- Founded
- 1973 – 1974
- Headquarters
- Berlin, Germany
Automobilwerk Walter Schätzle was the Berlin-Rudow company behind the AWS Shopper and AWS Piccolo. Walter Schätzle, a former Borgward dealer, presented a lightweight microcar concept in 1970 and developed it around the compact-car market left by the end of Goggomobil production. Series production began in 1973 on a simple steel-tube and panel construction using Goggomobil-derived mechanical components, with the rear-engined Shopper marketed as a practical four-seat microcar and the related Piccolo offered in utility body forms. About 1,700 vehicles are generally reported across the two names. The company entered insolvency in 1974 and production ended that year. The catalog treats Shopper and Piccolo as one documented AWS program, keeps Schätzle separate from Borgward and Glas, and does not count prototype pick-ups or transporters as additional production models.
Text adapted from “Automobilwerk Walter Schätzle” on Wikipedia ↗ · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