Apal is a small scale automobile company originally from Belgium. It is now based in Germany.

Phase 1 -APAL - s.à.r.l. Application Polyester Armé de Liège (1961-1998)

Glass-fibre specialist Edmond Pery founded this small automobile

Automobile

An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...

 manufacturing company in Blegny

Blegny

Blegny is a Walloon municipality located in the Belgian province of Liège. On January 1, 2006 Blegny had a total population of 12,799. The total area is 26.07 km² which gives a population density of 491 inhabitants per km²....

-Trembleur (Liège

Liège (province)

Liège is the easternmost province of Belgium and belongs to the Walloon Region. It is an area of French and German ethnicity. It borders on the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and in Belgium the provinces of Luxembourg, Namur, Walloon Brabant , and those of Flemish Brabant and Limburg . Its...

), Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 in 1961. Pery presented his first model, a GT coupe with gull-wing doors, propelled by Volkswagen

Volkswagen

Volkswagen is a German automobile manufacturer and is the original and biggest-selling marque of the Volkswagen Group, which now also owns the Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, SEAT, and Škoda marques and the truck manufacturer Scania.Volkswagen means "people's car" in German, where it is...

 or Porsche

Porsche

Porsche Automobil Holding SE, usually shortened to Porsche SE a Societas Europaea or European Public Company, is a German based holding company with investments in the automotive industry....

 engines at the Brussels Autosalon (or Salon auto de Bruxelles) in 1962.

In 1965, Apal started producing a Formule V single-seater.

Between 1968 and 1973, about 5000 glass-fibre bodies were produced for different buggy

Dune buggy

A dune buggy is a recreational vehicle with large wheels, and wide tires, designed for use on sand dunes or beaches. The design is usually a modified vehicle and engine mounted on an open chassis. The modifications usually attempt to increase the power-to-weight ratio by either lightening the...

 models such as Apal Buggy, Apal Rancho, Apal Jet, Apal Avvi, Apal Corsa (with gull-wing doors) and Apal Horizon.

The Apal 1200 Saloon was an attractive car based on Volkswagen beetle floorplan. It had a thrust-forward nose with a divided front bumper and a well-sloped curved one-piece windshield

Windshield

The windshield or windscreen of an aircraft, car, bus, motorbike or tram is the front window. Modern windshields are generally made of laminated safety glass, a type of treated glass, which consists of two curved sheets of glass with a plastic layer laminated between them for safety, and are glued...

. The rear-mounted engine was air-cooled, with cooling air exhausting thru a grille in the rounded tail, which also sported a divided rear bumper.

Specifications of 1966 Model Apal 1200 Saloon

Engine: four-cylinder aircooled VW, 1192 cc, 7.0 compression ratio, rated at 40 bhp

Maximum speed: 80 mph (129 km/h)

Overall length: 13.942 ft (4.249 m)

Overall width: 5.317 ft (1.621 m)

Height: 4.100 ft (1.250 m)

Turning circle: 36.0 ft (11 m)

Wheelbase: 7.875 ft (2.400 m)

Front track: 4.283 ft (1.306 m)

Rear track: 4.225 ft (1.288 m)

Fuel tank capacity: 8.8 imperial gallons

Empty weight: 1496 lb (679 kg)

The most successful model was called the Apal Speedster and is a replica of the Porsche 356

Porsche 356

The Porsche 356 was the company's first production automobile. It was a lightweight and nimble handling rear-engine rear-wheel-drive 2 door sports car available in hardtop coupe and open configurations. Design innovations continued during the years of manufacture, contributing to its motorsports...

 model, built on a VW Beetle floorplan. Altogether 700 were completed between 1981 and 1994.

The company's last model, named the Apal Sport One, based on the Pontiac Fiero

Pontiac Fiero

The Pontiac Fiero is a mid-engined sports car that was built by the Pontiac division of General Motors from 1984 to 1988. The Fiero—meaning "proud" in Italian and "wild", "fierce", or "ferocious" in Spanish—was designed by George Milidrag and Hulki Aldikacti as a Pontiac sports car...

, appeared in 1992.

Edmond Pery also designed an all-road prototype for DAF

DAF

-Science, nature and technology:* Decay accelerating factor, a protein involved in the complement system* Delayed auditory feedback, a device used to delay a person's voice to their own ear, which reduces stuttering and cluttering...

 in 1974 and another prototype for Volkswagen in 1992. The small firm produced and sold all models in limited numbers.

Phase 2 - Apal Gmbh, Germany (1998- to date)

The original Belgian company closed in 1998. Apal Gmbh, a German company of Ostercappeln, bought all the spare parts and restarted production of the Apal Speedster.

As of 2006 the company has stopped production of ready-built cars and now only sells kits and spare parts.

External links

• http://rvccb.be/LISTE%20CONSTR.%20BELGES/A.html#apal
• http://apal.de
• Apal Club Belgium