Zelensis (Belgium) - AllCarIndex

Zelensis was a small Belgian automobile marque founded and built by Raoul Thiébaut in Zele, East Flanders, between 1958 and 1964. Thiébaut, a maritime officer by profession, developed the car during his time at sea, inspired by 1950s European and American sports cars such as the BMW 507, Ford Thunderbird, and Ferrari 500 TR. While working in the United States at Plastics Service of Oakland, a firm involved in fiberglass production for racing vehicles like the Bardahl Streamliner, he learned composite fabrication techniques and decided to construct his own car body from fiberglass—one of the first such applications in Belgium.

Approximately twenty-five Zelensis bodies were produced, all intended for fitting to Volkswagen Beetle chassis. Each example was hand-built, and no two were identical. The model was notable for its flowing, low-profile design and lightweight fiberglass bodywork. As of the early 2010s, five known cars survived. The Zelensis never entered series production but represented one of the few Belgian attempts at an independent sports car of the postwar period.