FAMEL - Fabrica de Produtos Metalicos Lda, was one of the largest

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

moped A moped ( ) is a type of small motorcycle, generally having a less stringent licensing requirement than full motorcycles or automobiles. The term used to mean a similar vehicle except with both bicycle pedals and a motorcycle engine. Mopeds typic ...

manufacturers between 1960s and 1980s. Based in

Águeda Águeda () is a city and a municipality in Portugal. According to the Portuguese 2011 census, the municipality of Águeda had 47,729 inhabitants, in an area of . The city proper had a population of 14,504 (2001 data), while the remainder is distri ...

, the company was set up in the second half of the 1940s by three partners with the aim of producing moped and bicycle rims. In 1952, it decided to diversify its activities into the manufacture of mopeds. Until its closure, in 1994, it manufactured over 30 models using engines from various third parties, including Pachancho, Alpino, Rex, Veloce, Mota, Jlo, Dkw and, mostly,

Zündapp Zündapp (a.k.a. Zuendapp) was a major German motorcycle manufacturer founded in 1917 in Nuremberg by Fritz Neumeyer, together with the Friedrich Krupp AG and the machine tool manufacturer Thiel under the name "Zünder- und Apparatebau G.m.b.H." ...

. Its first model, the Utilitária, with a 2 speed Pachancho engine, dates from 1952 whereas the last one, the Famel Electric (an electrical scooter) dates from 1994. Its first big market success was the Foguete, a tubular craddle moped with a Jlo 3 speed engine launched in 1957 which was quite good looking at the time and which came out when Famel's main competitor, Cruzador, was stuck with quite old dated models. When two years later, in 1959, Cruzador launched a totally new model, the Andorinha Asa d'Ouro, with a Sachs 3 speed engine, the Foguete lost a lot of its shine and its production was discontinued shortly after. Famel's most popular model was the XF-17, launched in 1975. and sold until the company went bankrupt in 1994. It was a 5 speed moped based in the Suzuki Stinger T125 which was produced from 1969 to 1971 (and which was powered with a (claimed) @ 8,500rpm engine. As the increased purchasing power in their home country Portugal made automobiles more and more popular, the moped market became smaller and the strong competition from European and Japanese imported models forced bankruptcy. Their last product, the Famel Electric, or Electron, was the world's first electric scooter. It was developed in 1993. with Portuguese technology in partnership with

EFACEC EFACEC Power Solutions SGPS, S.A. is a Portuguese energy, engineering and mobility company, comprising several subsidiaries in different international markets. Efacec group is one of the largest manufacturers in the fast-charging infrastructure ...

. The entire (small) production was sold to La Poste before FAMEL stopped production. The following year, Peugeot presented their Scoot'elec based on the same technology. After stopping production in 1994 due to financial problem, Famel was declared bankruptcy in 2002. In 2014 it announced a revitalization programme and a future prototype but these never materialized.

References

External links

Famel on the Portuguese Motorcycle Database
Motorcycle manufacturers of Portugal Defunct companies of Portugal {{motorcycle-stub