We haven’t seen many – if any – microcar companies in the Hemmings Six Degrees of Automotive Separation Challenge until now, and that’s probably for good reason: microcar builders tended to go it alone, operating out of small factories with little or no help from major automakers (with the exception, of course, of BMW). Plus, many microcar companies were short-lived enterprises that didn’t have the opportunity to network with the rest of the automotive world.

But the lesson we’ve learned in the last year of conducting this challenge is that somehow, somewhere, there is a way to connect just about every auto manufacturer present and past to every other manufacturer. So, inspired by this week’s post about Messerschmitt’s experimentation with four-wheeled architectures, let’s see how well Messerschmitt is connected. This week’s challenge is thus a fox-and-hound-type challenge, in which the first person to respond suggests another automotive company to connect to Messerschmitt in six degrees or less. Whoever can answer that then gets to suggest another company to connect to Messerschmitt, and so forth. As always, a degree of separation consists of one company owning another, merging with another or sharing another’s parts.

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