Three wheels, 87 miles per gallon

The Messerschmitt KR200 will be one of the wildest cars on display this Sunday

By Christian Gaston

The Forest Grove News-Times, Jul 16, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (3 Reader comments)

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Needless to say, the tiny bubble-domed car wouldn’t fare well in a smash up with a Ford Explorer.

Hatten bought his tiny car in 2007 and just got the car working a few months ago.

“It was a mess, somebody had rode it hard and put it away wet,” Hatten said.

The condition of the car didn’t surprise Hatten much.

Messerschmitt spent World War II building the backbone of the German Luftwaffe, but when the war ended, the companies fortunes did as well.

Barred from building fighter planes, the manufacturer picked up the plans for a “kabinenroller,” or “cabin scooter” from former aircraft designer Fritz Fend.

Fend’s design owed a great deal to his background in aviation. The 4-foot-tall car uses a steering bar instead of a wheel, and sitting inside the cabin with the domed windshield overhead feels more like a P-51 Mustang than a Ford.

“The trouble with that is on a hot day it acts like a bug under a magnifying glass,” Hatten said.

Passengers sit behind the driver, and the cabin is remarkably roomy. Six-foot-tall Hatten has no problem sitting behind the yoke of the car, though worming out of the cabin requires some agility.

Thousands were built, but most were driven hard by working class Germans trying to get to and from their jobs.

As the German economy improved, the Messerschmitt fell out of favor.

“They were kind of thrown away because that was something that a poor person would have,” Hatten said.

Hatten has the original log book for his car, which spent its life in Germany, changing hands five times, most of the owners being schoolteachers.

“These ended up parted out and put in boxes in people’s basements,” Hatten said, “and now people are going crazy trying to find them.”

Messerschmitt enthusiasts are still trying to figure out how many extant examples are out there, but Hatten estimates there are probably only a dozen or so of the cars in the United States.

In the world of small car collecting, that makes the Messerschmitt a bit of a holy grail.

“Messerschmitt is kind of the iconic silhouette of the micro car world,” Hatten said.

Hatten drives his tiny scooter-cum-car every chance he gets, and loves giving rides.

“Every voyage is the maiden voyage,” Hatten said. “People are totally giddy, they’re laughing and smiling.”

Even though the car is small, it feels remarkably comfortable inside. And since it has two wheels in front, the ride is pretty stable.

On the road, the tiny two-stroke scooter engine with only 10 horsepower packs a punch. When the car accelerates, it feels like a scooter and sounds like a lawnmower.

But anyone hoping to get into a “Schmitt” to get eco-friendly in style should think again. The engine belches enough smoke to undo the positive effects of the car’s slight fuel consumption.

But nobody said owning a three-wheeled German bubble car was a practical choice. It’s all about the fun of having something so quirky.

“People don’t know what to think of it because it’s so unusual,” Hatten said.

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