology, which BMW wanted. However, for reasons of efficiency, the Glas four-cylinder had to make way for the 1.6 liter from the BMW 1602. And so the GT lived on for a few more years until 1968 as the BMW 1600 GT.
With Glass it is actually just like with Lancia: beautiful design and beautiful technology, but too expensive to make and therefore independent survival proved impossible. Unfortunately, Glas' story did not last long, but we did end up with some very nice cars.
This article Elegant but unknown: the Glas 1700 GT Coupe first appeared on Autoblog.nl.
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