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.