The timeless allure of microcars

Outsize personality

Microcars have held the limelight of late. The world’s largest privately held collection went under the hammer in the Southeastern US state of Georgia in February, bringing more than $8 million in total sales. The heyday of these cars was surely in the mid- to late 1950s, when post-war Europe turned to creating mobility solutions for the masses. The original Mini and Fiat 500 may be the most recognisable machines from this era, but these four-seaters were downright behemoths compared to the two-seat, low-displacement conveyances surveyed here. Powered by everything from tiny two-stroke engines to advanced electric motors, these microcars are the banner-flyers for the breed. (BMW Group)

Source: http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20130419-microcars-timeless-allure

Isetta

This Brighton, Sussex built Isetta was spotted at the 32nd edition of the Sandwell Historic Vehicle Show in the West Midlands.

Smart’s ForTwo is ready to grow!

Extra doors and seats make favourite an A1 competitor
Near-identical Smart tries to triumph where ForFour failed.

The Smart ForTwo is growing – and here’s the picture to prove it! Auto Express has learned that Mercedes is planning to add a pair of rear doors and extra seats to its famous city car.
Doubling the Smart’s carrying capacity to four people, the new variant will give the range some added practicality, letting it compete with an upcoming raft of desirable small cars such as Audi’s A1 and BMW’s Isetta. No name has yet been give to the newcomer, but it’s likely to carry the ForTwo +2 tag, indicating that it’s very much an addition to the ForTwo line-up.
As you can see from this illustration, the new model is near identical to the two-seater, apart from a pair of neatly integrated small rear doors. These reverse-hinged units give access to two individual chairs in the back. Underneath the skin, the car features the same rear-wheel-drive layout as the regular ForTwo with the engine under the boot floor, but with a stretched wheelbase giving extra legroom.

Read full article here.

12th Annual Microcar and Minicar Classic

In its first eleven years, this event has become one of the premiere microcar events, with three micro-tours, a huge eclectic gourmet feed, cruise night and a spectacular farewell breakfast. Last year, over 125 registered guests with 70 unusual microcars and minicars and over 1,000 spectators attended the Lawn Exhibit at the Larz Anderson Museum of Transportation, in Brookline Massachusetts.
A wide array of really unusual, eccentric microcars and minicars including Isettas, Fiats, Crosleys, Goggomobiles, Messerschmitts, Vespas, Lloyds, NSU Prins', Hondas, Subarus, and others!
Extremely rare and exotic microcars, including a Brutsch Mopetta (in 2000), any number of Messerschmitt Kabinenrollers, a Kleinschnittger F125, a Peel Trident (!), Victoria or a Fuji Cabin.
For more information go here.

String Isetta

Hi Annette,
We're just back from a break in France - had a beautiful cottage in the Tarn, about 45 min from Toulouse. Went to Albi last Saturday where the attached was taking part in the Fete de la Patisserie - don't ask, but there was a huge amount of free cake!
The vehicle was charging about through the crowds. It has a cord-laced wirebody on a steel frame, and the driver sits outside, high at the back, and pedals and steers. At one point he had three large kids inside and two women on stilts sitting on the roof (again, don't ask), and was happily pedalling away, no sign of a sweat!
Great break, very restful, now back to a serious Rocket groundrush . . .
best wishes,
Peter

The Green Machine vs The Radish

Rival Isetta owners John and Heinz threatened to drag race their respective British and German built cars at Saturday's season opener of the Street Classics Show and Shine Association's meet. It was great to meet up with other smart drivers Mr. Natural, smart65 (of clubsmartcar) and the Hewetsons.

Smart car follows in footsteps of BMW's Isetta

Photo by ALT, Micronorth 2005, Orillia, ON

By BOB ENGLISH
Thursday, December 1, 2005 Posted at 9:29 AM EST
Globe and Mail Update

Over the past year, tiny two-seat mini cars have been appearing on the streets of Canadian cities.
They've been welcomed as just the things needed to save the planet by some and as something of a novelty by others. But the Mercedes-Benz Smart car isn't the first of this type to be imported to Canada, or even the first from a German luxury car maker. That honour goes to the classic micro-machine of the 1950s: BMW's Isetta bubble car.
The egg-shaped Isetta was born in the aftermath of the Second World War when money, materials and fuel were scarce, one of a number of designs from makers such as Messerschmitt, Heinkel, Dornier, Gogomobile, Trojan and Scootacar.
But by the time the Isetta eventually arrived in North America in the late 1950s, it was a solution to a problem that simply didn't exist here. Although today, with transaction prices averaging $30,000, gas near enough a buck a litre and traffic in near gridlock, we can look back on the 1957 version advertised in Toronto newspapers with a degree of nostalgia.
Isetta Motors of Canada would sell you one of these minuscule motorcars for $1,098 ($366 down, $9 a week) and promised it would get 75 miles per gallon, or better than 4.0 L/100 km. It was just 2,283 mm long (or about 400 mm more than many modern vehicles are wide) and weighed 350 kg. Up front were wide-spaced, 10-inch diameter wheels, while the rears were just 518 mm apart.

Read full article here.


Note: Four wheeled Isettas imported to Canada were manufactured in Brighton, East
Sussex. Read more about Isettas here.

smart comments: Week 4 & 5

1. Good luck in your little chariot. (Yorkshireman)
2. Want to trade? (Classic convertible driver)
3. My son's picking his up in Edmonton today. We ordered it on the web 5 months ago.
4. Were you at Waterton last weekend? There were a whole bunch of them there.
5. Those things really fly. A guy passed me the other day doing 130 kph.
6. I just bought my wife an Envoy and now I'm wondering why.
7. It's the first time I've seen one.
8. You're the smartest man I've seen all summer.
9. Remember the Isetta?
10. I'm just waiting to see if the other half shows up.

Micronorth

By RLT

Saturday morning I'm cutting the hedges when the Mrs gets wind of a microcar rally up north that afternoon. We decide to go for it and crank up the smart car and head for Orillia and the "Micronorth" rally. We make the mistake of joining the 400 Highway south of Barrie and get snarled in the traffic - folk are leaning out of car windows to enquire about the smart.

The microcars are gathered on the dock at Lake Couchiching in a heatwave. A small but select gathering including our pal John with his Isetta, originally made in Brighton. There are Isettas, Messerschmidts, Fiats, DKWs, 2CVs and other rare vehicles along with a smattering of smarts. A number of Amphicars are present and one actually takes to the water - it hoots as a large ferry approaches.

1960 Isetta at Street Classics Cruise