Did I say BMW Isetta 250? I meant BMW Isetta 300 Cabriolet Tropical
I thought the “bubble” side windows identified this as an early-series 250, but Bruce Fullerton’s cheerful Isetta Tech website tells me all BMW Isetta export models had the larger 300-cc motorcycle engine. And while every Isetta Moto Coupe had a fabric sunroof (doubling as emergency exit if the front door was damaged in an accident), this one’s folding rear top was a feature of the less common Cabriolet Tropical model. The Isetta looks like a marriage of a refrigerator and a scooter, which, by no coincidence, were the major products of its developer, Italy’s Iso, in the early 1950s. Several firms would build Isettas under licence but Germany’s BMW was by the far the largest producer, selling more than 100,000 in its domestic market alone as people strove to get mobile in the years after the Second World War. (Check out a great selection of mini-machines from that period and others at the Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum in Madison, Georgia, United States, not far from Atlanta.) Maynar...