I knew a guy in Iowa City in 1973 who found an Isetta in someone’s garage or barn. The engine was frozen, so he replaced it with a big Briggs & Stratton single cylinder industrial engine with a centrifugal clutch, so no shifting. I got a ride with him once, and it was a trip putting around town with him in it.
Did any Isettas have four wheel drive? I don’t think so. Maybe the ad just meant it had four wheels (some Isettas, mostly in the UK I think, were 3 wheelers). Also, I’m trying to imagine a police Isetta. Maybe for the meter maids.
You’re right: I noticed the “4 Wheel Drive” in the list of features. I doubt the Isetta can be modified to have four-wheel-drive system. The footwell for the driver and passenger is between the front wheels. Adding the front axle would raise the floor much higher.
BMW Isetta came with three wheels for the British market due to the favourabe taxation.
German police used Isetta for the Streifenwagen (patrol car) in the 1950s and 1960s. The modern equivalent would be Opel Corsa for Berlin police today.
They most certainly didn’t have four wheel drive. That’s a typo/mistake.
They were undoubtedly referring to it having four wheels, instead of the three some micro cars did.
Back then four wheel drive was the exclusive domain of things like Jeeps and tall 4×4 trucks.
Ok… so what is “Exclusive 4-way Vision”? What microcars had only 3 or 2-way vision?
4-way VISION??? Who knows??? Trying to TRANSlate peoples’ comments nowadaze is ‘challenging’ at best! My dad had an NSU Prinz in Vancouver around 1960 . My older bro and his friends would pick it up and MOVE it down the street as a PRANK! 😛
in the mid-seventies I broke down in central Illinois (broken points rub block) and walked to a farmhouse. The older farmer lent me some tools and I drove back to his place to return them (I moved the points closer to the cam). We got to talking about cars (I was driving a VW) and he mentioned he had some Isetta’s. He took me to the barn and it was literally filled with them, except for a couple split window Corvettes. None were runners but he said they towed them around the yard and the grand kids drove them. I think he had 2 dozen of them.
I like how they instruct you how to pronounce “Isetta”, as if we’d get it all wrong if we didn’t know…
Were they afraid of legal action Ford or something if they spelt out Henry F.’s name?
I’ve long been curious about those old-timey phone numbers like COrtlandt 7-7642; surely it be easier and more memorable to just numerals only like they do now.
I think the letters made more sense in the days where all phones were landlines, and the first 3 digits actually corresponded to a geographical area, or exchange as the Bell system called it.
Im in my 40s and just old enough to remember that the old named-exchange thing was phased out but, still, tons of signs/business cards/ads and the like hadn’t gotten rid of it yet. We were FILLMORE 4-xxxx. Or, you know, just 344.
Or should I say FIllmore 4. Well, the capital Is and small ls aren’t really helping this.
Here’s a list of Chicago exchanges from the 50s.
http://livinghistoryofillinois.com/pdf_files/Chicago%20Telephone%20Exchange%20Names%20and%20History.pdf
Our Hermosa Beach, California exchange was called FRontier. We were on the General Telephone side of Los Angeles instead of the larger Bell System. We had party lines into the 1960’s. Long Beach was also General Telephone.
My current exchange is SYcamore…..
I remember General Telephone, they were a joke .
-Nate
I understand that the exchanges with 2 letters and a number were out of a concern that handling strings of 7 numbers would be too challenging for most people. Oh that 7 digit numbers were my biggest problem today.
Until I gave up my land line a few years ago, I still had a number that would have been within the old northside Indianapolis CLifford exchange.
I can see how the old Bell System may have thought we’d be intimidated by 7-digit phone numbers; they thought we needed 20 minutes of instruction (last half of video below) to show how to use a rotary-dial phone when they were new. If these people only knew someday they’d have to figure out how to use an iPhone…
Mom still has a working rotary dial wall phone in her kitchen. My grandson and his girlfriend were entertained by “dialing” each other’s cell phones from that device.
@Nikita ;
And why not ? .
I have a 1970’s vintage yellow Western Electric dial wall phone in my kitchen and a candlestick one next to my bed ~ I only went to touch tone when I encountered phone trees that required push buttons .
