Section · 7 stories
Too small, too thirsty, too weird. Absolutely perfect.
To get into an Isetta you open the entire front of the car, and the steering wheel and dashboard swing out with it. It probably saved BMW.
Weirdest quirk The whole front of the car is the door, and the steering wheel and instrument panel swing out with it.
Everyone else gave up on the rotary engine. Mazda spent six years fighting it, then raced it for 84 hours straight at the Nürburgring.
Weirdest quirk It has no pistons. Two triangular rotors spin inside the engine, with two spark plugs per rotor.
One wheel at the front, a fibreglass body and an aluminium engine. Britain's most famous three-wheeler is a glorious mistake, and it wasn't really as tippy as TV made out.
Weirdest quirk One wheel at the front, plus a weight under 450 kg, so it could be licensed and taxed like a motorcycle-category tricycle.
Nissan's Pike Factory built a little van that looks like a snail, is named after one, and was made to be a rolling billboard.
Weirdest quirk It's a working delivery van styled like a snail, and its name is a pun on the French word for snail.
The world's smallest production car didn't bother with reverse. If you got stuck, you got out and picked it up.
Weirdest quirk There's no reverse gear. To turn round you get out, lift the tail by its chrome handle and drag the car about.
Lamborghini tried to sell an off-roader to the military, failed, and sold it to everyone else instead. Thirst included.
Weirdest quirk It needed tyres that didn't exist yet, so Pirelli developed the Scorpion specifically for it.
A brake 'button' instead of a pedal, a car that stands up when you start it, and 12,000 orders on day one. The Goddess was gloriously strange.
Weirdest quirk The brake isn't a pedal. It's a little rubber button on the floor that barely moves.
