Strangest Car You've Ever Owned (not Xm)

Be a shame to get rid Demag, but i suppose if its in a bad way..............and of course a restoration takes a lot of time and money .

D

That sounds very nice - I like the coupe styling on those cars. Rarely seen, as you say.

Hi all
Mine is my Isetta....13hp....single cylinder 4 stroke engine...52mph top speed.....reverse!I am just thinking about driving to France in it...my neighbours already think I am mad when I drove my 2cv van over there.The 500mile trip took 18 1/2 hours actual driving time over 2 days.
Regards Rob

Never seen one of those Rob, looks kind of fun.
I dont think your mad for wanting to go to france in it but i wouldnt want to do the trip with a generously proportioned friend though, looks a bit close inside

D

You've never seen an Isetta Dean? Blimey - check this out:

http://microcarmuseum.com/

Wow i like the Goggomobil, its like a little pocket sized E type .
Is the Isetta from the early period when beemer went from bikes to making cars then?

D

Erm

Nissan Cherry Europe - hybrid with alfa, flat four clover leaf engine 1.5 gti.
Big fat silly over sized tyres and wheel arches to match silly spoiler on the back, black enamel style paint with bright green piping inside.

Cant find any on google that look the same, the only one is a silver plain jane version

Could not afford the insurance or parts. It was when hot hatches came out and then the insurances went sky high. I mean how risky was I as a 20 year old with a CD10??????????

A Whizzkid like Andrews sister, the other half still has hers, sold mine last year.

Others that I wont say, capris, volvo 340s, astra, minis, etc

and about 8 XMs

A friend of mine had an Isetta, when they were new! I remember him coming down an icy hill in Sevenoaks - on the roof!

A Maya GT...

Once, before I bought it, a cover car for Kit Car magazine... Yup, you're getting the picture.

I bought it as a derelict. MOT'd it. Took it on a family holiday to Scotland. AND got back!
Later it developed a 1485cc Mini engine, Metro Turbo gearbox (after it ate a 1275 GT box), 6x13 wheels, 'S' brakes, A HEATER (!!!), oh, a long list of goodies and improvements.

I finally managed to sell it for a profit. Went all sensible after that. Until I got an Alfa 164 3.0, then a couple of XMs. Anyway, then I got sensible again.

But, without a doubt, and remember this is an ex-Alfa and XM owner saying this, that Maya GT was the strangest car I've ever owned!

I must try and find a pic of it - I'll add it if I can.

http://www.minimarcos.org.uk/altpics/maya/maya.pdf ???????????? never seen one of these either, how many plastic cars are there in the world .
Looks quick in the specs though with a strangely attractive (in a frogeye kinda way) front end.

D

There is, or was, a microcar museum near Norfolk, i went to that one last year, very interesting, they even have a 2cv van!

I think there were selling off a few of their cars, they had a lot of older tatty ones outside ready for restoration.

Goggomobils are something else

Hi Dean
Yes after the war most young men could only afford a motorcycle or scooter(particularly in Germany).The Isetta or little Iso appeared in 1952 so named after the designer Renzo Rivolta's fridge company ISO,the early cars have the same door handles as Italian fridges of the period!!His concept was to fix 2 scooters together with a roof canopy.
Naturally the women of the time greeted the Isetta with open arms,but Rivolta was more interested in developing his Sports car and when approached by BMW in 1953 he sold the license to them.
This suited BMW who were still recovering from the war years(they had produced the Dixi a licenced version of the Austin 7 in the late 1920's),indeed at the time Mercedes were looking to take them over.BMW produced approx 160,000 Isetta in Munich and it was further licenced in France(Velam),England and Brazil(Romi) of all places.(whilst they did not make much money from each car it allowed them to survive independently of MB!!!).About 30,000 were made in Brighton,the cars came over in disassembled kit form and were constructed in the old Loco works there.For tax purposes 2/3rds of the cost of the car had to be English so the chassises were made by Rubery Owen,lights were by Lucas,brakes Girling etc.
There was no road access to the works and even if you lived in Brighton and ordered a car it had to go to London on the train and back by road.Cars were "road" tested around the works!In the end they took some cars out in the service lift!
Most Isettas were 4 wheelers and only the UK produced 3 wheelers so that due to tax laws if you blanked off reverse you could drive them on a motorcycle licence.
I once met a lady who had one for 2 years and thought the reverse was blanked off.She pushed it backwards for all that time until a friend got in it and casually put it into reverse.She was still embarrassed 40 years later!!!
7 cars even entered the 1954 Mille Miglia...they won their class........for fuel economy.I think Stirling Moss won that year and the 1000 miles took him around 10 hours...the leading Isetta...22 hours at 45mph average.
Regards Rob
PS.The microcar museum is worth a visit it's near Byards Leap near Cranwell,Lincs,but check to see when its open before you go.

This post has been edited by Little&Large on January 31, 2009 10:39 am

Hi guys, I think I am going to win the award for the strangest car! Although this is a very subjective view
Does anyone know what this is?





I drove this in the late sixties and early seventies in Japan. Yes, this is me in the second picture

This post has been edited by Jan-hendrik on February 01, 2009 10:18 am

Is it one of those Dutch thingies with a belt driven variable transmission? Sold the design to Volvo? Sorry I can't remember the name!

I've remebered, is it a Daf?


Derek

This post has been edited by DerekW on February 01, 2009 06:43 pm

Mine was a 1935 ex police Talbot 105 designed by Georges Roesch. A remarkable car for its year. If I may be allowed to ramble -

Four seater sports saloon with an aluminium body, vertical radiator slats a la Rolls Royce which were opened or closed by a thermostat. 6-cylinder engine that looked like an inverted bathtub, the inlet manifold was internal so the carb just bolted on the side of the block.

Behind the engine was a centrifugal clutch and a Wilson self-selecting preselector gearbox. The Wilson box had a steering column selector and a change pedal instead of a clutch pedal. You selected 1st, then pressed the change pedal and you were in 1st. This beast though had the self selecting trick, as you released the pedal the lever moved to 2nd and so on up the gate. Very good but if you wanted to change down you had to remember to move the lever through two positions.

An external pipe ran between the engine and the gearbox, the gearbox was lubricated by engine oil which ran through this pipe.

The rear axle, underslung worm drive to lower the propshaft, was suspended on two quarter eliptical springs each side. The propshaft run inside a torque tube which also supplied engine oil from the gearbox to the differential. The final trick was a bayonet-locked T handle on the side of the engine block which supplied engine oil through smallbore pipes to the chassis lubrication points. Central lubrication taken to its extreme!

I bought the car with a wrecked engine - conrod through the crankcase, I bought a replacement engine, the problem I met was that there was a chassis crossmember rivetted in place between the centrifugal clutch and the engine. So to take the engine out you had to first remove the rear axle, then the torque tube, then the gearbox and at last you could lower the back of the engine enough to clear the clutch past the crossmember!

Ah, happy days

I've got a photo somewhere, if I can find it I'll post it.

Derek