Why this tiny microcar is SO MUCH FUN! 1959 BMW Isetta 300

Brilliant and the best car in the carpark. Nicely filmed, too. Amazed how well it sat at speeds too fast for much of Wales (yes, a dig, but a great video).

If the wiper had of worked it must be the biggest corner of disappointment ever

Noddy

Matt at Highpeak autos has a Piaggio Ape for sale, in Postman Pat tribute livery. If you're near Romiley it might make an interesting back to back.

Much better than I expected. You'll have to get your hands on the new Microlino a 20 k reboot for the 21st century.

There’s beautiful example of these at BMW Welt in Munich that ended up falling victim to a rather infuriating instance of greenwashing. Its engine was replaced by an electric motor for environmental reasons. That isn’t all that bad by itself, particularly since it was presumably a student project, albeit a bit unnecessary for a museum piece that does about 1km per year. The truly cynical part is the poor thing sitting right next to the DIESEL SUVS BMW wants to sell you now.

I think it's funny that even for us 2CV owners there are cars that feel a little 'minimalistic'. Great video thanks!

Probably the only car which makes Twc 's ride quality seem sophisticated by comparison .

That sounds like the same company that built the (Maserati) Iso Milano scooter. A friend had one of those, and once when kickstarting it the engine ran in reverse which, when engaging first and letting in the clutch, led to amusing consequences.

What it needs is Allen Millyard to convert the engine to a V4.

Uhm...delightful. One must do best can with what one has. Post war,. Fits the bill.

I've just sent this link to my son. Really laughed at the end - with you in the 2/3 model! Fun, isn't it. :D

Imagine a period-correct Group B era Isetta set up for rallying, and with single vintage round amber Hella's in rally pods where the stock headlamps go, and a triple small pod of Hella's on the roof, just over the windscreen. 😄

How to make an original Fiat 500 look big! Just as cute too !

My cousin, drove one of these from Southampton to Edinburgh and toured around the highlands with his girlfriend in the early sixties. They both survived and had two lovely kids in later years!

Thank you for a fun video and taking me on a time traveling trip. I can honestly say that my very first "Car was a BMW" , flash back to the mid sixties I am the proud owner of a three wheel Isetta. Now at this time you could drive it if you had a Car or a Motorcycle licence, I found out to my detriment that if one took there drivers licence test in a 3-wheeler you couldn't drive either of them. Wonderful bureaucrats. Still many a happy trip with my wife and our toddler son who sat on the floor between us, it was the sixties. And also many hours of repairing it. Yes we did make our way up to 4 wheels and a new licence. I gave up on the bloody two wheel licence and left the country, we started a new life in Canada. Still with my good lady and either of my sons can carry me on their shoulders, we grow them big out here. :o)

Many years ago, in my secondary school days, I occasionally helped my craft / woodwork teacher. Once, while skiving ( sorry resting ) in the school printing room, Teacher stuck his head round the door and said I’m going to the wood merchant, would you like a ride? Immediately I said he’d, forgetting that he had an Isetta. Long story short, having selected timber to be delivered he decided to bring a couple of pieces back to the school with us - which meant we drove about 8 miles with 8ft lengths of timber sticking out of the roof . Truly terrifying!

Lovely roads in Wales! We used to have a few here in Belgium, the continental version, with two wheels in the back and smaller headlamps. The scenery reminds me a bit of some roads here in the Ardens in southern Belgium. Great video!

I LOVE post war bubble cars. If I ever become a millionaire, my collection would be a BMW Isetta, messerschmitt KV170/200, mini cooper, Subaru 360, and a VW beetle if I need to haul more. Oh and a Citroën DS, even though I know it's technically not a "bubble car" I just love the styling and interior.

My pops primarily grew up in Austria in the late 40s and through the 50s, one of his classmates had one of these. Him and another classmate would pull pranks on him by picking up the car when it was parked and moving it.

Gorgeous!

Looks like you had a good time with this. Between one of these and TWC, which one would you choose?

Swapped my Jawa 250 for one of these, back in 1964. I had a 75-mile-each-way weekly commute and I was fed up with freezing to the bike in the depths of winter. The Isetta kept me warm and dry and the only things I had to replace were the battery and regulator, both of which are under the seat. The L/H-drive versions have an easier gear-change than the R/H-drive ones; less linkages on the L/H models.

Yes. I remember. In those days the tiny cars from Europe were all the rage. The most popular were the two models of the Isetta, the 300 that you show and the 600 that, in addition to the front door, had a right side door for a rear seat. There was also tthee German Messerschmitt which was a two place tandem seat car, 250cc engine.

Onen day we kids, I was a senior in high school that year, played a joke on a teacher who drove one. We went to where he parked it and picked up up and turned it around so that the door was facing a wall. He could not get in. We thought that was funny. He did too. We then turned it back for him.

Four of we kids could pick the car up and turn it. When you are seventeen you can do anythinig.

Those were the good old days. Ps: In those days one only used a backpac on camping trips. School kids just carried their books under one arm.

These are fun if you play the Forza Horizon video games and decide to replace the engine with what only can be described as a superbike engine.

