I always wanted an Isetta by BMW! It broke milage barriers in the 1950s! Yes, a SmartForTwo has much better seats and modern engineering but that would be expected. The Isetta was a great design from a utility standpoint as an urban or small town commuter. It got hammered when people tried to use it as an all-around car including long-distance high-speed driving. It was never designed for that like the other engineering genius, the VW Bus. Both were designed for low-speed European town use and then were critcised because they didn't work on 1000 mile 70 mph trips! That is like faulting a P-51 Mustang because it can't go supersonic! By the way, over here in America, a restored Isetta is worth lots of money.

2 words: Steve Urkel

I think retro is cool. I like the Isetta.
I believe Steve Erckle had one in the Family Matters television series.

When you park infront of a wall or somethinng, you'll have to climb out thru the roof because it has no reverse gear.

I owned one of these little tools back in the day. I wish I still had it. It was the 250cc version. It did around 65mpg and it would do the same mph with three people onboard. It was great fun . Wish I still had it. I now have a zero threewheeler(seeutube Blackjack zero Moto Guzzi engined.

I wonder when they will revise the little two-seat (tandem layout) Messerschmitt? That was reversed by making the two-stroke engine work backwards, which meant that you could go backwards at top speed, if you could keep it between the kerbstones, of course.
@Johan Albertus Swart - Originally, there were stories of people being stranded in car parks because they had parked up against a wall, How true those stories were is open to conjecture. Certainly, later models had a reverse gear, which I assume this model will, too.

With every new motorshow I watch in anticipation, hoping that somebody will revive this class of vehicle, unfortunately all OEM's still seems to be obsessed with creating larger and larger vehicles, with more and more features. They are bringing in hybrids and whatever for conserving fuel, but it still boils down to having to take 2 tons of metal and plastic with you to work everyday and back.
I would love having something compact, even a one seater would be good enough. Something safer and more weather proof than a motorcycle, but not much larger.
I personally prefer the Messerschmitt KR200, but bubble cars are definetely cool!

It's not important.. but... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isetta (I'm italian :-) )

Sorry Johan Albertus Swart, a bit of an urban myth, it did have a reverse gear. (C'mon, it's a BMW!)

I would love to have one now so I could go to BMW meets and show off the logo to all the high-priced owners! By the way, it had a reverse gear. The trans was a typical "H" pattern with 3 forward and one reverse gear. Even then if you parked up against a wall all you had to do is back up a couple feet to open the door. Since the Isetta was so short, it would have plenty of room to do that. BMW and Isetta advertising even showed off how one could park nose-into a curb between conventionally parked cars, open the door and step directly onto the sidewalk!