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Isetta
- mellosouls 6y agoThis immediately reminds me of the Top Gear feature on the smallest car in the world: the Peel P50 - the relatively behemoth-like Bubble Car (Isetta) makes a fleeting appearance in the introduction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJfSS0ZXYdo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJfSS0ZXYdo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peel_P50 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peel_P50
- gtk40 6y agoThere is one on display the BMW Zentrum museum in Spartanburg, SC: https://www.bmwgroup-werke.com/spartanburg/en/plant-tours-zentrum-museum.html/ https://www.bmwgroup-werke.com/spartanburg/en/plant-tours-ze...
- eganist 6y agoNotable auto-youtuber-now-ecommerce-founder Doug DeMuro has an in-depth tour and drive with an isetta. It's one of his earlier videos. https://youtube.com/watch?v=k0dEzY-xld8 https://youtube.com/watch?v=k0dEzY-xld8
- sn41 6y agoI didn't know that Doug DeMuro had done an episode on the Isetta. I love his presentation. His geeky joy in driving any car, whether ultra luxury, or just plain odd, is infectious.
- wazoox 6y agoInterestingly, there seems to be an obvious modern recreation, the Microlino: https://microlino-car.com/en/microlino https://microlino-car.com/en/microlino
- usrusr 6y agoAnd less obvious ones, like https://www.ellenator-gmbh.de/ https://www.ellenator-gmbh.de/ which exists solely to exploit a legal loophole to get something that is arguably more dangerous than a car into the hands of people who are not licensed to drive a car.
- rjeli 6y agosame story behind that funny Mr. Bean car
- zokier 6y agoExploit loophole? L7e class seems very intentional, and the vehicles are pretty much explicitly designed for those?
- indigo945 6y ago> Der Ellenator ist der erste PKW, der mit 16 Jahren gefahren > werden darf, da er trotz 4 Räder als „Dreirädriges Fahrzeug“ > Fahrzeugklasse L5e eingestuft ist. > The Ellenator is the first car that may be driven at the age > of 16, because it is classed as a "three-wheeled vehicle" in > vehicle class L5e despite having four wheels. Registering a four-wheeled car according to regulations for three-wheeled cars sounds like exploiting a loophole to me.
- wazoox 6y agoIt's an ordinary Fiat 500 modified to be qualified as a 3-wheeler. Looks very much like loophole exploitation to me.
- Hamuko 6y agoI've never driven a quadricycle, but I have heard from someone that they are actually harder to drive than an actual car. I think it was mostly due to its transmission. Then there's the fact that they offer pretty much no crash protection and they can be legally operated starting at the age of 15. They are definitely dangerous. There was an incident where an older Mercedes-Benz minivan [1] crashed into a quadricycle [2] in 2017. The 34-year-old man driving the minivan was drunk and suicidal and attempted to kill himself by crashing himself to an oncoming car. The result was that the two 17-year-olds in the quadricycle died immediately and the man got minor injuries. [1] https://is.mediadelivery.fi/img/1920/a659907378c54818bbc915ea2c958b75.jpg https://is.mediadelivery.fi/img/1920/a659907378c54818bbc915e... [2] https://is.mediadelivery.fi/img/1920/2965ca321c7a47758ca5a81ff8406b1c.jpg https://is.mediadelivery.fi/img/1920/2965ca321c7a47758ca5a81...
- c54 6y agoThis looks great! Will these be available / street legal in the US?
- amelius 6y agoForget it. The thing has no crumple zone.
- guenthert 6y agoNeither has a motorcycle. Might make wearing a helmet mandatory though in most states ...
- rbanffy 6y agoA motorcycle has the distinct advantage you don't remain inside it during the collision, but continue on a ballistic trajectory from the point you separate from the vehicle.
- rbanffy 6y agoThe front seats can be mounted on top of a rigid structure that's pushed back in case of a front collision, giving enough crumple space. The lack of side doors make that solution much easier, allowing a rigid sliding cage around the passengers. The anchoring of the cage can be at the middle of the front of the car, pulling it to crumple inwards, absorbing more energy from the impact and building a denser structure in front of the passengers.
- amelius 6y agoThe problem is that if you start pushing on a rigid structure, then this will exert a force on the person in that structure.
- rbanffy 6y agoIt may make deceleration higher but reduces the odds of hitting the inside of the car. But that relies on passengers wearing seatbelts. This may be one of the reasons it requires changes for the US.
- rbanffy 6y agoThere is also the Renault Twizy. It's a two seater, but in a front-back arrangement, with doors on the sides. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Twizy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Twizy
- nickt 6y agoIf you want to see it in action, Jeremy Clarkson took one for a test drive. https://youtu.be/pwDZqAW8M4I https://youtu.be/pwDZqAW8M4I
- schwartzworld 6y agoalso urkel https://youtu.be/1hcvhXup2k8 https://youtu.be/1hcvhXup2k8
- Theodores 6y agoMy maths school teacher had one of these. It did not seem that unusual at the time even though there were few on the roads. Nobody laughed at him for having such a 'car' and we were well versed as school kids at picking on people. I wish cars could be more like the Isetta and less like tanks. With driver aids such as ABS and the like we could have electric cars like the Isetta with safe roads. However the horse has left the gate on that and we are doomed to a future of vehicles built like tanks.
- corty 6y agoSmall vehicles have been killed by regulation. No chance to build a two-stroke engine anymore, at least for a car. Expensive crash test regs. Noise and pollution regs. And, if you do electric, heavy batteries.
- Xylakant 6y agoYou may be correct about crash and other safety regulations, but the BMW Isetta was powered by a 250cc single cylinder four stroke engine adapted from a motorcycle. That class of engines is quite alive and kicking, they have substantially increased in power output in the mean time.
- f6v 6y agoThat's exactly what we need. It boggles my mind how most of the huge cars I see on the road are occupied just by one person.
- Hamuko 6y ago>That's exactly what we need. To solve what problem?
- Ma8ee 6y agoThe extreme waste of energy, space and other resources when we use a vehicle weighting 1.5 metric tons with space for five people plus luggage and often with off road capacity to transport one person a few kilometres along a good road.
- Hamuko 6y agoAnd the solution is that people buy a second car that is capable of only hauling one, max two people in it? And how does it even solve the space issue? You're not going to be making narrower lanes to fit more of these side by side.
- Ma8ee 6y agoThe solution, except the more obvious ones bicycles and public transport, is that people that absolutely need a car for their daily commute don’t have more car than they need for that. Then when they need to haul something or go on a fishing trip twice a year they rent cars for that. You would make narrower lanes if most cars looked like this. Not to talk about all the parking space you would save now already.
- Hamuko 6y agoWhy should I need to both own a car and rent a car? I'm not made out of money and I suspect I'm not at the bottom of the income pool. And I'm not going to get any kickback for the time that my car is sitting out there, not being driven. This isn't even a matter of "going on a fishing trip twice a year". A bubble car is not enough of a car to go to IKEA or even an electronics retailer.
- venti 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Kabinenroller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Kabinenroller
- rahimnathwani 6y agoPaul Carmody has a speaker design that I guess was named after this car: https://sites.google.com/site/undefinition/isetta https://sites.google.com/site/undefinition/isetta
- gregoriol 6y agoIf you are into this kind of machines, there is a nice auction sale in a few days: https://www.classicdriver.com/en/auction/dorotheum-sammlung-rrr-roller-rollermobile-raritaten-10-july-2020 https://www.classicdriver.com/en/auction/dorotheum-sammlung-... => most of those cars are really surprising, even though I've already seen some in real life at car events, it's engineering optimised and minimised!
- skim_milk 6y agoWow, those are cheap in Europe. In the USA they go for $30,000+ https://bringatrailer.com/bmw/isetta/ https://bringatrailer.com/bmw/isetta/
- caycep 6y agoI vaguely remember a BMW marketing ad - I think these were used to smuggle dissidents from East Berlin to West, at great personal risk to the owner of the vehicles...
- praveen9920 6y agoReminds me of tango hybrid narrow car featured in silicon valley series.
- nabilhat 6y agoThe manufacturer's website is still up: http://commutercars.com/ http://commutercars.com/ The site hasn't been active in years, but if you've got $240k burning a hole in your pocket and need a quirky kit car, can't hurt to see if anyone's home.
- pmcjones 6y agoIn 1965 I took my driving test in a BMW 600, the two-cylinder big brother to the Isetta. Here's a photo of the car and the rest of my family's fleet of cars and motorcycles as of 1966: https://imgur.com/a/ria9buN https://imgur.com/a/ria9buN