The Midgets

At John Wanamaker's suburban department store in Yonkers, N.Y. last week, shoppers crowded around a 47-in.-high automobile, small enough to jump over. It had only three wheels and a tiny (10 h.p.) engine, hooked up to the single rear wheel. But it was no toy. It could carry three passengers at a 'top speed of 60 m.p.h., could go 94 miles on a gallon of gasoline. The price: $869 to $998. The maker: the Messerschmitt Works of Regensburg, West Germany.

The Kabinenroller, built by famed Airplane Designer Willy Messerschmitt, is the first of a new class of West German midget cars to go on sale in the U.S. The midgets, which make even the little Volkswagen look like a Cadillac by comparison, were born of German auto taxes, including a stiff purchase tax, an annual levy of about $3.42 per 100 cc. of engine displacement, plus compulsory liability insurance costing anywhere from $11.87 a year to $106.87, depending on horsepower. Thus, a Volkswagen's yearly tax and insurance cost is $76, about as much as the average West German earns in a month. The owner of the biggest Mercedes 300 pays out $190 a year. But the man with a midget can satisfy the government with as little as $18. Moreover, the midget owner paid less for the car in the first place and can run it more cheaply.

Of 382,247 passenger cars produced in West Germany during the first seven months of this year, about one-fourth had engine displacements of less than 1,000 cc. (Volkswagen: 1,110). The Kabinenroller has been one of the most popular midgets (displacement: 200).

Messerschmitt has turned out 16,000 since 1953, is now producing 1,200 a month.

Taxes and insurance on the Goggomobile, a $688 three-seater rolling off Isaria Maschinenfabrik's assembly lines at the rate of 70 a day, total "less than the price of four cigarettes" daily, according to Isar ia advertisements.

A more startling car, Bavarian Motor Works' 12-h.p. Isetta, has front wheels about 4 ft. apart and rear wheels less than 2 ft. apart, does 70 miles per gallon.

It has a Plexiglas top and no doors; to get in, passengers open the entire front.

Isetta's slogan, which has helped push production to 100 a day: "Less taxes per year (39 marks) than a city dachshund (60 marks)." Still stranger cars are ready to go on sale. One is the egg-shaped Bruetsch, named after Stuttgart Designer Egon Bruetsch, which stands barely 3 ft. high, has four forward speeds but no reverse, does 67 miles per gallon. Strangest of all is the Dornier Delta, which looks like an old-fashioned electric toaster on wheels; the front and back sections hinge at the top to form doors. The front seats face frontward, the rear seats backward. Added attraction: the seat backs pull down, making a double bed in the car.

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