My First Car: Brickie’s bubble car not really built for five!
Peter Forster in his BMW Isetta, which was resprayed from blue to orange, in Stuttgart in 1960. - Credit: supplied
While living in Berlin, Peter Forster used a BMW Isetta bubble car to get to the building site and take five people to the cinema!
My first 'car' was a BMW Isetta with a 250cc motorcycle engine which I got in 1959 in Berlin.
My dear mother bought it for me on HP for 800 Deutsche Marks and I paid her back in monthly instalments.
As a bricklaying apprentice, I drove to the building site and heard the site foreman saying to the architect: 'We come by bus and tram to the building site but the apprentice comes by car.'
We managed to squeeze five people in this 'box' – three on the seat bench, one on the luggage rack and one in the door bulge – totally illegal of course – for a trip to the cinema.
The picture was taken in Stuttgart in May 1960. The Isetta's original colour was blue, but a friend had a paint spray business for leather goods and so within two hours we changed the colour to orange.
The Isetta was sold in Hamburg in 1961 for 250 Deutsche Marks when I was on my way to Australia.
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I`m from West Berlin but have lived and worked in Suffolk since 1976.
Tell us about your first car and the adventures and scrapes you had. I doesn't matter how long ago it was, just email your motoring memories with a picture of the car to motoring@archant.co.uk or post it to Andy Russell, motoring editor, Prospect House, Rouen Road, Norwich, NR1 1RE.