I'm proud to say I had one , the only BMW I have ever wanted....Great fun, bought for £60, daily driver to work, Surbiton to Camberley in West Surrey. A I recall the fuel filler cap had a wooden stick attached so I could read fuel level, lever behind seat back for petrol cut off, and battery under the seat.
Built in Brighton, but LHD......I wish I still owned it.

I can remember my older sister going to school in one of those with about five other children in the car, this was in the mid 50,s when I was about four at the time what makes it so memorable is the door at the front with the steering wheel coming out with it. Not sure the police would approve of one being used for a school run these-days. Later in the 70's I restored one for a friend and when I took it for a test drive the gear lever detached in my hand as I drove through the lights at the road junction by the roman catholic church in Cambridge, the owner of the car who was with me at the time tried to get out while I was trying to get the car into gear by pushing the gear lever into its ball socket while a bus was coming across the junction so he was pushing on the door in a panic and I was holding the door shut with my right hand and putting the gear lever back in with my left, the car was one with two wheels at the back close together making it technically a thee wheeler, the dyna start was in the fly wheel not belt driven.

Absolute death trap, but fun!

I had a ride in the Henkel at the bubble car museum near Boston, lincs. It was a fanrastic fun ride! Brilliant museum too! 😀

My mother had a yellow one in the 1960s. None of us kids were allowed to travel with her. That would have been fun & scary at the same time😮

Beauty bubble car I don't know about now can drive on a bike license I know you reviewed a Dacia car have you done a duster on your channel

What a fantastic little car. Absolutely beautiful condition too. The noise reminds me of my old Kawasaki Z200 motorbike that was also a single cylinder. thanks for sharing such a facinating little car :-)

Brilliant video! There's a blue Isetta parked in one of my favourite record shops in Galway in the republic of Ireland called The Bell Book and Candle. If you're ever in Galway I'd recommend going to take a look.

It looks so safe!...

Super camera work, very professional and enjoyable. Thank you very much.👍❤

I crush very hard on those cuties and I'm not the only one if prices at auctions are to be believed... Wouldn't drive one sandwiched between 2 trucks but on a small island that has max size & speed limits for motor cars, that would be lovely.

Superb memory's, my parents came from rich families but lost everything in 1954 so the next 'first' car was a white Isetta in 1960, much loved when you have nothing else! Carried me at 11 sandwiched between parents with not a care in the World for today's frivolities cars now have - mother drove on her own from Newbury to Plymouth, 340 miles return, and because rear wheel ran on virgin snow when fronts were where normal cars ran, she spun into a 6 foot drift! Luckily was spotted and pulled out but she couldn't even use the escape hatch in the roof, because the snow fell on it!

That is a Brighton built car not Munich built. The cow catcher bars were unique to Brighton built cars, the ones fitted to (German built) US export cars were a different shape. They built both LHD and RHD 3w at Brighton, also RHD 4w- some were prepared to pay more than double the purchase tax for the privilege and you needed a car license to drive it too. The cars are chain driven, but do have an intermediate driveshaft between the gearbox and final chain drive. Indicator switch is mounted upside down on that car, sounds like it could do with some attention to the exhaust too. Isetta preceded the Suez crisis by some three years.

Im old enough to remember when these were not that uncommon on the roads. One forgets how primitive they are.

This noise of someone hitting a pan is not normal. There's something loose

I'd love a modern day version ......with a carbon fibre frame ....... if in crash ..... just "BOUNCE AROUND" and just land in someone's garden 🙂
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(with a tiny engine made by Honda) ...lol....(cant go wrong) 🙂

In the mid 70s when I was in the 6th Form one of the guys had an Isetta and used it as his school transport.
When he'd parked and gone inside, with monotonous / hilarious regularity a group of lads (guilty m'lud) would appear from round a corner, lift up the back end and wheel it up to the nearest wall. The handbrake and steering operated on the back wheel so that was easy when there at least a couple of you.
Later on, just after 4pm when the rest of us were on the buses and heading home, there would be a pleading knock on the staffroom door and the request, "Can somebody help? they've done it again".
Happy memories! Thanks for posting this review.

Fiat made an isetta lookalike (with their newer 500) with the rear wheels close to each other

The 300cc produces 13bhp at 5200RPM, the smaller 250cc produces 12bhp at 5800RPM.

An Acton school friend (Henry ) had the green version. On the downhill, taking a right turn too fast (adverse camber ) he turned us over we slid along on the left side before ending up upside down, with us in a heap ! No injuries and we could restart & drive on..! 🙃

Back in the 60s a relative of mine used to drive a bubble car (whether a BMW, Trojan or Heinkel I can't remember), with a passenger and luggage, all the way on holiday from Cheshire to Caithness, a round trip of over 1,000 miles. Having seen this video I shall now look back on him with added respect!

I'll never forget my shock as a kid in the early 1960s when a fellow student's mother pulled over as I walked to school and asked if I needed a lift. The front of the car opened up to let my 8-year-old self inside and off we went to school. It would be decades before I became aware of what that car so many years before was called. I wonder if those parents ever attended Woodstock years later?

Great car until you're in an accident. Then you die.

As a 16 year old I had one of these as my first car, mine had a full width front bumper & in a slight collision the bumper got pushed against the door requiring a sunroof exit!

soooo........... 34yrs n then told to pack up n go. bloody digracefull really. we need the whole story now, Ian.

So strange with three wheels!