Riggers puts all 13bhp to full use...
Sometimes fate conspires to put you in some very odd situations. I’m currently sitting in a tiny BMW Isetta bubble car alongside John Hawkins, the managing director of Specialist Cars of Malton, best known as a Porsche specialist, and heading alarmingly rapidly directly towards a terrified-looking photographer.
We’re visiting Specialist Cars on Porsche-related business (which you’ll be able to read about on PH soon), but the news has just broken that BMW may be about to revive the classic Isetta name for its forthcoming ‘Project i’ city car range, and Specialist Cars just happens to be selling a very tidy example indeed (see the PH advert here), so the opportunity for a spin around the block is too hard to resist.
Let's hope the brakes work...
Having scared Tim the snapper witless, John stops the Isetta and we swap seats. It’s time for me to have a go. “It’s all very simple to drive” he says cheerfully as I look dubiously at the spindly gearlever. “It’s just a normal H pattern. The only trick is to be gentle and you’ll find the gears with no trouble.”
He’s right – after a few false starts the lever snicks into place and we trundle away up the road with the little 300cc single-piston motor chugging away merrily. Apart from the odd engine note and the sensation that you’re driving something even Noddy would turn his nose up at, the BMW Isetta actually feels surprisingly conventional – kind of like a 1960s version of a Smart ForTwo, but with a sweeter gearchange.
Creature comforts? What creature comforts?
With two people on board and a grand total of 13bhp and 13lb ft of torque at our disposal, the Isetta isn’t a fan of inclines, but it will just about cope with them. As we – somewhat nervously – creep out on to the main road out of Malton, however, the little bubble car proves itself capable of keeping up with the flow of modern traffic. “It will happily bowl along at 50mph” says John. “You’ve just got to watch out on the corners.” Slaloming round some raised ironworks reveals why – the stubby three-wheeler isn’t exactly the most stable machine.
The old Isetta is a fascinating curiosity and, while we hope a reborn version would have rather more dynamic ability and creature comforts, if BMW can engineer even a tenth of the Isetta 300’s character into its Project i range, it will be onto a winner.
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