MICROCAR NEWS Online

This is great, they can’t stop laughing when introducing the car.
The poor model just looks so embarrassed.  I am serious!  The host does a good job of holding it together though.

NOTE: This event is OVER! It was March 26 2010
Also, don’t trust the info from the Reporters/NewsReaders, one person says it happens TWICE A YEAR, wrong – it is normally EVERY OTHER YEAR.

“Terminally Cute” is how the announcers describe it, but for awhile on Tuesday, this car had the top sales spot (along with a Messerschmitt KR175 at $40,000) and probably annoyed some sellers of cars selling in the $20K range.
Expect a Behind the Scenes story of what it is like to sell a car at Barrett-Jackson from Richard Lewis (the restorer and seller) in a future issue of MICROCAR NEWS magazine.  If you look *really hard* you can see Richard standing on the left side (our left) of the Auctioneer podium.  He is wearing a dark jacket and baseball cap.  He says that as soon as the car was brought out someone dragged him away from the car and plopped him there.  Apparently standard procedure so everyone knows who the seller is and it prevents you from bidding on your own car.

This car had a “hammer price” of $43,000
SpeedTV’s own online “magazine” referred to the sale price as $47,300
but they also showed a photo of a different car when mentioning it.
and the NY Times said it sold for “nearly $50,000”

Wow, the price just keeps going up even though the auction has ended.

IEEE.org, the world’s “leading professional association for the advancement of technology” has put up a rather nice 6 minute long video/slideshow/interview that was culled down from about 2 hours of phone interview.

It is part of the online version of their SPECTRUM magazine.

I think they did a good job, what you do you think?
Take 6 minutes and go HERE to see what engineers think of Vintage Microcars.

The original title of this 1957 film starring Peter Sellers was “Your Past Is Showing” but for some reason they now call it “The Naked Truth”.  The credits also refer to it as “The Naked Truth” at the end as well (?)
Anyways -These are all the scenes from the movie with a British-built RHD BMW Isetta.

The driver of the Isetta is actually the “bad guy” who is trying to blackmail famous people into not printing their sordid tales in his gossip magazine: The Naked Truth.  If he could only afford an Isetta and has to live on an old boat, it would appear his blackmailing skills are not well honed.

Note in the first scene when the Isetta drives up to the camera with lights on and then turns them off, if you are watch in HQ you can see that the lighting crew quickly put some sort of diffusion material over the headlamps and did not trim it very well. It is quite obvious when the lamps are turned off.
Later scenes do not have the material on the headlamps.

Do you know any other films with Isettas or other Microcars in them?  leave info in the comments section and hopefully clips from the films will show up here in the future.

A few extracts from the 1961 film directed by Billy Wilder and starring James Cagney.
One,Two,Three is a Cold War farce that happens to have a couple of Messerschmitt KR200s
(and other period German vehicles) in the background of a few scenes.
See if you can spot the Goggomobil!

Jim Rostis hosted the 30th Anniversary Reunion for HMV Freeway Enthusiasts in Plainfield IL.

The Freeway is an American-made Microcar built in Minnesota from 1979 to about 1981.
16 cars showed up from all over, the furthest coming from California and one came from Canada.
more photos HERE

This video pretty much sums it up. What other car could you make a video like this with?

What is a bit astonishing is that this was made by the BMW Museum in Munich.
Listen to the lyrics and in particular to ” …without you I would never rise again”

Does this mean BMW is finally acknowledging the Isetta’s place in their history as “the car that saved BMW”?
Maybe it is just coincidence but this commercial is all stop-motion animation with KinToy Isettas zipping about, having fun and mixing it up with all the other BMW marques as well as modern day traffic. To think they just randomly selected a song to run in the background is difficult to believe.

What do you think?

A French Yellow Pages ad with what appears to be an Italian SPANISH-built ISO Isetta driving around!
great footage and the car is a featured player, not just background.
(thanks to John Malcolm for digging this up…)

Front Page News!

This years GPNW Microcar Extravaganza was huge fun. It is hard to believe two weeks have passed since the big event. The weather held out for the better, and 48 Micro-Mini cars attended. I want to personally thank everyone for coming and making it happen. This years multi-day event held at the McMenimans Grand Lodge hotel provided an elegant back drop for all the unique little cars, and great fun for the guests who stayed.

The Forest Grove News-Times did an article: Click Here

All the dramatic pictures can be found in the album Here

posted by your Host: Mark Hatten

This amazing one-off creation by Perry Watkins of the UK takes a quad bike and some sort of toy version of Postman Pat’s Van and makes a driveable vehicle that Perry can barely fit into. Watching it on the road is just hilarious.

Perry says “Watch out Peel P50″ as he thinks it should now qualify as “World’s Smallest Car” but I am pretty sure the Guiness Book of World Records classifies the P50 as “world’s smallest *Production* Car. Also, I think the thing has to be able to be registered and licensed for road use. None the less, it is an impressive achievement, it is about HALF the size of a Peel P50!

note: sometimes this video will not work for people viewing OUTSIDE the UK. sorry, don’t complain here, it is the BBC…

Well, we’re here.

The Largest Auto Show in the United States and we are right inside the main entrance.
We have a 1962 Messerschmitt Kr200 from Gary Sonnenschein, a 1965 Peel P50 from The Lane Motor Musuem, a 1956 BMW Isetta from Jim Janecek and a 1958 Vespa 400 from Larry Newberry.
The above photo was taken before people started coming in, later it looks like this, only more crowded:

The exhibit is just mobbed with people constantly.
This time the 2 most annoying questions are:
“Are these street Legal” and
“How much is that?” (referring to the Peel)
Earlier in the day we were asked to participate in the Opening Day Ceremonies which involved a PR stunt.
The NY Auto Show opens with a PR stunt of some sort so that the local news shows up to cover it. This year they had a “Strongman Competition” where they were pulling a “train” of 10 KIA Soul cars.

As a gag, they brought out a Microcar at the last minute and had it compete against a couple other Auto Show staff who actually tried to pull just one car. How many Union Carpenters and Decorators do you think it takes to push a Peel P50 into place and then hide it under some black fabric?

The Peel P50 was surprisingly easy to pull for some reason. 

Here is a behind the scenes video of the prep involved for Opening Day Ceremonies (2 minutes)

watch for the other microcars at the end.

Dennis Gage and his film crew were at MICROSOUTH 2008 last year to film an entire episode.

That show is finally on the air on Speed Channel or SpeedTV.

You can see an excerpt from the show HERE.

Otherwise, look for it on Speed Channel. (the entire episode is not available for download at this time and the DVD for 2009 season probably will not come out until the 2010 season starts.)

Also- dates for MicroSouth 2010 are not yet available, so if that is what you are looking for, please check the MEETS page at Microcar.org for updates and information as it becomes available.

27 Vintage Microcars from the Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum are on display in a 9000 square foot area of the Atlanta Auto Show at the World Congress Center.
(also present are new cars from Toyota, Mercedes etc….meh, who cares about those?)

The Club was there this weekend to chat up Microcars with people, look! they put us right next to Mercedes!

Most often repeated question: “Are these things street legal”?

Best comment so far: “Are these the first cars ever made?”

The show is open to the public and runs through Sunday March 22.
More info: www.ajcautoshow.com

Here is a short video that just appeared on GOOD DAY ATLANTA: