July 13 - 20, 2000
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Indy .500
Two days among the tribe of the sub-subcompact
by Camille Dodero
"Like a shriners parade on crack" is how the photographer next to me describes the string of tiny cars zipping down Rosalie Road in Newton this past Saturday afternoon. And as I watch the stream of brown Velorexes, egg-shaped BMW Isettas, and bubble-domed Messerschmitts sneeze into motion, I can't think of a better comparison. Engines running, the cars wheeze and cough, hacking like push lawnmowers. Their tires aren't any larger than an average steering wheel. But as each driver steps on the gas, the cars buzz down the street with astonishing energy.
In spite of appearances, these cars aren't toys: these are real vehicles, built for adults, mostly in Europe during the postwar years of the '50s and '60s. Though compacts and subcompacts would later become widespread, small cars never got any smaller than these. They're known as microcars and minicars; some are bigger than others, but there is nothing as large and ungainly as, say, a VW Beetle. The average Isetta (a microcar) weighs about 750 pounds, which means it would take nine and a half Isettas to match the curb weight of one new Ford Excursion XLT.
If it sounds a little dangerous to drive a three-and-a-half-foot-tall car in the age of the SUV, Karl Wynter says not so: "Everyone's so busy looking at you that they kind of form a zone of safety around you. They run into each other and they'll run into other cars, but they won't run into you because you're so conspicuous. Everyone's always, 'Hey what is it?' " Wynter has taken to hanging a sign in his window listing the specs of his 1962 Mazda V-twin. "Then they can quit stopping me on the highway and almost killing each other."
Wynter drove up from New York to join the 80-odd people here at the Fifth Annual Microcar and Minicar Event, a weekend-long extravaganza hosted by Newton resident Charles Gould, who owns both types of vehicle. Now it's almost noon, time for the miniature procession to embark on a drive to the Museum of Transportation in Brookline's Larz Anderson Park for a car show. Though some can reach 50 or 60 miles per hour, these are not durable vehicles: the procession is followed by a red van, to pick up anyone who doesn't make the whole four miles.
Mini-auto collectors aren't your typical car fanatics. Sure, they name-check obsolete marques, make esoteric car jokes, and talk shop. And, like many car enthusiasts, microcar people can have a very nostalgic attachment to their vehicles.
But, unlike your average car nut, they'll also take strangers for a drive. Once the procession arrives at the Museum of Transportation, they begin giving rides to curious members of the public -- who have paid $5 each to come ogle the microcars. Ralph Hough, a balding retired Ontarian, will take guests, friends, even strangers out in the tandem cockpit of his Messerschmitt Tiger. Why? Playing with the neck of his white T-shirt (which happens to have a picture of his Messerschmitt Tiger on it), he answers, "Well, it's fun." He pauses to think for a minute. "So many people have never even seen them or heard about them. I didn't buy it with the idea of wrapping it up and putting it in a museum. The idea was to use it."
Most car shows are thinly veiled competitions, but the weekend itinerary for the Fifth Annual Microcar and Minicar Event is anything but competitive: a couple of margarita-soused evenings in the Goulds' back yard, two car shows, a Saturday barbecue, a cruise night, a formal dinner, and a big breakfast.
On the first night, the Goulds' back deck is the center of activity. In a far corner, five or six faces hover around a TV playing classic microcar ads. Tiki torches light the porch, and about 30 people talk and laugh. Some share memories; at least two married couples here associate some momentous development in their relationship -- first date or honeymoon -- with a microcar.
Little-car people are different from the usual stuffy auto types, says Steve Peluso, the former owner of a classic Nash Metropolitan (one of the few American-made minicars). And he should know; the stubbly Dedham resident used to be president of the Pontiac Owners' Club. "My wife walked in here with me, and she felt right at home," Peluso says. "Pontiac people aren't nearly this fun."
In some circles the obsession with tiny autos is considered pretty nerdy. As 16-year-old Andrea Mutz-Mercier informed me, Urkel's car on Family Matters was a BMW Isetta -- the same egg-shaped car her dad is showing off this weekend. With wrinkled brow, she says, "I don't know if you looked around, but I think we're all pretty dorky here."
Or eccentric, anyway. Patti Kantor, an
elementary-school nurse from Waterville, Maine, brought her green 1982 Citroën 2CV to show off for the weekend. Not only does Kantor co-own 10 other miniature vehicles with her husband, Carter, but she also has 12 cats ("or it might only be 10; we might have lost some"), 60 acres of land, and seven llamas. When you half-jokingly ask whether she attends llama shows in addition to minicar shows, and she answers, "Oh, yeah -- I'm going to one July 29 and 30 with the Maine Llama Organization," she's not kidding. And when she opens up about the llama show -- to explain that she'll be participating with one of her animals as a member of a dancing llama drill team -- there isn't a whisper of irony in her tone.As Charles Gould said on Friday night: "Microcar people are never normal."
Given their fragility, microcars are a bit of an indulgence in modern America. But they had their beginnings in scarcity. Marketed as a cheap means of transportation during war-crippled economic times, microcars were intended to rejuvenate the European automobile industry. Ralph Hough remembers living in England when microcars were first manufactured. "Back then in Europe we didn't have the luxury that you guys did here," he recalls in a voice still marked by a British accent. "In England, gasoline was rationed until the late '50s. You got two gallons a month, whether you needed it or not."
Hough purchased his first microcar in 1962; 38 years later, he owns one of 120 Messerschmitt Tigers still known to exist. With its tandem cockpit, a Messerschmitt looks like a tiny plane; from the front, the wide, oblong structure of its hood and fenders recalls a Hoover vacuum cleaner. Hough's car is now a valuable commodity -- at a recent American auction, one three-wheeled Tiger went for more than $60,000.
That's a lot of money, but it's still hard to see these cars as symbols of waste. Quite the opposite: in the car world, where material excess is increasingly a status symbol, it's refreshing to meet a group of people who celebrate smallness and cherish a means of transport that requires so little space. You start to wonder: is this a quiet rally for simplification? Does a classic-microcar show represent a pint-size cold war on modern excess?
Not really. With only one exception, every mini-auto owner I spoke with owns more than two. Ralph Hough explains it: "You put them in your garage and it's like having mice. You get more."
Some collectors can't even quantify their fleet in whole numbers. Karl Wynter says he has two and a half; one Cooper owner answers four and three-quarters; and Hough counts on his fingers: "Let's see. In addition to my Tiger, I have two more three-wheelers, two parts cars, and an Isetta. Oh, and I just bought another Isetta and a BMW 700, sight unseen."
If there's any implication about necessity here, it's not that you can be happy with less. Mini-auto owners might divide their automotive space into smaller increments, but when you add it all up -- the garages, the parts cars, the tiny vehicles not regularly driven -- their less is really more. Even if their more -- cars inspired by poverty -- originally came from less.
Curious? For more information about microcars or next year's event, call Charles or Nancy Gould at (617) 965-4848.
Camille Dodero can be reached at cdodero[a]phx.com.
