1947 Alamagny — 🤯 This Car Had Four Wheels… But Not Where You’d Expect

The 1947 Alamagny was one of the strangest experimental cars ever built in postwar France. It had four wheels arranged in a diamond pattern, a body that looked almost identical at both ends, and a turning circle of just 4.25 meters (14 feet). But the real mystery is why its creator believed this unusual design could improve the everyday automobile. Designed by Marcel Alamagny, an engineer who had worked for Renault and later collaborated with Amédée Gordini, this one-off prototype challenged the conventional layout used by practically every car on the road. Instead of placing two wheels at the front and two at the rear, Alamagny positioned a single steering wheel at each end and two driven wheels in the center. The result was a compact four-seat car that looked almost impossible to orient correctly at first glance. The body was built from two symmetrical aluminum shells by the French coachbuilder Pourtout. Rather than using conventional side doors, the front and rear body sections tilted open to provide access to the cabin. Measuring approximately 3.42 meters (11 feet 2.6 inches) long and 1.60 meters (5 feet 3 inches) wide, the Alamagny weighed around 450 kilograms (992 pounds). Power came from a transverse Simca 5 four-cylinder gasoline engine displacing 569 cubic centimeters and producing approximately 13 horsepower at 3,600 rpm. A four-speed manual gearbox sent power to the two central wheels. The claimed top speed was around 85 km/h (53 mph), although some accounts report a different figure. Inside, the unusual engineering continued. The driver and front passenger faced one direction, while the two rear passengers sat facing the opposite way. This arrangement allowed four people to fit into a remarkably short vehicle, but it was hardly a conventional family-car experience. Although the diamond-shaped layout offered an impressively small turning circle, contemporary descriptions also raised questions about the car's stability and tendency to lean or sway. Presented to the French Society of Automotive Engineers in 1948, the Alamagny attracted attention but never entered production. Its specialized construction, unusual steering arrangement and unconventional passenger layout made it difficult to turn into an affordable mass-produced automobile. The prototype survived against the odds. Preserved by Amédée Gordini, it narrowly escaped the scrapyard in 1976, was later restored by Jean-Pierre Galichet, and returned to public view at the Rétromobile exhibition in Paris in 2016. The 1947 Alamagny remains a fascinating example of an engineer who tried to reinvent the automobile from the wheels up. Subscribe to On Wheels for more forgotten prototypes, radical engineering experiments and extraordinary vehicles that dared to be different. #Alamagny #MarcelAlamagny #FrenchCars #ConceptCars #ExperimentalCars #RareCars #UnusualCars #VintageCars #ClassicCars #AutomotiveHistory #CarEngineering #ForgottenVehicles #AutomotiveDesign #HistoricVehicles #OnWheels Support the channel and get exclusive perks:    / @youtubeonwhels