-Nate
The FCC still requires the local exchange facilities to maintain the old rotary “click-click-click” system because there are still customers who use rotary phones.
Yea, but how cool would it be to say your phone number in Long Beach was HEMLOCK 6-3224?
HEmlock 6-3224
Yea, I get it. I transcribed the phone number as printed in the advertisement above, with all capital letters.
I wonder what the transmissions were, 3 speed on the column or floor? I see the ad promotes it had a heater/defroster – the windows looked fixed but something must have been able to be opened for ventilation.
Four speed on the floor. The Isetta essentially used a BMW motorcycle engine and transmission, with a blower to cool the engine.
Four on the wall?
One of the Isetta dealers in Washington, DC had an amusing story behind it.
The article below is about a woman named Mary Thrasher, who, in 1956, tried to register an Isetta in Washington, DC. (She was a Marine colonel’s wife, and had purchased the Isetta while they were stationed in Germany.) The DC Traffic Department refused to register it, however, because it lacked certain safety requirements, the most significant of those, apparently, being the lack of safety glass. (I find that ironic, since of all the hazards of driving an Isetta in US traffic, the lack of safety glass wouldn’t immediately pop into mind.)
After she couldn’t register her car, she contacted BMW directly and told them of her problem. BMW worked with her to bring her Isetta up to the DC government’s specs, and even sent her a safety-glass windshield to have installed. Following all of that, she was, in fact, able to register her Isetta.
But then, she went one step further and opened up an Isetta dealership near her home. I’m not sure how long it operated, but nonetheless, it’s a neat story.
Here’s an ad from Mrs. Thrasher’s dealership, I believe from 1957:
So did this place just sold Isettas, or could I order a 507 roadster there too?
Apparently it was just Isettas – some of the dealer’s other ads noted it was “Washington’s only exclusive Isetta dealer.”
The address is a former townhouse that was at some point converted to commercial purposes — so not exactly a huge showroom space.
I have a non-illustrated folder that indicates that this Washington dealership was located at 1900 M Street NW, so apparently they moved at some point, probably afterwards as the car illustrated in your post is the earliest US “Standard” model.
I’d love to find that flyer as that’s one I don’t have!
“certain safety requirements”. I heard that Isettas have a sun-roof so you can get out in a front-end colision if the door was crushed. Or the fire department could get you out.
When I was a small child my grandmother’s brother had one of these. Uncle Leo was a lawyer in NYC and a bit of a car nut. I remember a family get together at my grandmother’s house one summer when he pulled up in his new Isetta, having driven from NYC all the way to northeastern Pennsylvania (a trip of probably 200+ miles back before interstate highways).
He would also own a gull-wing Mercedes, a 300 6.3, and eventually several Italian sports cars.
Didn’t Depeche Mode use this kind of car in their videos to “Never Let Me Down Again” and “Behind The Wheel”? I can’t go seeing this car without thinking of Depeche Mode.
yes! Great song, great video…cool little car!
I still vaguely remember seeing one of these in a parking lot as a kid.
I would like to own one now for the sole purpose of driving it to cars and coffee events and parking it next to the fanciest BMW I could find. 🙂
Here’s another enjoyable Isetta dealer recruitment ad.
“Isetta 300 paid for my wife’s mink coat”:
It seems with these marginal ’50s cars there are more ads out there for dealer recruitment than those aimed at finding customers
The West Coast District Office in Long Beach, CA appears to be a 7,000 square foot warehouse that is currently for lease. I wonder how many vehicles they had parked inside that space.
The great Peter Egan wrote a terrific Road & Track article about a long, slow trip in an Isetta. I don’t remember the issue – it was years ago – but it’s well worth a read.
Isetta Motors, Ltd., in Washington DC, officially began 31 January, 1957, and their corporate title was revoked on 14 February, 1959. Revoked generally refers to the government taking back the corporation’s ability to operate, likely for failure to pay taxes. Since the process of revocation takes at least a year, I have a feeling Mrs. Thrasher was out of business within a year of operation.
