Microcar’s Offering Amazing Gas Millage: BMW Isetta

In early 1954, the principal agent of BMW in Switzerland Drenowatz is visiting at the Geneva Motor Show, where he discovered a “fully carénée motorcycle” called Isetta and manufactured by Italian firm Isomoto. He presented his report immediately to the director of sales, Hans Grewenig. BMW has already devoted much time to the study of a popular car that is the best possible value for the company, and the Isetta seems to correspond to these expectations. Eberhard Wolff, director of the center test of BMW, said that “[Isetta] is deliberately not intended to be a car show.

In 1955, the BMW firm decides to engage in producing popular vehicles on board the little Isetta. Unlike Italy, Germany has a very buoyant market for small cars. The weather may be less forgiving for users of the scooter, plays a decisive role in this success. However, big names are already on the market: Goliath, Lloyd, Zündapp or Messerschmitt and Heinkel, two aerospace companies forced conversion after the Second World War.

The presentation of the small BMW takes place at a press conference on 5 March 1955, without ceremony. In the hotel by the lake Bachmair in Rottach-Egern, journalists have an opportunity to discover a two-seater, far from the usual sports cars. Fritz Fiedler, a leader in the development of BMW vehicles, summarizes in his opening speech that “with the BMW Isetta, a type of economic vehicle and a concept quite new in Germany, is available to the public.” However, the latest BMW is not really a surprise, given that the company announced, in autumn 1954, the arrival of this new model, six months before the Isetta is actually available for inspection in Milbertshofen plant.

BMW has other ambitions for Isetta. The innovative nature of this vehicle is not immune to Bavarian BMW technicians. With its front and its small size, this scooter bodywork can not only take an honorable place in urban traffic, but also play parking problems. The engineers make some improvements to the original. Impractical with the mixer oil / gasoline, two-stroke single is replaced by a borrowed four-stroke motorcycle. Cooled by a small turbine, the engine develops 12 horsepower to reach 80 km / h speed. Noisy, missing torque at low revs, this mechanism will be assisted by the following year a 300 cm3 called Isetta 300.

Nevertheless, the Isetta has many shortcomings: the gearbox is hard, the cabin is very hot during the summer, the direction is unclear. In addition, the acceleration is far from meeting expectations: the 0 to 40 miles / h is performed in 40 s. As regards the comfort and roominess, some find it spacious, enjoying the view “pan”, while others report to understand what “the life of a fish in a jar”. Nevertheless, it will outperform all its rivals when the German market. Just unveiled in April 1955, the small Voiteur see orders flow and its growing success go the following years, with very attractive rates.

However, BMW hard to amortize the cost of its production. Thus, in 1958, while over 100 000 copies are sold, the manufacturer of cash is once again at its lowest. Production becomes an abyss for the brand. However, a new model was created that year, with new suspensions including improving road holding and a body modernized roof and sliding side windows. The rates are revised upwards, but it is too late. Economic growth is in full swing and the customer was tired of micro-cars. The rising purchasing power, the entry of used cars and vehicles more accessible to end micro-urban. In 1962, the Isetta BMW catalog disappears. 161 728 units in total have been produced.

It seems, according to some sources, that the end of the production of the Isetta is due to two rumors. The first reported as one of the BMW had planned the creation of new small cars, larger, but offers a good value for money. The second was supposed to stop the production of the BMW Isetta in 1956 when it took place six years later.

Works Cited

Barrie Price & Jonathan Wood (31 August 1992), Bugatti, The Man and the Marque, The Crowood Press Ltd

Hans-Ulrich von Mende, Matthias Dietz & Benedikt Taschen (Sep 1994), Kleinwagen, Small Cars, Petites Voitures, Taschen

http://www.microcarmuseum.com/

http://www.usautoparts.net/bmw/models/vintage/isetta.htm