I grew up near the University of Minnesota Mpls campus (Dinkytown, USA). We saw all sorts of vehicles.
The Isetta you showed, Simca with Chrysler on the trunk, numerous Renault CV4s, Citroen CVs, Morris Minors, and I had the misfortune of buying a used Renault Caravelle.
1 Like
Academic types tend to buy odd cars so I’m not surprised about the eclectic collection of odd.
Growing up near a university, I saw a Citroen DX, a Morris, a Triumph TR-4 with a roll bar, a Volvo P1800, MG’s plus a few Beetles and VW vans in the neighborhood.
@Purebred. On the small college I attended in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the VW Beetle was the vehicle driven by the younger faculty and more affluent students. I do remember a couple Renault Dauphines and a couple Saabs. The same was true in my first round of graduate school in the early 1960s. When I first started teaching, at a mid sized university in the mid 1960s, there were a few Morris Minors, but the main foreign make was VW. When I went back for a second round of graduate school.at a large University, the common foreign nameplate was the VW. The members of my doctoral committee had common cars–Fords and Oldsmobiles. This was in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
In the 70s I had the only Toyota Corolla on campus that I knew of. Hamster powered econobox but was independent transportation.
On the other hand, many of us were envious of those with mid to late 60s domestic brand land yachts that we could stupidly cram a dozen of us into for off campus jaunts. 
… and while the only version that made it to The US was manufactured by BMW, in truth that design was manufactured by at least 4 different companies.
Iso, a refrigerator manufacturer from Italy, designed the Isetta and built a small number of them before licensing the design to other companies. Iso probably made more money from the licensing than they could have made by continuing to manufacture those little death traps.
1 Like
Death traps, but also life savers. East Germans used to use them to smuggle people into the west. A guy would cram himself up next to the engine in the back. At first, border guards never looked up in there very hard because they didn’t believe anyone could possibly fit there.
I was referring to their use on highways.
Yes, those little cars probably saved a few lives by running the Berlin border, but how many lives were lost in road accidents?
Aside from being trapped by that front-opening door in the event of a front-end collision, the fact that these cars took 30 seconds to accelerate to 30 mph means that trying to merge onto a highway with one was a classic dance with death in many cases. These cars made the VW Beetle look like a race car, by comparison.
In my town, I recall only one BMW Isetta when I was a kid. It was owned by the son of a wealthy M.D., and after a year or so, the doctor’s son replaced it with an Opel Kadett.
1 Like
That looks like a Chevy Greenbriar that backed into a low overhang.
1 Like
@Marnet, you grew up with a 1965 Olds 98 LS. How could you bear the punishing ride in that Corolla?
That reminded me of this pic. Isettas used to be race cars, too!
I may be wrong but I don’t think the Isetta was ever intended to be a highway flyer. As a cheap around-the-small-town-to-go-to-market car it’s great. Certainly no less safe than the NEVs you see popping up in this country - those are glorified golf carts. I’m not of the mindset that every car has to be able to perform on every road. I think it’d be very smart if we’d designate car classes for certain roads. i.e., highways are for normal cars only, but in the middle of downtown? Why not drive a NEV, or a modern equivalent of an Isetta? We really don’t need a 3 acre long SUV to make it to the office if we live and work in an urban center.
1 Like
LOL I was just happy to have the independence of my own car. The lack of acceleration in the “Toy” bothered me more than the lack of comfort. 
the “direct” comparison would be a Ford F-250 SuperDuty . . . if we’re solely talking GVWR
An F-350 SuperDuty has a GVWR of roughly 10000lbs
Kadett . . . GM corporate cousin to the Chevy Chevette
Interestingly enough . . . and I’m speaking from experience, having lived in both europe and USA . . . the Kadett was considered a fine vehicle in europe. Not fancy, got the job done, nothing to be ashamed of.
Whereas the Chevette here in the USA was often considered a piece of junk for people who couldn’t afford a better and/or more expensive car
@Marnet. You were fortunate to have the Corolla as a college student. I didn’t have a car in college in the late1950s through the early 1960s.
