Bubbling over!
They say you never forget your first love and Mike Scott certainly never forgot his first Isetta. And now he has rekindled that love.
Ialways said I should have sold my first Isetta to a butcher and made a fortune – the registration was OFL 123 – but in fact, it went to a Texas oilman for £65! Of which, more later...
As a college student in Brighton in the mid1960s, I was fed up with getting wet on two wheels and was interested to find that I could drive a three-wheeler on my bike licence.
I then saw an advert on the college noticeboard for an Isetta 300.
I went to have a look as soon as I could and discovered it was being sold by the wife of one of the lecturers. She took me out for a little run and confidently pointed out that you could put the baby on the back shelf – not especially useful information, as I didn’t even have a girlfriend at that point! Anyway, it seemed like fun and I could just about manage £65, so I said yes and arranged to collect it the following day.
It then occurred to me I couldn’t actually drive, so I persuaded a friend to collect it for me and I spent the next few days grinding the gears and stalling it regularly until I got the hang of the clutch and gearbox and bubbled off happily into the sunset.
The sun roof was very handy…
Over the next couple of years we spent a lot of time together, driving around Brighton and occasionally up to London to visit my mum.
Some people used to wave as I went along, but others didn’t I found, especially when I was chugging up a hill and they wanted to go a lot faster than my 300ccs were able to! In that situation, the sunshine roof was very handy for responding to any particularly rude gesticulations.
At one point, I had a holiday job in an office where I’d worked before going to college, and my manager was very impressed with the Isetta: “I bet it’s a real passion wagon,” he said jealously.
After much satisfactory bubbling, I decided a bit more space would be useful and that it would be a good idea to get my full licence, so the Isetta had to go.
I put an advert in the Exchange and Mart (remember that?) and asked my mum if I could use her phone number – there would be more buyers in London than Brighton, I reasoned.
Returning home after visiting a mate, my mum informed me she’d taken a message from someone who was interested and she thought he was American.
This sounded somewhat improbable, especially when she told me the phone number he’d left was "the Texas Oilmen’s Club, or something like that…"
Thinking this sounded like some obscure sort of practical joke, I rang the number and found that the bloke really was American and it really was something like that. He arranged to come around the following day, though I wasn’t at all convinced he’d turn up.
An American and an Englishman get in an Isetta…
But he certainly did turn up, and he couldn’t have been more of a stereotype if he’d tried.
He was big, in all directions, and wore a Stetson. We squashed in the Isetta and I took him round the block. He seemed satisfied and didn’t try to haggle – always a plus when you’re broke – so we agreed on the £65 I’d paid in the first place.
I asked if he wanted me to deliver it or if he wanted time to arrange insurance, but he said he wasn’t bothered about insurance and would take it straight away! I didn’t feel in a position to argue and he got out a massive wallet, peeled off the notes from an enormous wad – my eyes were on stalks – and handed them over.
I had to stop him driving off on the spot by insisting he take the log book, which he flung on to the seat. Hastily retreating inside, I watched out of the window as he drove off, grinding the gears more than I ever did and stalling twice before he was out of sight.
So, that was the end of OFL 123, except as a fond memory. But for years afterwards, I’d point out any Isetta I saw to my disinterested wife, children and friends and I always went to chat to people who were showing their Isettas off at local motor shows.
That was it until about 20 years ago, when I persuaded my son to come with me to the National Bubble Car Museum north-west of Boston in Lincolnshire (I’m in Nottingham now) where we both admired the Isettas and laughed at the other contraptions on show – well worth a visit, by the way.
'Nothing too adventurous'
I’m retired now and everyone who knows me also knows that I like a bit of a project. “Nothing too adventurous,” I always say, as my family roll their eyes and sigh.
So I couldn’t believe my luck when a neighbour mentioned his dad had recently died and that he had been obsessed with Isettas! It appeared that he had one in reasonable order, about three others in various stages of disintegration, and a house full of miscellaneous bits.
I immediately registered an interest and eventually went with him to have a look, as his mum was anxious to move them on. There was a choice of bodies, engines, gearboxes, you name it. He wanted what seemed like a fair price, for which I could take my pick from everything available.
It was tempting, it really was, but in the end I had to say no. It would have been like doing a ginormous three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, when you weren’t sure you had all the bits and I didn’t think I could manage it – sad, but realistic. I put an advert for an Isetta project in the Owners’ Club mag, but only got offered cars that were complete and running, which wasn’t what I wanted.
So I forgot all about it and life took over, as it does.
And then, completely out of the blue, I had a phone call from someone who’d only just read my advert from months ago, to say he might have the very thing and was I still interested? Needless to say, I was, and it seemed one of those too-good-tobe-true coincidences that, although he was a long way away, we were going to go on holiday quite close by in the near future.
I duly persuaded my long-suffering wife that a small(ish) diversion wouldn’t take much time, as a result of which I acquired a dismantled but partly built up Isetta that must have come off the Brighton production line just behind the famous OFL – it’s the same year and same colour!
I’ve spent a couple of years on and off restoring it and it’s nearly ready to hit the road, though
I’ll have to move my treasured Triumph Tiger T100S out of the way first.
As an added bonus, when I re-registered it – no paperwork, so a new age-related number – the bloke at the DVLA drew a smiley face at the end of the letter and wrote that it was “beyond cool”!
Hopefully, the bubble and the bike will happily co-exist and I won’t get into too much trouble as long as the wheelie bin can squeeze up the side of them!