I am a lifelong resident of the DC area, and I was born a gear head. My parents and their friends all say I could correctly identify make & model, sometimes even the year, of almost all the cars on the street, by the tender age of 5.
Until now I’ve never heard of a Isetta dealership in the city of DC, not one. The main BMW dealership for the area was Manhattan Auto in Bethesda, MD, only a mile north of the DC line, and they did have an Isetta or 2 from time to time. They sold the BMW franchise to 2 guys who ran a Volkswagen repair shop*, first called “Volkswagen of Bethesda”, but after VW threatened them for use of the name without permission, they changed the name to VOB, and the BMW dealer in that name exists to this day. I am familiar with the company as I was the assistant to the service manager in the late 1970s.
I am not privy to what happened, but at the same time VOB got BMW, they gave up Triumph cars, and Manhattan Auto grabbed that franchise, continuing as a Triumph dealer until they stopped importing them to the USA. I’ve always wondered if it was an exchange.
I have worked on most of the Isettas in the area, over the last 40 years, including several 300’s and a 60 “limo” with 2 seats and a side door. None had any known relation to Isetta Motors, Ltd. I was part of the group who bought out the NSU dealership in DC, back in the mid ’70s, and the guy who ran that company [Allied light cars] never mentioned a BMW dealership located in DC. I sold NSU parts for a number of years.
I’m thinking Mrs. Thatcher’s little adventure into owning a car franchise was likely an attempt to have something for her and her husband to play with once he retired. I also believe she was a victim of “over selling” from just one of various companies that held car import rights for America, “where these little cars simply sold themselves”. Witness the ad where it said cars were selling every 10 minutes. That’s 6 cars an hour. It’s a rare car dealership today that can sell 6 cars an hour, hour after hour, even for the big 3 dealerships. Importers of micro-cars in America struggled to get a foothold because most Americans didn’t want a tiny car, even as a 2nd vehicle. Importers were often desperate to find people willing to take on the challenge.
In 1975, after leaving the military with an honorable discharge, I was offered a Honda car dealership if I had a location, either owned or leased. All I had to do was agree to buy 2 Honda cars and a parts inventory, all of which I could finance with no interest!
I went to visit the local Honda motorcycle dealership owner, Joe Hersons, and I asked him about the deal. He said he was offered the same deal and said no, because the cars were poorly designed and had no quality control. So I turned down a Honda franchise!
A couple of years later, Joe was forced to take on the Honda car franchise, or Honda would not sell him motorcycles! Hersons Honda was destined to became one of the biggest Honda dealers on the east coast.
Bill,
Thank you so much for this information (and incidentally I had no idea what VOB stood for, or how the name came about).
I had assumed that Mrs. Thrasher’s dealership was short-lived, but I assumed she would have made it for at least a year. I guess not.
From what I can tell, there was one other Washington, DC Isetta dealer – Continental Motors on Rhode Island Ave. (Continental was a multi-line foreign car dealer, so Isetta fit in with their other offerings.) I have no idea how long that dealership survived.
Eric,
I only know of Continental Motors as a used car dealer, and I’ve never found anything in writing or old photos showing the facility as a place with a dealer franchise. I do know they are still in business, but have changed hands multiple times & locations and people there have no historical info available [nor do they seem interested in anything of a historical note].
Many new and used car dealers in that general area, were looted & burned in the 1968 DC riots, and I would not be surprised if that happened to their place. The only new car dealerships in DC to survive to 1970 were Flood Pontiac and Congresional Olds, because they were in northern NW DC. Flood was across Conn Ave, from the old Bureau of Standards [Now the UDC campus], and Congressional Olds was only one block south of the DC line on Wisconsin Ave [Later Mazza Gallerie]
If I remember, beginning in 1946 Hoffman was the official importer for BMW, & based on what I know about him, I’m going to suggest he had no interest in the little Isetta cars. He was a savvy and smart guy, and probably knew the Isetta cars wouldn’t sell in sufficient numbers to make it worth his efforts. He knew Americans were interested in speed and luxury, not cheap small cars. Hoffman didn’t even want the VW! It certainly wasn’t because of how unusual the Isetta was, until the communist take-over of Czech lands in 1948, Hoffman had even imported the unusual Tatra V8 type 87, but not the small 4 cylinder cars.
