1960 BMW Isetta – Auction Car of the Week

Pick a car, any car and we can guarantee that there will be someone out there that has an aversion to it, an unfounded animosity towards it or a general dislike of the thing. That’s just the way it is, haters gonna hate, as they say, but there are a few that you just can’t help but love. Cars that have distinctly less cynics than most others. Cars that when they drive past never fail to put a smile on your face. One car that certainly fits that description is the BMW Isetta – a cutesy, charming little microcar that was quite the departure for the German firm upon its release in 1955 but one that very much saved its Bavarian bacon.

When most people think of BMW they think of super saloons or executive chariots for the discerning business person, not three-wheeled, single-cylinder econoblobs (did we just coin a term there?) born of Italian penmanship, but that’s exactly what we got with the Isetta. The car’s story begins a few years earlier though, before BMW got its hands on the thing, subsequently staking its claim and making the Isetta its own. Originally the brainchild of Italian engineer Renzo Rivolta, founder of and head honcho at Iso, a company that began by building electric heaters but would later progress to motorcycle manufacturing and subsequently move on to produce some rather tasty luxury sports coupés. Rivolta wanted a mass-produced, cheap small car – something that was de rigueur at the time – and after deciding on a three-wheeled design by Ermenegildo Preti and Pierluigi Raggi that utilised one of Iso’s motorcycle engines he put his plan into action, with the first Isetta debuting in 1953.

People have eternally been quick to label and the Isetta was no exception. Promptly nicknamed the “bubble car” due to its size and style of windows it caused quite the sensation upon its release. It may have been tiny but it could comfortably seat two adults, with access facilitated by the entire front of the car being hinged so that it could be swung open, steering wheel and column included. Power from the single-cylinder, two-stroke motor wasn’t exactly going to set the world ablaze but that was never the point and the nine or so horsepower it did manage was plenty to ferry the Isetta about town whilst returning impressive fuel economy figures.

Always moving on to bigger and better things, however, Rivolta now had his eyes on the luxury grand tourer market and so to raise some extra cash for this next endeavour he sold the blueprints to the Isetta to other manufacturers, one of which was a struggling BMW. Now the word “struggling” isn’t really one that we would associate with the German giant but at the time BMW was in dire straits. It was the 1950s and Germany was still rebuilding after the war. Sales were slow and so it decided to give this microcar malarkey a go in the hope of injecting some much needed life into its waning sales figures.

And inject life it did. Having redesigned the car to be a little more BMW, with a larger and more powerful four-stroke motor as well as a host of mechanical and aesthetic enhancements, the Isetta was now very much Bavarian and it sold well, helping BMW out of the hole it had found itself in. So successful was it, in fact, that it was improved a year later and fitted with a larger engine. Furthermore a four-seater version was also offered in ’57 but the core principles of what made it such a great little car remained throughout production.

The car we have available here is a 1960 BMW Isetta 300, which means it has the larger 298cc single-cylinder 4-stroke motor which develops 13bhp and can hit 53mph, which is plenty for pottering about town and wowing the crowds at car shows. What makes this particular bubble car extra special, though, is its stunning overall condition. Treated to a comprehensive restoration in 2018, including a full engine and four-speed manual transmission rebuild by engineering experts Malcolm Wilson Motorsport, alongside a complete interior retrim, the car is an absolute peach. Not only that but it’s a rare right-hand drive model and has also recently been furnished with a brand new carburettor courtesy of a BMW main dealer. Suffice to say this Isetta is mechanically on point and aesthetically impeccable in pretty much every way with all of the correct, original parts sourced from marque specialist Bromley Bubble.

It’s all too easy for the quirky to become comical or for the small to be unassuming but the BMW Isetta manages to sidestep both of those particular landmines, remaining a fun and loveable little classic that will always draw a crowd for all the right reasons. It’s stature may be diminutive but the impact the Isetta has had on the automotive landscape and the shadow that it still casts today is huge. This particular example has to be one of the best out there. It looks great, drives flawlessly and wants for nothing so if you’re after a bona fide head-turner that’s simple to maintain and bags of fun to drive then get bidding!