Glas

Mechanic Andreas Glas (born 1857, son of Maurus who founded the first agricultural machinery factory in Bavaria in Freising in 1860) founded his own repair company for agricultural machines in 1883 in Pilsting. He named the company Andreas Glas, Reparaturwerkstätte für landwirtschaftliche Maschinen mit Dampfbetrieb (in English: Andreas Glas, repair-shop for steam-powered agricultural machines). During the summer periods about 16 people worked for him. In 1905 Andreas Glas' company built their first crop sowing machines (seed drill). He then had sufficient work to employ all his employees during the winters. The production of seed drills rose from year to year:

Winter period 1905/06 - 10 seed drills

Autumn 1906 - 20 pieces

Winter period 1906/07 - 40 machines

1907 - 60 pieces

Winter period 1907/08 - 254 seed drills.

1906 Andreas Glas partnered with a financer becoming Glas & Lohn and changed its brand name from Bavaria to Isaria; the partnership ended in 1911.

1908 Glas production moved to Dingolfing to overcome the mandatory rule which forbade non-local factories from participating in the important local agricultural machine exposition. The new factory started with 150 seed drills per year. The production count rose each year.

Glas were known for small cars like the Goggomobil. However, in 1964 the company introduced the Glas 1300GT coupe and later the 1700GT. The body was designed by Pietro Frua. However competition, mostly from British cars, was tough and in 1966 they released the 2600GT powered by a SOHC V8 engine, with a volume just under 2.6 litres. However this didn't help and later the same year the company was sold to BMW. The Glas models were kept in production by BMW, but fitted with BMW engines. The Glas 1300 GT coupe was fitted with a 1.6-litre BMW engine and renamed BMW 1600 GT. BMW also fitted a 3-litre engine and named it 3000 GT. This model kept the Glas name, but had a BMW logo in the front and rear. In 1968 BMW created their own large coupe, the BMW 2500 CS, and this meant the end for Glas. 277 copies of 2600 GT were made and 389 of the 3000 GT.

Scooters

In 1951 Andreas Glas (1923–1990), son of Hans Glas, saw the Vespa scooter from Piaggio in an agricultural machines exposition in Verona, Italy. He was so enthused that he began production of motor scooters that July.

The scooter debuted with a 125 cc motor, increased over time to 150 cc and 200 cc. Until 1956 46,181 motor scooters were built. Production of scooters stopped because of the Goggomobil cars. From 1953 on, load-carrying scooters were built as well. With the 200 cc engine and 9.5 bhp, they had a load capacity of 200 kg.

Cars

Goggomobil T250, T300, T400, Sedan (1955–1969), Coupé (1957–1969), Transporter (1957–1965)