Microcars at Mid-Century: Before the Bubble Burst

The pattern for the post-World War II microcar phenomenon may have been set in the 1930s, when Fiat introduced its Topolino, or "little mouse", powered by a 569 cc water-cooled inline 4. The Topolino put Italy on wheels, and prompted specialists to offer high performance equipment. One of these, Siata, offered overhead valve cylinder heads, and eventually, a Gran Sport roadster with all their special equipment packaged in a lightweight body by Zagato. The 1937 example shown below set some of the themes for postwar sports cars offered by other Italian specialists in what would become the etceterini class, but also for the postwar appearance of microcars, scaled-down vehicles where economies would be achieved by weight saving and simplicity.  At first, these microcars, like the somewhat larger Fiat Topolino as well as the Siata shown here, would follow the format of simply scaling down the form as well as the mechanical layouts of conventional cars.  But the quest for efficiency would eventually foster unconventional approaches...

                        

After World War II, fuel shortages and flattened economies encouraged development of even smaller cars than the Fiat Topolino. In France, Rovin exhibited a tiny cabriolet powered by a 260cc, single cylinder engine at the 1946 Paris Salon. This cyclops-eyed D1 was superseded by the D2 with 423cc air-cooled twin, and twin headlights, the next year. The D2 qualified, like the Citroen Deux Chevaux, as 2 fiscal horsepower, and made about 10 actual horsepower.  Body design, like Zagato's work on the Siata Gran Sport, was clearly based on the idea of simply miniaturizing all the elements of a larger car...  

That was not the case with Renzo Rivolta's Isetta, which appeared in 1953.  In order to maximize interior space, the Italian manufacturer Iso* came up with a body form that the French would eventually dub "monospace".  At the time the egg-like Isetta appeared, the monospace form, with its elimination of separate hood and deck, had only been seen on delivery vans. The curving window forms echoed modern fighter planes.  Along with the body form, Iso reduced entry and egress to a single door at the front face of the car, a reminder that Iso manufactured refrigerators. The steering wheel pivoted outward when the door was opened, giving access to 2 seats.  A rear-mounted two-stroke, split-single, air-cooled engine just under 240cc provided power.  The Isetta was about 4.5 feet wide and 7.5 feet long.  For perspective, that's 2.5 shorter than the BMC Mini that would appear in half a dozen years...

Of course, because it was Italian, the Isetta made an appearance at the Mille Miglia, where it won the Economy Class.  Note that car was a four-wheeler, with the rear wheels so close together that a differential was not needed.

Of more importance than the Isetta's competition career was its value as a business plan for Iso and for BMW, which was licensed to produce the car in Germany, substituting their own 250cc single-cylinder motorcycle engine for the Iso unit.  BMW began production in 1956, just in time for the fuel shortages brought on by the Suez Canal conflict.  BMW sold ten thousand Isettas that first year, about twice the total production of Iso's Isetta cars and delivery vans combined.  The Isetta not only launched Iso as a car builder, it insured BMW's survival at a time when the sales of their expensive V8 luxury cars had faded.

Early versions of the BMW Isetta had the same bubble glass greenhouse as the Iso version. There was also a folding-roof convertible version, for those who needed more ventilation than the sunroof offered...

BMW introduced a 300cc engine in 1956, and late in that year released a new Isetta coupe with sliding windows, which allowed greater ventilation than the earlier bubble top.  A sliding window Isetta is shown below, parked in front of a rear-engined BMW 700 cabriolet.  These 700s were powered by a twin-cylinder, air-cooled engine, and were part of BMW's effort to fill the yawning gap between the Isetta microcars and the big, slow-selling BMW V8s.

In 1958, the year before the conventional-looking 700 appeared, BMW had tried to fill that gap with the 600 Limousine.  Anticipating the minivan at a smaller scale, the 600 had a twin-cylinder engine at the rear, an entry door at the front, and one door on the passenger side.

The photo below shows all doors and lids open. The pivoting steering column was borrowed from the Isetta.  The "Limousine" name seems comically ambitious today, but compared with the Isetta 300, the 600 might as well have been a limo.  Space utilization was good, but the car was not a huge hit with upwardly mobile Germans in the early Sixties...