FYI, my email is Billmccoskey@aol.com
Thanks Bill,
I’m attaching here an ad I found from Continental Motors advertising that they were selling Isettas.
Another DC-area Isetta dealer I came across recently was located in Arlington – part of a foreign car dealership that sprang up from the remains of Arlington’s Edsel dealership. I’m in the process of writing an article focusing on Edsel dealerships, and the Edsel-to-European transition seemed to happen with regularity in 1958, when Edsel dealers desperately needed cashflow, and foreign car franchises were relatively easy to acquire. Arlington’s Edsel dealership sold Edsels and Borgwards together for a while, before the Edsels eventually departed, and I came across mentions of several other seemingly unlikely pair-ups as well.
Eric,
Thanks for the data and the ad, I never knew Continental Motors sold so many brands of cars.
I’m a bit confused because they are a dealer for Morgan cars. In the 1980s I got to know Sir Peter Morgan and his Son Charles, who used to invite me out to lunch when I would be in the UK. We corresponded on a regular basis for years. He always said Morgans were sold in the USA in only 2 locations; Virginia and California. I’m thinking some of these marques might have been a “second tier” dealership situation.
I am eager to read your article on Edsels. FoMoCo was introducing a new automobile marque at what I consider THE worst economic time in the 1950s & 60s. And also at a time of great upheaval in terms of independent automotive concerns.
I have a couple of unusual local Edsel stories if you are interested, one involves the first Pacer convertible built, and the other involves the owner of an Edsel dealership, and how he ended up “going Edsel”. If you want to hear more, email me at billmccoskey@aol.com
Thanks Bill, I will email you later – I’m interested to hear about the Edsel stories.
I became intrigued at looking into the histories of Edsel dealers, and how they wound up taking on Edsel. For my article, I’m focusing on 3 dealers on whom I’ve done a good bit of research – the Arlington dealer (owner came from outside the auto industry), a Missouri dealer (came from the used car industry), and a Texas dealer (had been a partner in a Ford dealership). They’re all interesting stories, so I’m anxious to hear more.
I miss those multi-make import dealerships. For a time, it allowed dealers to aggregate makes and models that didn’t sell in numbers big enough to support a stand-alone store. Similarly, manufacturers could get a toehold in the USA without having to invest in a huge dealer network from the ground up. Ultimately, however, VW, Toyota and Honda proved that having a national network of dedicated dealers was precisely what was needed to build buyer confidence and support a national marketing effort.
I never knew that about VOB. VOB if I recall correctly also had a Nissan/Saab dealearship on Old Georgetown Rd. just a block or two in from Rt.355. VOB BMW was on 355 itself not far away from this site in an odd building with the showroom split in half by a two lane passageway that led behind the building. They’re now in a much larger, more modern building a few blocks north of the old location, with their service department where a Chrysler-Plymouth dealer used to be. It’s called simply BMW of Rockville now.
Many of the dealerships I recall from the ’70s are either gone now or moved to newer, larger bulidings and often bought out by a larger dealer group. American Service Center was a Mercedes dealer in Arlington, VA now called Mercedes-Benz of Arlington. Their sign on the building was strangely small; I later learned why when I saw an old photo with the large “Studebaker” lettering underneath the smaller “American Service Center” lettering still in place. They started selling M-Bs there when the distribution deal started in 1957, and after 1966 they simply removed the “Studebaker” portion of the sign which was most of it, making the remaining “American Service Center” look too small. That name goes back to before they even sold cars; it was an American (Amoco) gas station with a service station attached. Anyway they replaced Studes with Fiats until they pulled out of the US in 1982.
There was a large cluster of dealerships in downtown Silver Spring, MD that are all gone now. Hondas were sold as a sideline by the Pontiac place; I don’t remember the name of it.
I worked at the Old Georgetown road VOB location in the mid to late 1970s, when it was Datsun and BMW. They had ended their SAAB and Triumph relationships by then, they also had Subaru for a short time.
