A BMW Isetta Is the World’s Smallest Taxi

Don’t expect to see it on the streets and pick you up to reach your destination, as this is only a show car. It took its owner thirteen years to restore this 1957 BMW Isetta 300 and turn it into the smallest registered taxi, as bmwblog.com found from Car and Driver.

However, there is still a chance to take this tiny yellow cab for a spin, as the owner, 66-year-old Chuck Miller, said that is putting it up for sale.

No pricing was established yet, but at least we can tell you that Miller payed for it $1,500.

“A guy I knew needed to sell it—let’s just say he was going away on a long paid vacation, courtesy of the state—and the price was hard to resist: $1500. I saw one sell recently at auction for $41,000. The first time I saw this car, I thought it was one of the ugliest things I’d ever seen—so ugly it was cute,” said Miller.

In its standard configuration, the Isetta 300 generates 13 hp (10 kW) at 5200 rpm, and a torque of 18.4 Nm at 4,600 rpm. It reaches a maximum speed of 85 km/h (53 mph). Hey, what did you expect from a tiny car like this?

The Isetta 300 Taxi project is just one of the cars made by this custom-car guru. His first custom-made car was a 1950 Ford coupe that he bought for only $35. He was only 16 years old back then. Two years later, he had finished working on the car, which was featured in the Rodding and Restyling magazine.

“Actually, I worked at my shop through high school, before it was my shop. It was Dick’s Collision then. In 1963, the owner wanted to retire, so I took it over, renamed it Styline Customs, and operated there for 36 years. I sold out in 1999. The shop’s still there and still operating in River Rouge. I’m semiretired, but I still do little projects like this, and I work with the Autorama show people in Detroit,” Miller remembers.