A superb and rare photo of an Iso Isetta in action during the prestigious yet heavy and demanding 1954 edition of the Italian Mille Miglia - 1000 Miles rally event.

Iso entered seven Isettas into the 1954 Mille Miglia (1,000 miles) race of 1954. Five of the Isettas finished the course with the lead car maintaining an average speed of 45 mph. BMW scouts had seen the little Isetta at the 1954 Geneva and Turin car shows and almost undoubtedly witnessed the impressive showing of the little car at the Mille Miglia.

The Isetta was one of the most successful microcars produced in the post-WWII years—a time when cheap, short-distance transportation was most needed. Although the design originated in Italy, it was built in a number of different countries, including Spain, Belgium, France, Brazil, Germany and Britain. Because of its egg shape and bubble-like windows, it became known as a bubble car—a name later given to other similar vehicles. Other countries had other nicknames: In Germany ( BMW Isetta ) it was das rollende Ei (the rolling egg) or the Sargwagen (meaning something like "coffin car"; the name apparently came from the small (or rather nonexistent) distance between the passengers and oncoming traffic). In France it was the yogurt pot. In Brazil it was the bola de futebol de fenemê (soccer ball of FNM [a truck]), and in Chile it is still called the "huevito" (little egg).

The car’s origins were with the Italian firm of Iso SpA. In the early 1950s, the company was building refrigerators, motor scooters and small three-wheeled trucks. Iso's owner, Renzo Rivolta, decided he would like to build a small car for mass consumption. By 1952 the engineers Ermenegildo Preti and Pierluigi Raggi had designed a small car that used the scooter engine and named it Isetta—an Italian diminutive meaning little ISO. It is said that the stylists had arrived at the design of the Isetta by taking two scooters, placing them close together, adding a refrigerator and shaping the result like a teardrop in the wind. The Isetta caused a sensation when it was introduced to the motoring press in Turin in November 1953, it was unlike anything seen before. Small (only 7.5 feet (2.3 m) long by 4.5 feet (1.4 m) wide) and egg-shaped, with bubble type windows, the entire front end of the car hinged outwards to allow entry and in the event of a crash, the driver and passenger were to exit through the canvas sunroof. The steering wheel and instrument panel swung out with the single door, as this made access to the single bench seat simpler. The seat provided reasonable comfort for two occupants, and perhaps a small child. Behind the seat was a large parcel shelf with a spare wheel located below. A heater was optional, and ventilation was provided by opening the fabric sunroof. Two models were offered - the little egg-shaped Turismo with narrow 50 cm rear track, and the Autocarro, a commercial version with full-width rear axle. The Autocarro was offered in several body styles, a flatbed pickup, enclosed truck, a tilt-bed, or even a fire engine. The Autocarro was an extremely popular type of vehicle in Italy, and numerous manufacturers produced some variant of the type. Iso had previously produced a motorcycle-type Isocarro. The Iso Autocarro was larger than most, with its four-wheel layout, conventional rear axle with differential and leaf springs, and a large tubular frame. It was good for a 500 kg (1102 lb) to 600 kg (1323 lb) load. The name Isetta Autocarro was also used. Renzo Rivolta wanted to concentrate on his new Iso Rivolta sports car, and was extremely interested in doing licensing deals. Plants in Spain and Belgium were already assembling Isettas and Autocarros using Italian made Iso components. BMW began talking with Rivolta in mid-1954 and bought not just a license but the complete Isetta body tooling as well. Rivolta didn't stop with licensing the Isetta to BMW. He negotiated similar deals with companies in France and Brazil.

