About the marque
- Founded
- 1904 – 1912
- Country
- Germany
A. Ruppe & Sohn began automobile manufacture at Apolda in 1904 under the Piccolo badge, using its own foundry and mostly in-house components to offer inexpensive, reputable light cars. The range progressed from 704 cc V-twins through inline-four and V-four models to the single-cylinder Mobbel and Types A and E. Corporate reorganization and Karl Slevogt's water-cooled designs introduced the Apollo identity from 1910, but Piccolo continued alongside it until 1912. The badge's seven documented types are therefore retained separately from Apollo rather than treated as model prefixes.
Text adapted from “Piccolo” on Wikipedia ↗ · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