Happy Friday, Autopians! Today we’re eschewing the four-car runoff vote in favor of a new Showdown, mainly because I found two unbelievably rare cars I want to show you, and only a little bit because I forgot to save the Friday top-shot template to my laptop before I left home.
Yesterday’s terrible ideas ended up in a vote that was far too close to call. I’m calling this a little earlier than usual, but I don’t expect the results to change wildly, and really, it doesn’t matter, because they’re both awful wrecks that should be avoided at all costs.
That said, if I had $1500 burning a hole in my pocket and had temporarily taken leave of my senses, I’d choose the Alfa. No good can come of mucking around with that Audi. But a little Italian sports car, people almost expect to be marooned in your garage partially disassembled. It could sit there for years, while I made glacial progress towards the day when it might be ready for the open road.
Speaking of project cars, today’s choices are not something you’re going to be able to drive home either. Hell, one of them doesn’t even have an engine in it. Or any undercarriage at all. But they’re both unbelievably rare. In fact, if you ever wanted either of these cars, this might be the only crack you get at them without spending a fortune. Let’s take a look.
1959 BMW 600 body shell – $3,300
Engine/drivetrain: None
Location: Ogden, UT
Odometer reading: unknown
Operational status: Do I really have to tell you?
BMW’s reputation for driver’s cars isn’t as old as you might think. Before the “Neue Klasse” sedans introduced in 1962, BMW sold far less driver-oriented machines. There was a line of extremely expensive V8-powered sedans and GT/sports cars, and a whole bunch of weird rear-engined little cars based on the Iso Isetta. This car, the BMW 600, was essentially a stretched four-passenger Isetta, retaining the front-opening door and adding a small conventional door for rear seat access. It was powered by a 600 cubic centimeter BMW flat-twin motorcycle engine, mounted in the rear, along with a four-speed manual gearbox.
The important word in that last sentence is “was.” This 600 is a shell of its former self, literally. It has no engine, no transmission, no front or rear suspension, and no title. The seller purchased it eight years ago with the intention of restoring it and got exactly nowhere.
It does, however, still have its VIN plate, and for a car this old, that should be all you need, if you did want to reassemble it and title it. But where on Earth are you going to find BMW 600 underpinnings? I don’t think you are, actually. I think it’s probably a lost cause. But as we saw yesterday, you can fit a certain powerful, tiny engine into just about anything.
I mean, yeah, it would be an absolute metric shit-ton of work. But just imagine the crowds you’d gather.
1968 Hino Contessa 1300 – $2,250
Engine/drivetrain: 1.3 liter overhead valve inline 4, four-speed manual, RWD
Location: Sacramento, CA
Odometer reading: 63,000 miles
Operational status: Probably hasn’t run in decades
Japanese automaker Hino is primarily known as a manufacturer of heavy trucks and buses. It’s a subsidiary of Toyota, and produces trucks all over the world, including here in the United States. But once upon a time, Hino partnered up with a far less likely company than Toyota: Renault. Starting in 1961, Hino sold the Contessa, a rear-engined car based closely on the Renault 4CV and Dauphine.
The Contessa is powered by a 1.3 liter license-built version of Renault’s venerable Cléon-Fonte four-cylinder, mounted in the rear. This is a very late Hino; the partnership with Toyota was already in full swing by 1968, and this car was built from leftover stock. It’s a strange car, left-hand-drive with a speedometer that reads in miles per hour, which would indicate a US model. But Hino never imported cars into the US. Curious.
It’s being sold by the California Automobile Museum in Sacramento, and it’s filthy. Obviously, it has been sitting for a very long time. I do wonder why the museum never restored it; maybe they didn’t think it was financially feasible. Not a good sign.
If this were any less obscure of a car, it looks like a relatively easy restoration. It has only surface rust, and I think if you gave it a good cleaning, you’d find out it isn’t as rough as it looks. But where the hell are you going to find that broken taillight? What if there’s a critical broken part somewhere in the interior? I mean, most stuff can be substituted out, just to get something to run, but an actual restoration of this would be a real chore. And all for a funny little sedan that kinda looks like a VW 411 from the front, and a Lancia Fulvia Berlina from the rear.
