Cute Car Craze

The Story of My Adventure With the Microcars

originally published June 6, 2007

I stood on the corner of Burnett and Main streets in Madison, GA, waiting for a procession of Midgets. As they paraded down the street, some antique shoppers did a double-take as the Midgets passed by, almost tripping over the sidewalk displays. And like most people, they couldn’t help but smile.

Okay, before we go down a politically incorrect road about midgets, let me steer clear of that assumption. I’m talking about microcars. Yeah, microcars.

If you’re like I was before that Saturday afternoon, you’ve probably never heard of these historical vehicles. All that changed when I arrived at the Vintage Microcar Club’s 2007 “Micros in Madison” event. The show is held every other Memorial Day weekend on the grounds of the Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum at Dubble Bubble Acres south of town. More than 500 people, 120 Microcars and 24 Cushman Scooters from coast to coast gathered last month for the fourth biannual show at the museum.

Microcars, by definition, are usually no more than 10 feet long, with engine sizes of 700ccs or less. Many of microcars have 250cc and 50cc engines. Usually they are one- or two-passenger cars, have two doors or less and weigh in at an average of 500 pounds.

Created from necessity, microcars (like scooters) emerged just after World War II, mostly in Europe. Lean times and limited materials led a few automobile manufacturers into the microcar business. These microcars, or “bubble cars,” so called because of their rounded and sometimes all-glass cabins, came to symbolize the era of a persevering and hopeful post-war community. From the late 1940s until 1964, King Midgets, Messerschmitts, BMW Isettas, Fiats, Vespa cars and scooters and many other models were manufactured. Today, they are the most affordable collectible cars, dollar for dollar. And owners and enthusiasts of the microcar are the most lighthearted and happy collectors I’ve met.

Micro-History

America even has its own version of the microcar story. Skip Weaver is a collector of the American-made King Midget. In Madison, Weaver told me he caught “the bug” 16 years ago. A collector by nature, he said he likes things that are a “little bit different.” The King Midget microcar is just that: different. It’s unique from other microcar styles, with its square angles and open-air cabins. Each car panel was hand-formed, giving King Midgets unique appearances even from one another.

Claud Dry and Dale Orcutt, former Civil Air Patrol pilots, developed the first King Midget passenger car in 1946. It was a single-passenger car kit which included a frame, axles, springs, steering apparatus, dimensioned patterns for the sheet metal (which could be fabricated by a local metalsmith) and an assembly book. (That would certainly be an all-nighter on Christmas Eve.)

Unemployed miners and timber-cutters in Athens, OH, built the King Midget cars. The car eventually was offered as a kit or as a fully-assembled car through 1951. Eventually, a Junior Midget resembling a soap box car was produced, a two-passenger King Midget powered by a 7.5 horsepower Wisconsin AENL engine was introduced, and even a “Sport and Utility” model was sold near the end of production. (A King Midget SUV has quite the anomalous moniker.)

Dry and Orcutt wanted a profitable business, but one that didn’t take over their personal lives. They agreed to stop selling King Midgets within a 50-mile radius of the Athens factory since they didn’t want the hassle of spending too much time servicing cars bought by the local population. During the course of the King Midget operating years. Dry and Orcutt were known to shut down production to take an extended fishing trip or two. With a hearty laugh, Weaver told me of one example when the government of Saudi Arabia commissioned 100 King Midgets: quite a large order for the day. But Dry and Orcutt knew that if they made 100 for Saudi Arabia, sooner or later someone was going to want 100 more. They declined, presumably so as not to ruin any planned fishing vacations.

The Enthusiasts

Bill Rogers, an enthusiast of the microcar since age 13, currently owns a BMW Isetta 300 and 600. He told me that microcar production helped such manufacturers as BMW through lean times in the 1940s and ’50s. By 1962, the last BMW Isetta was made and the world was ready to ditch their Kabinenrollers ("enclosed scooters") for more traditionally-styled cars. Like most microcar collectors, Rogers was attracted to the nostalgia and to the reaction people have when they see his car.

Jay Neimann bought his first microcar in 1966 for $40. Married for six months and on a $7.50 weekly food budget, it was the only way he could buy his new bride a car. The newspaper listed a used Vespa with 400 miles already on the odometer. Neimann made a call and bought the car sight unseen. He’s had the microcar “disease” ever since.

Grayson, a 10-year-old microcar enthusiast, really didn’t want to be interviewed by me. I could tell I was eating up valuable time, time he thought was better spent with the intake of each and every microcar on display. He’d traveled with his parents to Madison all the way from Mill Valley, CA. Interested in microcars ever since he can remember, Grayson was excited to see the Peel P50, also known as the “Holy Grail of microcars.” Less than 50 of them were built from October 1963 to December 1964. Grayson told me he dreams of one day owning a light blue Peel P50. First made on the Isle of Man off the coast of England, the Peel P50 was advertised to seat one adult and one shopping bag. It holds the record for the smallest-ever automobile to go into mass production. At 53 inches long and 39 inches wide, it weighs in at 132 pounds. The P50 has three wheels and only one headlight (only one light at all, for that matter). Despite its tiny size, the red P50 at the show was street legal and insured. But with a top speed of 38 mph, it probably won’t be on a highway. And there is no reverse gear. Drivers have to get out and use a handle to manually drag the P50 to the desired parking space.

Kevin George traveled to Madison from Spartanburg, SC, in his Vespa microcar. He stuck to the country roads. “Kids were taking pictures from their SUVs as they passed me,” he said, smiling. Like most people at the Madison show, he couldn't stop smiling as soon as I asked to talk to him about the cars there.

Catching the Bug

Renie Hober’s 1975 Fiat 500R, AKA the “Linen Ladies Ladybug,” won second place for favorite microcar at the show. I noticed it right off the bat since it had recently been shrink-wrapped to resemble a ladybug, with red pouty lips and lowered eyelashes, to advertise her linen business. “I drive my car every day at the beach,” she said. “This is the only time I see another microcar during the year,” she said.

Hober drives her Ladybug in Cape May, NJ. She has to be careful where she parks the car since tourists driving by will slow to a stop, jamming up the beach streets to rubberneck. The car attracts a lot of attention. Margie Dietterich agreed. “Every trip I take to Wawa [a gas station] takes 45 minutes,“ she said. ”The kids like to crawl around in the car and I give them rides around the parking lot.” Filling up the five-gallon gas tank of her 1960 BMW Isetta 300 for under $20 also has its perks, and yet another appeal is the high mileage per gallon. Microcars average 50–60 miles per gallon. Both ladies agreed on one more point: “These cars are men magnets!”

“They make people smile,” Hober added. She couldn’t wait to take me around the bumpy one-mile test track in her Fiat. It was slow going, but she promised that the car could get up to 50 mph. As we drove by the folks at the show, I couldn’t help but notice that they all seemed really happy to be there.

Not to be outdone, Dietterich opened up her blue Isetta 300. I crawled in - “no ladylike way to do it, just do it,” she said - and she took the wheel. Dietterich had no problem showing me how the three-wheeled car handled the curves at a careening 28 mph. I couldn't stop smiling, even as I grappled at the passenger-side handle as we rounded the track’s corners. I had to agree with them all. I left the show still smiling and even briefly considering a 1957 King Midget purchase. I had caught the bug.

Sheridan Kulwicki