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Our Iset t a continued from page 31 ancient streets would need to look like.

When the war ended, sales of refrigerators and heaters The duo decided to design and build the most
declined. These were luxuries people could no longer compact, inexpensive, car ever seen .Doing away
afford. with two side doors and replacing it, by their
measurements, with a single front door meant that
Rivolta, always a man with a plan, had already been
the width would be the exact size of two small
thinking about how to transition the company to making
adults and one child sitting side by side.-- odd
cheap transportation that he knew would be needed
looking to be sure but genius!
during reconstruction.

While at the Milan Exposition in 1947, Rivolta saw a
small, basic, very ugly scooter/cycle on display. It had a
2 horsepower motor. Called the Furetto (ferret, in
English), the thing was built by Giesse, a tiny company.

Rivolta saw an opportunity, took a chance on the
scooter, and purchased the company. He moved the
production line to Bresso where he could provide jobs to
the townspeople who had helped save his business.

In 1948, the rechristened Ferret went on sale as an
Isothermos. It was a misfortune of timing that the ugly
little scooter was exhibited head to head with another
small but stylish scooter, the Vespa. , that would become
the darling of Italy.

The Isothermos was a disaster in more ways than one.
Rivolta ordered that all the unsold scooters be buried
and he started from scratch to reimagine basic
transportation.

The result was a new and improved, more substantial
scooter, with more horsepower and an efficient engine
but it was still no beauty queen.

Isothermos did sell enough units that the company was
able to expand into more models, dropping the thermos
Just like the later Reliant Robin, the Isetta was
part of the name along the way, becoming Iso, and
essentially a tricycle ( but with the wheel in the back)
expanding the business into small motorcycles that
that could keep you out of the weather. It was so
Rivolta called Isomotos and a three wheeled utility
quirky looking that it was actually charming. The
vehicle that he dubbed the Isocarros.
Isetta was also priced just a bit below Fiat?s Topolino
What 's in a Name? Plent y. and that made it affordable.
It must have been fate. Two men, Rivolta, with a Rivolta showed the Isetta in Paris where it was every
factory, and an engineer named Ermenegildo Preti, bit a sensation. The press liked the little Italian, with
with an idea, came together. Preti, a builder of gliders, England?s The Motor saying, ?Boldly and cleverly
had a concept for a completely unconventional unorthodox, simple but by no means crude,
vehicle. Rivolta was happy to jump in, as he had diminutive but quite good looking, the Isetta may
already begun thinking what cheap transportation well prove to be pioneering a development as
with the reality of Italian cities and their charming but important as that of the motor scooter? ?

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