These are both monumental projects, of course. But at least they’re not terribly expensive. And you’re guaranteed to not see another one at Cars & Coffee. So who’s feeling brave? And which one will it be?
(Image credits: Craigslist sellers)
I can’t be the only one who looked at the top shot and thought this contest was between an Isetta and a Corvair. Right?
Right?
Right.
Or Isetta and the funny/even more unique looking VW Karman Ghia type 34
If money were no object, it would be BMW + a Polaris SXS + Harbour Freight TIG welder and plasma torch . Register the wee Bimmer VIN to have a road legal SXS!
Was thinking the exact same thing. It’d look sick with that big engine cage hanging out the back!
If it were a Contessa coupe, it would be no contest. But it has a stylish body and extant underpinnings, so it’s still no contest. Hino FTW.
Whom amongst us does not desire an Italian Countess? 😉
Contessa for me!
I voted for the Toyota, but I love the LWB Isetta,but possibly overpriced for the condition
Ya think? 😉
I just really like the name “Contessa”. No greater logic or thought behind the vote than that.
So basically it’s no contes(sa)t?
My father had a Hino Contessa in Japan in the 60s! All I remember is that he said it was very high quality and had great handling. Apparently Hino were planning to export to USA and did some motorsport to publicise but then the Toyota merger stopped that. So I wondered if this car could have been a homogolation prototype but it’s too new for the dates to work.
I will go with the BMW. I’m going to concur with those suggesting this could be a fun vehicle to convert it to a low speed EV. Its dimensions are very similar to that of a GEM e2 (which apparently is for sale in the US?). I wonder if that would be a reasonable vehicle to graft this on to?
If not, the off road idea is also good. I’m thinking a literal monster truck with 6 foot tires, or whatever they use. Crushing cars with an Isetta would be awesome.
Nope.
That BMW shell is way too much for what it is. If it was $1k I’d be tempted to buy it and turn it into the coolest backyard playhouse for my kiddo
Bingo. That and Cousin It family photos, having outgrown the Isetta.
Well, the BMW screams for a modern bike engine, or maybe you can adapt the underpins of a crashed Smart. But 3.3K is a lot of money for a carcass.
The Contessa is interesting, though. It was designed by Giovanni Michelotti (hence its resemblance with Triumphs of the era) and the engine is stupid simple to work on. You can source everything from Argentina (where it powered the Renault 12) or Brazil (Ford Corcel) for next to nothing. You may buy an entire engine in perfect condition and will pay more for shipping than for the engine itself. The suspension components may come from the Gordini/Dauphine as well, so again, Argentina may be a cheap source. For not much money you may end up with a really unique and sturdy classic.
Very cool! Your comment is the kind that gets me started on the road to something cool and crazy. And I would love to find out how the car got here and had a LHD with that particular speedo.
Dangit I could afford the Contessa but it would financially ruin me in the best/worst ways. Stop making me want it more.
“But where the hell are you going to find that broken taillight? ”
3D printer?
Oh, that’s a much more wholesome guess than mine. I was gonna say in Torch’s PRIVATE – DO NOT OPEN shoebox under his bed, or the reserve boxes in the darkest corners of his garage.
Or under teenage Torch’s mattress to be taken out for… uh, study when the rest of the family isn’t paying attention.
Really hard to print transparent materials and still end up with something transparent enough for a lens. But I did see something recently where somebody reproduced a rare taillight lens by 3d printing the mold and then basically injection-molding it at home. So it’s possible for someone motivated enough.
This is what I was thinking. 3D print a non-functional replica, use that to cast a silicone mold, use the mold to make an epoxy replica. Clear epoxy with the appropriate tint for the color you want. (Totally not an original idea from me. Look on Youtube for examples.)
Where there’s a will..and a 3D printer…there’s a way.
These are FASCINATING. And in reference to this week’s Citicar build, either would be ideal candidates for a Hayabusa (or an EV) swap.