Messerschmitt tried to cover the Isetta's market territory from 1955-64 with their KR-200 Cabin Scooter, which offered an aircraft-style canopy and 3 wheels. The rear engine was a single cylinder two-stroke unit.  Steering was by a handlebar arrangement...

FMR offered more prosperous, or at least more adventurous, customers the TG500, based upon the Cabin Scooter chassis, but with 30 cubic inch air-cooled inline twin offering more sporting performance.  The aircraft style canopy and tandem seating recalled fighter aircraft. And there were 4 wheels...

Also in Germany during these years, Hans Glas* in Bavaria offered his Goggomobile line of microcars.  The T250 sedan appeared in 1954, and featured a rear-mounted, two-stroke, air-cooled inline twin.  Visually, the T250 was a scaled-down conventional sedan, with 3-box styling and none of the adventures in space utilization offered by the Isettas.  Production of this design, with larger engine options, continued until 1969...

Italy's Piaggio concern, makers of the Vespa motor scooters, got into the microcar business in 1957 with the Vespa 400.  They elected to manufacture the car in France, where it might not have had such direct competition from the then-new Fiat 500.  Styling was conventional but charming, and power came from a 400cc, rear-mounted two-stroke, air-cooled inline twin cylinder engine. Production continued through 1961.

Autobianchi's Bianchina, based upon Fiat's Nuova 500 microcar which appeared in 1957, shared its conventional 3-box massing with the Vespa 400. It shared its rear-mounted 500cc (30 cubic inch) 4-stroke, air-cooled inline twin with the Fiat. Parked next to the Bianchina is an Abarth 595 version of the Fiat 500.  Front-opening "suicide" doors were replace by conventional ones after 1965, and the car was produced into 1975. 

The Fiat 600, introduced in 1956, had done its part to advance the trend toward rear-mounted engines already seen at VW and Renault, and which soon spread to Simca, Rootes Motors in England, and even to GM with the Corvair.  The 600 was at the upper range of our microcar class in overall size, and a bit above the 500cc engine size which many consider an upper limit for the microcar class.  If that's the case, the Abarth Fiat 850TC, with twice the power of the original 600, would be considered a muscle car in this category...

Like many motorcycle manufacturers during this period, Germany's Zundapp attempted to entry the microcar market with the Janus, which proposed front and rear opening doors to access front and rear-facing seats.  The mid-mounted single cylinder two-stroke engine offered interesting weight distribution and space utilization, but not much in the way of power.  Sales price was too high to be competitive, and less than 7,000 copies were sold from introduction in 1957 to 1958, when production ended.

Imitation is perhaps the sincerest form of flattery, and before the bubble of the microcar movement burst with the end of the Suez crisis and the return of Western Europe's economic boom in the Late Fifties, Isetta production had been licensed to Velam in France, as well as to car makers in Argentina, Brazil and Spain.  Heinkel built its own bubble car, with a sleeker and glassier form, but the same front-entry format, and single-cylinder 4-stroke engines of 175 or 200cc, in 3 and 4-wheeled guises.  The Heinkel Kabine was built from 1956 through 1958 in Germany, and from 1960-'66 by Trojan in the UK, and also in Argentina until the mid-Sixties.  BMW sold over 161,000 Isettas before their bubble popped in 1962.  Luckily for them, they  had a second act ready when the sales of the bigger, more conventional 700 Series sputtered.  It was called the Neue Klasse, and it led to the immortal 2002.    

*Footnote:  The Goggomobil and related Glas automobiles were featured in our post entitled "Forgotten Classics: Frua Designs for Hans Glas & BMW", from 12-2-18.  The Isetta's origins and engine design were profiled in "Born From Refrigerators: Iso Rivolta", posted on 9-20-18.

Photo Credits:

All photos are by George Havelka except the following:
Top & 2nd:  the author

3rd (Rovin D2):  Automobiles Rovin, featured in Jalopy Journal

4th & 5th (Iso Isetta):  isomillenium.it

14th (Messerschmitt Tiger): wallhere.com

15th (Goggomobil 250):  wikimedia

16th (4 elevation shots of Vespa):  voicesofeastanglia.com

17th (Vespa ad): Piaggio, featured on voicesofeastanglia.com

20th (Zundapp Janus): reddit.com

21st (Zundapp Janus): Lane Musuem, on wikimedia

Bottom (Heinkel Kabine):  wikimedia