If I remember, one VOB partner [Tony S.?] went off on his own, and took over the BMW franchise, moving it to the Rt 355 location. Part of this change was because [I’m told] Datsun was becoming Nissan, and the manufacturer wanted their dealerships to be stand-alone Nissan locations. Tony also bought a Volvo dealership, that was located on Rt 355 at Gude Road.
I’m familiar with American Service Center’s history, Dan Webber and I were able to clean out the Studebaker and Packard parts inventory about 1970, Dan kept the Stude parts, and I got the Packard parts. I eventually ended up with most of the Packards Washington, and McNey Motors Packard items relating to Packards.
I still have the big painting that hung in the showroom of McNey, it showed Mercedes-Benz vehicles being unloaded from a ship onto the dock, and it had a label at the bottom mentioning Mercedes-Benz vehicles were sold around the world, and Studebaker-Packard had sole distribution in America.
In 1972 the higher-ups at Mercedes-Benz USA had visited the showroom and seen it hanging on the wall, and they ordered anything relating to Studebaker-Packard to be destroyed. A friend at McNey called me and said to get over there ASAP, as he was gently placing it and other S-P items in the dumpster out back. I retrieved all of it. McNey survives today as Euro Motorcars of Bethesda.
I recall VOB Nissan and Saab sharing a showroom long beyond after the name change; Saab then moved next door to a new building a few years before they collapsed. I think it’s a T-Mobile shop now. The other Nissan dealer near me was Herb Gordon in Briggs Chaney which also always seemed to have another brand in there. I think it was shared with Oldsmobile in the ’70s and ’80s (or was Olds next door with Volvo? memory getting fuzzy). DeLoreans were definitely sold in the Datsun space. They took on Rover/Sterling for the five years they were sold. It’s Nissan only now though.
One of those Silver Spring dealers was Covington Packard; they saw the 1957 models and just said no and spent the next year just doing service (there was a Studebaker dealership two blocks down, good luck getting anyone to pay Packard prices for the same car). Then in 1958 they sold Edsels. That didn’t work out either, so they became Covington Buick. They later moved across town to Briggs Chaney where my dad bought his ’95 Park Avenue; they had lots of photos of the old Packard dealership on the wall in the service/parts area. I should have photographed them. They apparently closed after the GM bankruptcy, building is empty the last time I saw it.
la673,
I went to work at VOB in October of 1975, right after I left the US Military, and I am 100% positive SAAB was already gone, we weren’t even servicing them. Only servicing Datsun and BMW. We did have one mechanic named Hector, he was a factory trained Subaru tech, and damn good on ’em and liked Subaru cars, so we did continue to service them for specific customers, as they often had BMW cars too. This was when dealerships still had some semblance of customer loyalty in mind.
I have less than fond memories of Herb Gordon’s place on the “Rt 29 AutoMall”. I had the 25 acre farm directly across Rt 29 from the AutoMall, and the loudspeakers for Sport Chevrolet and Herb Gordon were both much too loud. Neither Safford L-M or the tire shop were anywhere that loud. Today where my farmhouse was, is the intersection for the ICC and Rt 29.
As for Covington Packard, I got to know old Ralph Brown fairly well, as I used to keep his 1936 Buick supplied with parts and would work on it the times when his mechanics refused.
Somewhere I have a cassette audio tape [remember them?!] of me interviewing Mr. Brown about the Packard Days. He was very proud of being a Packard dealer right thru to the end of the Detroit cars, but he said his salesmen simply were unable to sell [his words, not mine] “Studebakers with some Packard parts tacked on, EVERYBODY knew they were Studebakers, and no one was buying it — or them.”
And along comes Ford Motor Company with the newest “Upscale car, priced between Mercury and Lincoln”. Again, his words. So like more than a few Packard dealers across the naation, along with Willys, Kaiser, Nash and Hudson dealers, Covington got sucked onto the Edsel bandwagon.
Ralph said when the Edsel fiasco ended, and the Studebaker Dealership was now a Lincoln dealership [indicating Lincoln was NOT available], he said “The hell with everybody else, he was going with GM!”
