BMW Isetta: The Bubble Car Whose Front Door Takes the Steering Wheel With It

Most cars have doors on the sides, because that's where people stand when they want to get in. The Isetta looked at that idea, shrugged, and made the entire front of the car the door.

An Italian egg

The Isetta started out in Italy, not Germany. Iso SpA, a Milan firm better known for refrigerators and scooters, showed the original Iso Isetta to the press in Turin in 1953. It was tiny: about 2.3 metres long, egg-shaped, with bubble-like windows. That's why cars like it got the nickname "bubble cars."

The one door hinged at the side of the nose, and here's the brilliant bit: the steering wheel and instrument panel were attached to it. Swing the door open and the steering column swings out of the way, so two people can step straight in and sit side by side on a single bench seat. If you crashed head-first, the escape route was the canvas sunroof.

Enter BMW

In the mid-1950s BMW was in trouble. It made luxurious cars and motorcycles, and post-war Germany mostly couldn't afford either. So BMW licensed the Isetta from Iso and re-engineered it heavily. By most accounts the two cars ended up sharing almost no interchangeable parts.

BMW's version used a single-cylinder, four-stroke engine from its R 25 motorcycle: 247cc and 12 hp to start with, then a 298cc version with 13 hp. Production started in spring 1955, and BMW sold more than 10,000 in the first year. The back wheels sit so close together that the car doesn't need a differential, and BMW's own press history notes that the gap between the rear wheels wasn't even half the front track.

Cute sells

The Isetta was a big hit. BMW's peak year was 1957, with almost 40,000 sold. By the time production ended in 1962, BMW had built about 161,000 of them. The Isetta was also built under licence in France, Brazil, the UK and elsewhere. BMW's press archive even tells the story of Elvis Presley being photographed with one and, as legend has it, buying it as a gift for his manager.

The catch

There's an obvious flaw in a front door: park nose-first against a wall and you're stuck inside. Isetta owners learned to reverse into tight spaces. If all else failed, there was the sunroof.

Why we love it

The Isetta is proof that you can solve a problem (how do you get two people into a car this small?) by ignoring everything everyone else does. It's charming and a bit ridiculous, and it helped keep one of the world's great car companies alive. Not bad for a fridge with a steering wheel on the door.

Want to know what one actually costs? The BMW Isetta Quirk Database entry logs real auction sold prices, each linked to its result.