Welcome friends to the Living Wisdom School's Vintage Car Restoration honors elective, the complete rebuilding and restoration of a rare 1957 BMW Isetta 300 Cabriolet. The Team Isetta car, number 500269, was manufactured in Germany on March 18th 1957, and arrived in New York City on April 1st of the same year. The car was parked with a broken drive shaft coupling sometime between 1965 and 1968, and was never driven again, becoming a sort of mini-storage and long-term affordable housing to countless generations of mice. The original owner had filled in the sunroof, and covered the factory blue paint with a fire engine red. We purchased the car in Wyoming from the second owner, and, in the back of a borrowed pickup, brought it to our school in the Sierra foothills of Northern California. Team Isetta was a four + year project, with a revolving class of two to three students between the ages of thirteen and seventeen. Classes met once a week, as well as after school and on weekends. Three of our start-up crew were members of the original Team Sprite, a remarkable eighteen month restoration of a 1958 Austin Healey bugeye Sprite.(If you're not familiar with that story, please take a moment and click on the Team Sprite photo just to your left.) After four years of meticulous work, our Isetta was started and driven for the first time at 6:00 pm on August 27th, At 7:00 am the following morning it was on display at the prestigious 2011 Hillsborough Concours d' Elegance, where it was selected to participate in the Parade d' Elegance! We will continue working on the Isetta through the Fall / Winter terms.

Bailey