The fastest way to get the BMW on the road would probably be to put it on a VW Type 1 floorpan (as Dr. Barth suggests), though that would require taking about two feet out of the wheelbase.
As for us, we’ll take the Contessa, and pick up a 3D printer on our way home.
Hmm… the BMW 600’s track width is 48 inches front, 46 inches rear, whereas a VW Beetle’s track width is 51 inches. Not suuuper far off, but the wheels would poke a bit, and I’m not sure where you’d source the rubber band tires needed to get the wheels small enough in diameter.
Neither looks to be worth the time
Gimme the Hino, Piss, Duck tape, and chewing gum will have that bitch purring in no time.
BMW, please.
I don’t know how the actual dimensions would line up, but it would be amusing to place the 600’s body on an air-cooled VW pan, shortened if necessary. How hard could it be?
It might also be easier from a paperwork perspective. On the older VWs, the VIN and the title are connected to the pan, not to the body. This is what allowed custom shops (years ago) to take a pan from 1970, source a whole new body, interior, etc. from the still-running production facilities in Mexico, and end up with a car that is 80% new but is titled as an antique.
I’m thinking Club Car frame for this. Have a badass bodied golf cart!
I googled it and the BMW 600’s track width was 48 inches in the front and 46 inches in the back. An air-cooled VW’s track width is 51 inches. So, a fair bit wider, but maybe manageable? More concerning to me would be the wheel diameter. I don’t need to google specs to tell you BMW 600s had smaller diameter wheels than VW Beetles, and methinks it could be tricky to get thin enough tires that will fit on wheels you can bolt onto VW drums. At that point you might as well go full Baja Bimmer and use ATV tires with the suspension lifted a few inches.
The other thing I’d be concerned about is the VW’s torsion bar front suspension, which I imagine would eat up a significant amount of legroom. And the fact that the steering wheel is supposed to connect to the door with a hinge, somehow… might be able to fabricate that, but it’d still be easier to start with a VW bus steering box… and the bus’s portal axles would make it easier to fit larger tires too… but alas, bus parts are more expensive.
Per Wikipedia about the Contessa, the 1300 was built in Israel until 1968.
Explains the LHD, but not the MPH speedo.
Maybe it came from Canada? It didn’t go metric until 1970.
Couldn’t find anything saying Hino was in Canada then, that was my first thought.
Wow. What a unicorn.
Wikipedia says there was some 55,000 of this later series built, and that and other sources identify Switzerland and the Netherlands for exports as well as Israeli production and Australia, New Zealand and South Africa as markets where miles-per-hour might still have been in use. Okinawa was still driving on the right at the time under US occupation, but I can’t find anything to confirm that they used miles instead of kilometers. If this wasn’t a base car or an export to Okinawa or Southeast Asia, maybe it was converted with an imperial-market speedometer after it was brought in to the US.
Someone needs to buy the BMW shell and make it an offroad thing. Someone NOT me, that’s for sure. I’ll take the Hino because there’s more actual car there.
The one that still has running gear, because the HinToyAult is technically still a car and not a hunk of hollow steel bereft of all car-like pretenses.
There’s got to be some way to make a low speed electric runabout out of that BMW.
You could probably drop it on a golf cart chassis and have a neighborhood vehicle.
Fuck it, make it into a hovercraft. There’s so little carness left in it, might as well.
Weld that BMW to an S-10 4×4 chassis, mount some big tires, and go muddin’!!
I love the Hino. When finished it will punch all the cheap collector car buttons: interesting, rare, attractive, and usable. And old Renault parts are available from Europe. And it would slot nicely between my Fiat 500 and Corvair.
I bet with some imagination, a bit of cutting and welding, and re-engineering, you could fit a VW Bug engine in that BMW. G really crazy and drop in the flat 4 and PDK from a wrecked Cayman and you would have a totally insane machine.
I can just tie two electric scooters to the Isetta/BMW and call it a day.
I’m thinking put some sled stuff underneath it and then paint it red, so the
reindeerdogs or whatever can pull it for the Christmas parade.Hino for sure. Could probably be a runner in months as opposed to decades.