The Mille Miglia (= Thousand Miles) was an open-road endurance race which took place in Italy twenty-four times from 1927 to 1957 (thirteen before the war, eleven from 1947). Like the older Targa Florio and later the Carrera Panamericana, the Mille Miglia made Gran Turismo (Grand Touring) sports cars like Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Maserati and Porsche famous. Unlike modern day rallying where cars are released at one minute intervals with the larger professional class cars going before the slower cars, in the Mille Miglia the smaller displacement slower cars started first. This made organisation simpler as marshalls did not have to be on duty for as long a period and it minimised the period that roads had to be closed. Cars were assigned numbers according to their start time. For example, the 1955 Moss/Jenkinson car left Brescia at 7:22 AM (see below), while the first cars had started at 9 PM the previous day. In the early days of the race even winners needed 16 hours or more, so most competitors had to start before midnight and arrived after dusk - if at all.

The race was established by the young Contes Aymo Maggi and Franco Mazzotti, apparently in response to their home town of Brescia 'losing' the Italian Grand Prix to Monza. Together with a group of wealthy associates, they chose a race from Brescia to Rome and back, a figure-eight shaped course of roughly 1500 km - or a thousand Roman miles. Later races followed twelve other routes with varying total lengths. The first race started on 26 March 1927 with around seventy-five starters - all Italian. The winner completed the course in just under 21 hours 5 minutes; local marque OM swept the top three places. Tazio Nuvolari won the 1930 Mille Miglia in an Alfa Romeo. Having started after his team-mate and rival Achille Varzi, Nuvolari was comfortably leading the race but was still behind Varzi (holder of provisional second position) on the road. In the dim half light of early dawn Nuvolari tailed Varzi with his headlights off, thereby not being visible in the latter's rear-view mirrors. He then overtook Varzi on the straight roads approaching the finish at Brescia, by pulling alongside and flicking his headlights on. The event was usually dominated by local Italian drivers and marques, but 3 races were won by foreign cars, all of them German. In 1931, Rudolf Caracciola (famous in Grand Prix racing) and onboard mechanic Wilhelm Sebastian won with their big supercharged Mercedes-Benz SSK. It was also the first of 3 wins for a foreign driver as Caracciola was German, despite his name. The win was a surprise as Caracciola had received very little support from the factory due to the economic crisis at that time. He did not have enough mechanics to man all necessary service points. After performing a pit stop, they had to hurry across Italy, cutting the triangle-shaped course short in order to arrive in time before the race car. The race was briefly stopped by Mussolini after an accident in 1938 killed a number of spectators. When it resumed in 1940 during war time, it was dubbed the Grand Prix of Brescia, and held on a 100 km (62 mi) short course in the plains of Northern Italy that was lapped 9 times. This event saw the debut of the first Enzo Ferrari owned marque AAC (Auto Avio Costruzioni)(with the Tipo 815). Despite being populated (due to the circumstances even more than usual) mainly by Italian makers, it was the aerodynamically improved BMW 328 driven by Germans Huschke von Hanstein/Walter Baumer that won the high-speed race at an all-time high average of 166 km/h (103 mph).

The Italians continued to dominate their race after the war, now again on a single big lap through Italy. Mercedes made another good effort in 1952 with the underpowered original Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing, scoring second with the German crew Karl Kling/Hans Klenk that later in the year would win the Carrera Panamericana. Caracciola, in a comeback attempt, crashed. Few other non-Italians managed podium finishes in the 1950s, among them Juan Manuel Fangio, Peter Collins and Wolfgang von Trips. From 1953 until 1957 the Mille Miglia was also a round of the World Sports Car championship. The race was banned after a fatal crash in 1957 that took the lives of driver Alfonso de Portago, his co-driver/navigator, and eleven spectators, at the village of Guidizzolo. The crash was probably caused by a blown tire. The manufacturer was blamed and sued for this, as was the Ferrari team, which, in order to save time, had not changed tires. From 1958 to 1961, the event resumed as a Rallying-like round trip at legal speeds with a few special stages driven at full speed, but this was discontinued also.

This is a very nice and very rare non period photo that reflects a wonderful era of Iso and the Isetta ‘s automotive history in a wonderful way.  This is your rare chance to own this photo, therefore it is printed in a nice large format of ca. 8" x 12" (ca. 20 x 30 cm).  It makes it perfectly suitable for framing.

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