Section · 5 stories
Engineering decisions that make zero sense until, suddenly, they make total sense.
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.
For decades, Saab drivers groped around the centre console for the key slot. The reasons were smarter than they looked.
Weirdest quirk The key lives on the floor between the seats, and on manuals it only comes out when you've selected reverse.
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.
A slippery Czech sedan with three headlights, a fin, and a V8 behind the back seat. Its handling became a legend of its own.
Weirdest quirk A dorsal fin runs down the engine cover, and a third 'cyclops' headlight sits in the middle of the nose.