I don’t remember seeing Toyotas on campus when I was in my second round of graduate school from 1969-1971. I don’t think Toyotas became common on campuses until sometime in the 1980s. The Honda Civics and Toyota Corollas began replacing the VW Beetle in the late 1970s. The VW Rabbit never really did catch on as a replacement for the Beetle.
I had 2 Reliants and the longer wheelbase Caravelle. One of the Reliants had a 2.5, the other 2 had 2.2 engines. They were a good bargin bought used and fir me much better than the Ford and GM competition and all 3 were great in the snow. The 2.5 had slightly more power but most of that was consumed by the balance shafts in the crankcase so they was a noticeable penalty in fuel mileage with no noticable increase in performance.
What contemporary car would you prefer in their price range? the Maverick or Citation? I much preferred the K cars.
@Triedaq For being a compact econobox, that four door sedan 1973 Corolla was a far more comfortable car than were VW bugs. And despite my joke about it being hamster powered with the reality of slow acceleration, it had equal or better acceleration than a VW Beetle. It also was far quieter than a VW, had a smoother ride, and the three speed automatic was easy to drive.
It didn’t have power steering but didn’t need it. The one time it would have come in handy was when some friends boxed it in front and back but with sides clear as a joke and I proceeded to “walk” it sideways with only about six to ten inches clearance in both front and back and without so much as tapping the other cars.
I don’t recall if it had power brakes but I never had any trouble braking. What was tough was releasing the parking brake if the lever was yanked up too hard. With my arthritic hands even when that young, pushing the release button was very difficult and painful.
No radio but I survived without that just fine.
Easy to get in and out of, surprisingly comfortable seats, and surprisingly generous trunk with a flat floor that made loading and unloading easy.
Well… I will clarify that the black vinyl seats got darned hot in summer such I kept a beach towel on the driver’s seat and with more towels on hand for use by passengers. And the one thing that proved a challenge getting in and out of the trunk was a foot locker. It fit but was a bear to angle in and out.
It lasted far beyond designed life in both miles and years. Mom drove it two years, I drove it twelve, then Dad got two more years lesser use from it for something around 142k-148k (162k?) miles if I correctly recall. Rust finally got it. Both rear quarter panels were mostly spray painted Bondo after sixteen years. The seals around the windows were shot such that wind ruffled my hair while driving even with the windows rolled up. And the rear window defroster had worn out.
Its only repairs in those years were one wheel bearing and later a cylinder job after I burned out three of them pacing commuter traffic on the local interstate loop. And the after market a/c wore out beyond repair. Everything else was only standard maintenance.
But the best part was the independence and safety that having the car provided. I walked and bummed rides from other students the first two years in college. There were several times I ended up in situations dragged along to places I didn’t want to be and out after curfew because I was a passenger. Once I had the car I wasn’t at anyone else’s mercy and manners for transportation.
1 Like
And the Corolla also had HEAT.
1 Like
All the BMW Isettas sold in the US had the fabric roll-back sunroof for exactly that reason… the cars needed an “escape hatch.”
When I worked for GM, there lots of Chevettes in the parking lots. Cheap commuter cars that got good mileage. Got handed down to the kids. A friend owned 3 or 4 of them when his kids started driving. Invariably, they got into minor accidents and the cars got hauled off for scrap and replaced with the next one.
While the Europeans considered the cars good transportation, and they were, that was 10 years before the Chevette. The Opel engineers were laughing at the GM Mother Ship for taking their scrap tooling and building a new Kadett for the US.
We had one of those Corollas when I was a kid. We lived about 8,000 feet up in the Rockies at the time, at the end of a steep, winding access road. Most cars were pretty slow getting up the road to my neighborhood, but that Corolla… This was probably a good thing because the Corolla was Dad’s car, and he was a terrible driver.
That was the car that had neighbors coming over from time to time to peer through the side window to gawk at the odometer. Of course, it only had the 5-digit (plus the 10ths) odo, so it didn’t actually read over 100k, but it was obvious the odometer had rolled over, and they just couldn’t believe a car - especially one in my dad’s care - would last that long.
That was the era where if you couldn’t almost land an airplane on the hood, your car was too short.
1 Like
1 Like