BMW, being German, keeps a historical archive. Luckily for me, it’s searchable, so you can go look up your favorite Z3 brochure or whatever. I decided to see what would come up if I just typed in “drift.” As it turned out, solid gold hits.
The Isetta was an important car for BMW, which reached out to Italian company Iso to build a version of its weird little bubble car under license starting in 1955. BMW’s was powered by its own single-cylinder motorcycle engine, which made about 13 horsepower. That wasn’t much, but it was enough to make the car BMW’s…
The BMW Isetta is one of the cutest cars ever made, with its front-opening door and teeny-tiny dimensions. Thankfully, it looks no less cute when it does adorable little donuts.
I went to a car museum not long ago while I was on vacation, because I have serious problems managing my work/life balance. But while I was at Autoworld I saw a pristine, shiny BMW Isetta just sitting there, looking pretty. It was awful.
I’m not sure what you’re doing or how your day has gone, but I’m pretty sure whatever’s going on will be made better by just looking at this ad for this beautifully-realized Volkswagen-powered Isetta truck. Holy crap, that thing looks fantastic.
I could never convince my mother to get me a BMW in high school. She had a BMW in high school, I would argue. But hers had a top speed of around 55 mph, provided there was a strong a tail wind. Mom had a BMW Isetta 300, and I finally got to see why she loved it so much when I drove one at the Lane Motor Museum.
We’ve seen many clever little electric city car concepts come and go, and very few of them actually ever make it to production. There’s even been ones that resurrect beloved and iconic microcars of old. It’s happening again, and it looks promising: a new, electric Isetta. It’s called the Microlino, and their motto is…
I’m someone who knows a lot about certain kinds of weird cars. That’s not bragging, it’s just what I love. Occasionally, though, I come across some bit of information that makes me remember just how incredibly, lavishly ignorant I really am. Things like the Diaseta, the attempted ‘80s Isetta revival.
While the reasons not to turn a compact BMW into a flatbed truck are many, we're glad someone decided to disregard them and create this awesome one of a kind Isetta.
I'm not livesketching the 2012 New York show show, but I did want to take a moment to sketch something that struck me as very important. Perhaps unwittingly, the Mitsubishi i-MEV Sport Air concept car really, really reminds me of a modernized Isetta. It even has a huge glass front end that would make a perfect door.…
Although nicely restored examples of BMW's contribution to the microcar era can command serious prices the cost of filling at least part of your yard with this assortment of Isetta shells and parts currently listed on Ebay is surprisingly affordable—at least initially.
What would you do if your 91-year-old grandmother had the blues? French photographer Sacha Goldberge talked his into taking a series of outrageous pictures such as this one, and it worked. (Hat Tip to SuperCharger.Heaven!) [My Modern Met]
With the recent reveal of the production-ready Terrafugia flying car, we thought it an appropriate time to take a quick look at propeller-driven automobiles. Not the kind that fly. The kind that drive. Hello, propcar! Run, pedestrians, run!
www.new-isetta.info has popped up with the Apple-fied "iSetta" name on a hybridized BMW/Mini roundel. Coincidence?
Denied the right to make cars by the Soviet Union, enthusiasts and engineers in Hungary made several ingenious attempts to produce their own microcar. Auto historian Pál Négyesi tells us the story of these little wonders.
There's an unconfirmed rumor popping up claiming BMW's previously announced city car program dubbed "Project i," will result in a resurrected and tediously named i-Setta to compete against the Smart ForTwo. Just keep van Hooydonk away from it. [Bimmerfile]
The old maxim admonishes you not to keep all your eggs in one basket. Today, Nice Price or Crack Pipe wants to know if that's still true if your basket happens to be an egg?
While most people consider automotive design in terms of what we look like getting from A-to-B, there's an entire (gull)wing of design devoted to how we get into and out of the things that get us from A-to-B. There's been a fascinating renaissance in the style of doors, as one can see in the 2009 Honda Element, which…
In an interview with a German newspaper, BMW CEO Norbert Reithofer has confirmed that a small city car is being developed to cope with future European and American regulations for fuel economy and pollution. But we're talking about more than just an electric Mini here. This will be an entirely new vehicle which will…
We're pretty sure there won't be a Hayabusa mill to perform miracles of speed. But the latest from the UK rumor mill is BMW's bringing back the Isetta, the popular econo-egg from the 1950s — created by Italy's Iso and popularized by BMW — that grabbed a generation of cosmopolitan Europeans by the lapels and screamed …