As for those wonderful 8×10 B&W photos of Covington Packard 1948 to 1956, I firmly glued one of my business cards to the back cardboard panel of each photo, and when they closed, I ended up with them. I’ve still got the one of the 1948 Packard Super 8 convertible victoria, as I own the matching car!
The VOB facility was demolished a few years ago, and the complete demo is actually on YouTube!
I’m pretty sure Delorians* and the Sterling Hondas were sold next door at Manhattan auto. My close friend in the Rolls-Royce Owner’s Club, Richard P, bought a Sterling new, and he said it came from Manhattan. He didn’t realize it was a British built Honda until I told him! [He still only owns British cars.]
*On Delorians I might be wrong, just can’t remember.
And as I said to Eric, my email address is billmccoskey@aol.com, feel free to contact me there if you like.
“Auxiliary gas tank” presumably means the two-way valve like old VWs.
Car salesmen knew all the tricks. Would they be fooled by “10 per minute” or any of these sneaky lines? Customers were sometimes fooled, but the ad was aimed at salesmen.
https://www.automobile-catalog.com/make/nsu/prinz/prinz/1958.html
THIS ^^^ was the NSU Prinz, Made In Germany.
I wonder what the price of gas was on the gas pump in the top photo. Approximately 25.9¢, I’m guessing.
With gas so cheap, doubt many were sold in North America.
While 25 cents a gallon might be considered cheap today, I can assure you back then, gasoline was typically considered expensive for most citizens.
The primary reason micro cars never took hold in North America was not the price of fuel, it was because Americans didn’t want or need a car that small. Had we been forced to pay the higher taxes similar to what Europeans paid, perhaps more citizens would have bought them.
Using a Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation calculator says 26¢ per gallon in September 1957 would equate to $2.51 per gallon in September 2021.
The average price per gallon today in Dallas is $2.83.
Making a direct inflation adjustment is not an accurate reflection of reality. Purchasing power was substantially less, and cars were much less efficient then. Most households had one wage earner. The price of gas, as well as food, was a much higher component of total household expenditures than it is in recent decades.
In terms of purchasing power (as well as CPI) gas prices in real terms dropped all through the 1960s, and were lowest just before the energy crisis.
My feel for Food prices in the late 1950’s came from, the Dobie Gillis Show. His Dad had a grocery store with prices in the front window. The price may not be 100% accurate for the era but, I’m sure it was not, out of line either. Meat was extraordinarily expensive back then, for example.
The US has so much more room and longer distances than Europe, you would really need to be very local. And highway driving?
Even in Europe I doubt that these were a big seller, more of an enclosed alternative to a motorcycle. VW, Fiat, Renault and others sold four cylinder “real” cars to the masses. VW sales were growing fast in North America at the time. Weren’t these micro cars the result of the 1956 Suez war that constrained fuel supplies?
I’m glad to see comments from folks that had experience or at least exposure to these in the US. I remember them as unusual, but not that uncommon as a kid in the early 1960’s. Less common than 2 stroke Saabs, more common than Messerschmitts … maybe about as common as Fiat 600 Multipla’s.
A neighbor wound up with a BMW 700 coupe. Since she lived 2 houses down from me, I offered to have her help me push it into my backyard; we moved the car to my place (I was maybe 17 at the time; in Houston). After pulling it apart (in a few evenings after school), their was a hole in one of the pistons and the crank was toast. I pushed the car back to her place; Dunno what happened to it after that.
The next year, I purchased a BMW 600 (flat-twin) with the side-door; it didn’t run. I paid $60.00 for it. A friend of mine wanted it in the worst way; I sold it to him for $75.00. I joined the service shortly thereafter. He got it running (I was told) and drove it around for a couple of years!! Shoulda kept it!
I would love to mate an Isetta with a used 1200cc bullet bike motor, drivetrain and brakes. Not that any sane person would ever go over 60 in a straight line but you sure could troll some cars with it.
