Glas 1700

Vehicle Overview

The Glas 1700: With the late 1950s and early 1960s, Dingolfing’s interest quickly shifted from low-end to high-end and medium-high-end cars. So it was that, immediately after launching the 1300 GT sports car at the beginning of 1963, he devoted himself to the development of an upper-middle class car capable of rivaling the then new BMW 1500, which had recently been on the list. The prototype of the car was unveiled in September of the same year at the Frankfurt Motor Show: it was a generously sized car, which by now had nothing to do with the small and essential Goggomobil cars of only eight years earlier, but clearly aimed at a highest market. The design was work of Pietro Frua, in straightforward early 60s style. The prototype was fitted with a 1.5-liter engine, born from the reinterpretation of the 1.3-liter unit mounted on the GT. This engine delivered 70 hp, thus revealing itself to be much quieter than the one from which it derived. For this reason, a new 1.7-liter engine, more lively and richer in torque, was chosen for series production. Curiously, the BMW 1500, the main rival of the new car, suffered a similar fate, as it was retired in favor of the BMW 1800, whose engine was born from a re-boring of the previous 1.5-liter. The only difference was that the BMW 1500 was also produced in series, while the Glas, observing precisely the characteristics of the Munich sedan, immediately decided to focus directly on a larger engine. The new sedan by Dingolfing was definitively presented in the second half of the following year, with the simple name of Glas 1700: the car, this time equipped with a 4-cylinder 1682 cm³, reached a maximum power of 80 HP, enough to push it to a maximum speed between 150 and 155 km / h. A year after the launch, in September 1965, the 1700 TS was presented, which was equipped with a more thrust version of the base engine, and which reaches 100 HP of maximum power, thus guaranteeing an extension of 170 km / h. The acceleration values ​​from standstill to 100 km / h were 16 “for the basic version and 13” 5 for the TS. In 1967, Glas was taken over by that BMW which in many ways was a source of inspiration for Glas itself. Following this event, however, most of the production of the House of Dingolfing came to an end. The Glas 1700 was no exception and was removed from the lists in December of the same year, as a competitor of an existing BMW car, namely the 1800.