The BMW I was unfortunate enough to drive last week was the Isetta, more commonly known as the tiny and rotund ‘bubble car’, as built between 1955 and 1962. At one time, the BMW Isetta was the best-selling single-cylinder engined car in the world, with 161,728 examples sold overall, and the model being the first British-built BMW ever made (in Brighton), from 1957 onwards.
The Isetta (almost) fulfilled a need in post-war mainland Europe for minimalist and affordable transportation, with Italian domestic white goods maker Renzo Rivolta’s ISO business creating the Isetta, and building it between 1953-58.
As well as industrialist Rivolta cannily selling the production licence for his inexpensive Isetta bubble car around the world, including Velam in France, De Carlo in Argentina and Romi-Isetta in Brazil, ISO sold its largest manufacturing rights agreement for the model to the cash-starved and ailing BMW in Munich.
BMW hadn’t come out of the Second World War in rude health. Its large, ungainly and thirsty 501 V8 saloon widely missed the mark and failed to attract buyers in a depressed post-war market, and much of BMW’s previous production facilities were now based in the newly Communist-run DDR (East Germany).
ISO’s little Italian bubble-shaped microcar was more in tune with mid-1950s new car buyer demands than the baroque BMW 501 and handsome but irrelevant sporting BMWs, such as the 503 GT coupe and expensive 507 roadster.