I know of an Isetta that had a 600cc Trabant motor sticking outside the right side, with a radiator on the left side, and another with a 3 cylinder M/C motor said to be out of a Berkeley car.
The problem is space: the car was designed around a 236 or 300cc single cylinder air cooled motor, with no room for further increase in motor size. And trust me, there really isn’t any additional room behind the seat.
A company in England tried to make newer versions using old Isetta parts and newer engines, but the biggest they could install was a 2 cylinder Kawasaki 500 GPS, because nothing bigger would fit! They did end up using BMC Mini brakes and wheels.
I’d like to see BMW make a cycle engine car today. Maybe not quite so small. Low price would be important. I am retired and only need something for occasional use around town. A motorcycle transmission would do. Too old for a bike. Just need space for a ladyfriend (not tandem) and groceries. Would like to be able to invite the girls for a ride in my BMW.
Isettas still turn up for sale from time to time around here, although it takes a dedicated collector to want one since they’re pretty much un-usable on any actual road. Cute though.
Here in the Boston area, there used to be an annual microcar show at the Larz Anderson museum in Brookline. It was great fun to see a whole lawn full of the little things.
I used to take the kids… (that’s a Peel Trident from the mid-60s)
(sorry, this comment is supposed to follow another one – that cited the annual Microcar event at the Larz Anderson museum in Boston. That seems to have been swallowed by the spam prevention system in Comments)
And here’s an Isetta inhabited by the only passengers who would have had room to spare.
Bill, I admire your knowledge and experience…and in particular your recounting of DC-area locations. I think I came along some years after you, but recall many of the locations you call up in your responses. 🙂
Nice .
In the late 1950’s a neighbor bought an Isetta, I loved riding in the back, most had only the one tiny bench seat .
The microcar enthusiasts and club are still going strong, they move the annual show around from state to state, I’ve been a few times and enjoy looking at Bond’s, Peel’s and others I know not the names of .
-Nate
I lived in the Kansas City, Mo. area, around 1958-59-if I remember correctly there were a lot of Isettas running around, A local gas station owner drove a Heinkle bubble car. One day I was at a local drug store and a lady was getting out of her Isetta with her two kids. I was looking at it and she let me sit in the seat. The steering wheel was attached to the door, that’s all I remember about the interior-aside from it being very small and cramped. They were seemingly popular for a few years (the fad factor?) and then they disappeared.
What a blast from the past! Seeing this thread takes me back to Los Angeles in 1968 when I saw my first(and only) Isetta and was lucky enough to be able to drive it! Being way above average in height I recall the thrill of flying down Pacific Coast Highway, head thru the moonroof, hair flying in the wind…!
Bill, I used to live down the road from you and remember when you bought the NSU stuff from Allied. Allied was also an Isetta dealer at one time and I got the remaining stock of Isetta parts in 1972.
John, thanks for the comment. Did you live next to the Hillandale VFD, on N.H. Ave, and have multiple microcars stuffed into your garage?
I always admired your home, except for the steep driveway. But I guess that’s one way to ensure you won’t be working on cars in the driveway!
Were you still living there in 1995 when the big fire destroyed most of my building?
Today that entire piece of property is where the ICC Rt 100 is located.
Bill,
I didn’t know about the fire until well after the event. Were you able to salvage anything? It must have been a devastating loss.
My collection has outgrown my garage. Here it is as it stands today. Ten pounds in a five pound bag!
Wow! that must be a magic garage that on the outside, looks like a 2 car garage, or this building isn’t behind your house! Do you ever give tours? My girlfriends and I love visiting unusual vehicle collections.
And yes, the fire was devastating. Plus, the insurance company, with the $800/month premium, refused to cover the loss, as I didn’t have a special fire rider due to there not being a fire hydrant within 2 miles. Customer cars were covered under the liability part, but only if the car owner didn’t have insurance! I lost well over $1 million when it was all totaled up, so I had no choice but to file for bankruptcy.
My email is Billmccoskey@aol.com
@John ;
That’s a terrific Man Cave ! .
Please consider an article, you needn’t share where all this Micro Car wonderfulness is…
-Nate
Was the pronunciation really necessary?