Isetta - Previous Life

The lady I purchased my Isettas from husband was a professor at Park University in Missouri. Jan told me the Isetta was a campus fixture and the recipient of many student pranks. A common prank was to carry the Isetta to someplace unexpected on campus. This is a picture of Jan's husband in his graduation robes with my white Isetta in 1968.

das Auto Motor und Sport - Oct.1958

Isetta Body - Part 2

Creative Classics in Independence, MO is doing the body and paint work on my Isetta. Creative Classics has been in business for over 30 years. The owner and my father go waaaaay back, so it's gives me peace of mind knowing my baby is in good hands.

Jerrod O'Conner is doing the bodywork on my Isetta. Jerrod has been working at Creative Classics for 13 years and has 100's of restorations under his belt. As I mentioned in a previous post, I wanted the car taken back down to the bare metal and any rust cut out and repaired with new metal.

The Isettas door stripped down to the bare metal.

Interior down to the bare metal.

After sections of the car are stripped down to the bare metal, a black epoxy sealer is used to protect the metal during the restoration.

Some of the Isettas misc. body parts that have been stripped and shot with the epoxy sealer.

These were a couple of areas of rust that Jerrod cut out and welded in new metal. The left rear quarter panel of my Isetta was really rough. In addition to the section of rust that was cut out, it was pretty banged and also had some splits in the metal.

New metal has been welded in, the splits in the rear quarter panel have been welded, and work on smoothing out the panel is in progress.

Moved to the rotisserie for further work.

A final skim coat of filler and then it will be sanded smooth before getting a coat of grey primer. In the photos below, the body work for the most part is complete and the car has been given a coat of grey primer.

Next stop, the paint booth!

Isetta - Previous Life

I recently visited the original owner of my two Isettas. I asked her if she might have any vintage photos of when her and her husband drove the Isettas that I could use for my blog. She graciously agreed to let me search her vast collection of slides and photos. Jan and her husband were world travelers and prolific picture takers, so it was quite a task searching through thousands of slides looking for Isetta pictures. I still have more searching to do but already we have found a lot of great pictures of the Isettas which I'll be posting gradually. Since it's winter in Missouri, I'd thought I'd start with some winter time Isetta pictures. Upon seeing these slides again, Jan related to me how challenging it was to drive an Isetta in the snow because the rear tires did not follow the same tire tracks as normal cars.

Roller Mobil Kleinwagen - April. 1958

Isetta Body - Part 1

I'm finally ready to have the body and paint work done on my white Isetta. When I started my restoration, I decided to restore the white one first because it seemed in worse condition than the red Isetta (at least in terms of the body).

The right side of the car is in pretty good condition. It has some cracking of the metal around the engine door which is a pretty common thing. There is also some light rust under the front wheel well.

The underside looks pretty good from this angle. Whats not real visible in this angle is a black hard undercoating that is smeared on the back underside of the car. I'm not quite sure what it is, but it's very hard and looks like it was spread on with fingers. I'm having my body shop remove this as well as the sound deadening material on the inside of the car. The body shop will be taking this car back to bare metal.

The left side of the car is a lot rougher. The original owner of the car told me her husband rolled the car on this side. There is damage to the roof and numerous dings and dents on this side of the car.

In addition to the ding and dents, there is a split in the metal in the rear quarter panel. This is also a fairly common. Because the Isetta rear bumper is not attached to the frame of the car, any rear bump would flex the quarter panel and cause the to crack or split.

Nice solid floor pan! While there may be various dings and dents, one thing I'm grateful for is there is very little rust on either one of my Isettas.

The left and right inside wheel well. You can also see some of the black tar paper type sound deadening material that the body shop will be removing.

Off to the body shop!!!

I'm not spilling the beans yet as to the color scheme I'm going with other than to say it is a very classic period correct color scheme that I have not seen on any other Isetta in the United States.

Owners Manual Update

I've updated the Owners Manual with an annex for the U.S. model Isettas. It includes a wiring diagram for the U.S. Isettas.