1959 BMW 600 Limo "Isetta"

When it comes to dashboards, there might be none more simple yet as versatile as the one found in the 1959 BMW 600 Limousine, more affectionately known as an Isetta. Unlike most cars, the 600's dashboard moves. But it's not like those modern cars where the entire instrument binnacle adjusts to keep the gauges in front of the driver no matter what angle he tilts the steering wheel to. No, in the Isetta, the dashboard is the door.

BMW had a tough go of things after World War II, the company first compelled to manufacture cookware before eventually getting back into the motorcycle game in the late 1940s. When they finally ventured back into automobile manufacturing, the straight-six and V-8-powered cars were critical successes, but the lack of buyers for those expensive luxury models pushed BMW to the brink, leaving the company teetering on the financial edge. It was the BMW at the other end of the market that saved the company and kept them solvent.

When BMW launched the comically small Isetta "bubble car" in 1955 under license from the Italians who first made it, the company desperately needed a hit. The first BMW Isettas featured 250cc and then 298cc single-cylinder motorcycle engines, but when they expanded the machine to create the four-passenger 600 Limousine, they used a 582cc flat-twin, air-cooled engine, also cribbed from the motorcycle parts bin. It was enough to push the 600 to speeds in excess of 60 MPH, given you had enough road and lots and lots of time to get there. Isettas were reliable, if slow, cars that got fantastic mileage. In a still-recovering Europe, the Isetta was a huge hit, selling over 160,000 cars through 1962.

The car's simple and ultra-lightweight design meant that basic egress had to be through a wide-opening door that was essentially the entire front of the car. With the steering wheel and gauge--note that that's gauge, singular, and not gauges, plural--attached to that front section, the entire steering mechanism and gauge pod needed to move with it. BMW engineered a steering column with multiple universal joints that allowed the column to pivot in two places, with a fixed section of the column secured to the floor.

Given the car's motorcycle roots, it's no surprise that the lone gauge, a VDO speedometer, looks like it would fit quite nicely on the top of a motorcycle gas tank. With no tachometer, there are red hash marks cleverly marked on the speedometer to indicate the maximum speed for each of the four gears. The dash itself has a single knob for the headlamps and a slit for the key. Wipers are controlled via a stalk on the right side of that movable steering column. That's it.

With tiny 10-inch tires and those extra joints in the steering column providing plenty of slop in the steering, piloting an Isetta today is certainly not an exercise in precise handling. Fortunately, the low output of the engine means that you'll never likely see the speedometer needle get much past the 40 MPH midpoint. What the Isetta lacks in performance, however, it more than makes up for in charm. The "rolling egg" draws smiles wherever it goes, and when you step out of one and swing that dashboard and door combo out of the way, those smiles turn to outright giggles and laughs. What other car can do that for you?