MADness: Driving a Microcar in Modern Traffic

When we at CarShowSafari.com proclaimed Friday, June 17, 2016, to be Microcar Appreciation Day, not long thereafter we were contacted by a Microcar owner who offered to allow us to drive his car!  How could we not accept?  We appreciate Microcars (as we do all cars) and here was an opportunity to experience one of them first-hand and share that experience with you.

The car in question is a 1958 BMW 600 Isetta, based on one of the better-known microcar designs, a car with a distinctive front-end entry door and a car that may not be the “ultimate driving machine” but which certainly provides a memorable driving experience.

The Isetta has a somewhat tortured history, having been developed and manufactured first by Iso in Italy, and later licensed to several manufacturers including BMW.  BMW retained the car’s distinctive appearance but re-engineered the car extensively, incorporating its own engines.  When BMW expanded the line with the introduction of the 600 in 1957, they introduced the trailing arm rear suspension design that would underpin BMW models for decades to come.

The 600 features the same inexplicable front entry door of the two-seat Isettas, but has a stretched body, a rear seat, a right-side rear door, a wider rear axle for a more conventional rear appearance, and a rear-mounted two-cylinder horizontally-opposed air-cooled engine adapted from one of BMW’s motorcycle designs.  The result is a four-passenger car with four-on-the-floor and 26 horsepower – ten ponies fewer than a ‘58 VW, but the BMW is 375 pounds lighter in weight than the Volkswagen.

The 600 is so named, by the way, for the engine displacement, rounded up from the actual 582 cc (35.5 cid).

So what’s it like to drive?

Owner Tim Schwartz, who bought the car more than 15 years ago, took the wheel at first so that Yr Obt Svt could become familiar with the car from the passenger seat, or, more correctly, from the passenger side of the narrow front seat.  At 57 inches in exterior width, the 600 is more than two inches narrower than today’s Smart.  “It’s designed to do 100 kilometers per hour (62 mph),” Tim said, “but I prefer to drive it on roads where the speed limit is no more than 40 or 45 miles per hour.”  This seems wise, as the engine, while well within its rev limits, sounds like it wants to fling itself apart.

“It drives like a regular car,” Tim continued, noting the conventional H-pattern 4-speed floor shift and the familiar placement of pedals.  The only abnormal control was the turn signal stalk, on the right-hand side of the steering column instead of the left.  On the left is a stalk for controlling the low beam-high beam headlights.  “It rides well, too,” Tim said, and he was right.  The BMW 600 will never be mistaken for a Citroen but on the crumbling infrastructure of suburban New York City, the ride was remarkably compliant.  Only the larger potholes caused the ride to be jarring, but in fairness, some of those potholes were big enough to park the car in.

In a sea of modern SUVs, the small size of the 600 was a constant concern.  A Volvo looks as large as a UPS truck.  A Toyota is a menacing presence.  At intersections, one prayed that the other drivers were alert.  More than once we were thankful for the 600’s bright red paint.

After about five miles, it was our turn.  Entry and exit is unorthodox, with the recommended entry procedure being to step into the car, standing upright, turn around, and sit down while bending forward to clear the roof with your noggin.  Closing the door is unnerving, as you draw your toes back reflexively in fear of their being pinched, and then splay your knees to allow the steering wheel to approach.  At six feet tall, a few inches taller than owner Schwartz, we did not quite fit.  “The seat is adjustable,” Tim told us, “ but you have to loosen several wing nuts, slide the seat, then tighten the wing nuts.”  We left the seat where it was.

What also did not fit was our Size 10½ shoes on what seemed to be Size 4 pedals.  The clutch, to the left of the steering column, was no problem, but moving from the accelerator – a tiny thing – to the brake usually resulted in a moment of panic as our foot snagged on something.  Slim and spiffy racing shoes might be just the ticket.

Your ankles are your leading line of defense in the event of a crash.  “Oh, it has an airbag,” Tim said.  Pointing to a circular cover inside the front door he continued.  “The spare tire is right here, and there’s air in it.”

You move a lever located to your left to open the fuel flow – the six-gallon tank is directly above the engine in the back of the car, and gravity is the fuel pump – and turn the key.  The BMW twin lights right off.  The parking brake lever is next to your thigh (this would be a great first-date car) and reverse will be familiar to anyone who ever drove an original VW beetle – down and to the left.  We ease out of the parking space, shift into first, and are underway.

First mistake: We upshift too soon.  Gauging our shift points by engine sound we are shifting well under the recommended shift points shown on the speedometer, making it necessary at times to shift back to the previous gear.  But, for a 1236-pound car with two adult males aboard, the 582-cc powerhouse, the size of just one cylinder in the modern pickup we drove to this appointment, is remarkably willing.  All four forward speeds are fully synchromesh, so driving the BMW 600, aside from our big feet and clumsy hands, is easy and, well, normal.

Not normal is the sensation that you are a bug about to be squished.  It’s called a Microcar for a reason and you feel micro in it.  A Neon in the mirror looked like a land yacht.  A Suburban exiting a side street caused us to command “Stay!” as if talking to a dog.  But otherwise it was an uneventful drive, with just one swipe of the headlight dimmer instead of the turn signal, only a few missed shifts, and no heart attacks on the part of Mr. Schwartz.  Passers-by grinning was a side benefit.

But there was one last discovery to be made:  Upon arrival back at Tim’s home, we found that the turning circle is a lot bigger than we thought – we missed the driveway and had to back up and try again.  Tim explained that the reason for the large turning circle is so that the front wheelhouses, which are right there next to your feet, are not so large as to compromise interior space.

Back in the garage, the BMW 600 nuzzled up to a Subaru 360 van which in turn was behind a Fiat Multipla – there is no question that Tim Schwartz appreciates Microcars all year long, not just on Microcar Appreciation Day.  But he has an appreciation for other cars, too, since his collection includes an early BMW 3-series convertible, a Mazda 6 wagon, a bay window VW Bus and three Corvairs.

At BMW, the “Neu Klasse” models would follow, cars which set the style and engineering tone for BMW that extends to this day.  But while it may not appear so, the BMW 600 Isetta holds a rightful place in the BMW family tree.

Modern traffic and modern cars may have intimidated us, but there is no question that driving the BMW 600 is a fun experience and we found ourselves thinking that if everyone’s car was this small we might all be better off.