Little cars, big sale: Madison museum auctions mini-mobiles

Madison, Ga. 30650

Catalog: $80. That admits two to the preview. Bidder registration is $150, which includes an official auction catalogue, and admission for two to the preview and auction.

Got an hour to kill? Go to http://www.handlewithfun.com.

What shall it be? The Messerschmitt, a car with more syllables than cylinders? Maybe the King Midget; if ever there were a case of truth in advertising, there it sits on midget wheels. The Scootacar? Wait, that thing has an engine? Where?

And where else on this wide planet can you walk into one building and see a collection of little cars so large that the owner had to hire an auctioneer to thin the herd?

Here, friend, in a two-story brick structure 60 miles east of Atlanta. On Feb. 15-16, the Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum is auctioning more than 200 tiny cars, plus other memorabilia from an era now gone.

This is a big deal. People from all over the world are coming to Madison, population 4,000 or so, to bid for their own Goggomobil. Or Eshelman. Heck, maybe a Reyonnah. And they’d better bring money. Some of these tiny haulers may fetch $100,000.

“I love all of them,” said Weiner, 53, a Buckhead resident who made his fortune in bubblegum and has been spending it, gleefully, on whatever strikes his fancy.

It's hard not to love microcars, with their bulgy headlights and squat little bodies, their breadbox-size motors that go bappity-bappity-bappity. They are red and green and yellow and brown, creamy white and deep black. Their horns go beep! and boop! They look so much like toys that you expect a towering toddler to pick up the vehicles and say "Vrooom!"

Most of his microcars – vehicles with an engine of 700 CCs or less, which would power a mid-size motorcycle – were built in the 1950s and ’60s. The majority came from European countries still emerging from the carnage of World War II.

Times were tight, materials hard to find, gasoline precious. While American auto builders went wide and long (think Buick Roadmaster), engineers in Europe embraced a different model, going narrow and short (think Radio Flyer). By the mid-1950s Isettas, bubble-top cars that are as tall as they are long, were common sights on Italian, German and Spanish roadways.

“Many of these postwar cars are telling you something about mankind,” said Weiner, who discovered his first microcar about 20 years ago while reading an automobile magazine. (That was about 300 microcars ago.) “These cars show you how resilient mankind is. We can bounce back from anything.”

Many of the early cars were three-wheeled, bypassing taxes levied on four-wheeled cars. Some had 50 CC engines, power plants so small that owners could register them as scooters, again avoiding heavier taxes. Some didn’t have reverse gears; others lacked windows or tops. At least one model had a handle on the rear deck that allowed the owner to pick up his car and pull it away from the curb.

Nearly all of Weiner’s cars were shipped here from European nations, which Weiner frequently visited in his bubblegum-magnate days. Whenever he visited an overseas plant, he made time to scour barns, garages, carports. It’s easy to hide something so small — but not always so simple to bring it home.

He recalls an old German guy who, according to local legend, had amassed a trove of tiny cars. He shoved them into a couple of old barns, Weiner was told. There they’d been sitting, home to mice and snakes, for decades.

Something you need to know about Weiner: "The hunt," he said. "I love the hunt."

Weiner hired a translator, hit the road and soon found the old man’s house — and, beyond that, a couple of barns. He knocked on the door. No answer. He tried again. No answer. A third time? Silence. Weiner resolved to return.

On his next trip to Germany, Weiner retraced his steps to the house. Knock-knock. No answer. He knocked a second, third time. Weiner went back to America.

Weiner tried again on his next international trip. This time the man opened the door. He held a stick in one hand; the other held a leash restraining an irritated German shepherd. Weiner did not conclude any deals that day.

This went on for five years, the visits and angry looks, until Weiner wore the guy down. Go, look, the old man said. Weiner wasted no time. In the buildings' dust and gloom was a jumble of little cars, their bug-eyed lights staring back as if they were surprised to have guests. For a microcar fan, it was El Dorado, King Tut's tomb, the Lost Dutchman.

“Each of these cars,” Weiner said, “has a story.”

The little cars also have a growing fan base, said Jim Janecek, editor of Microcar News. At least 1,500 people across the nation have at least one microcar, he said.

“Once you own one of these cars, it’s a ticket to another world,” said Janecek, who bought an Isetta for a movie prop during his filmmaking days and got hooked on the tiny rollers. He sold that and now owns a PTV, a Spanish car that resembles a Fiat roadster that stopped growing.

A resident of Evanston, Ill., he plans to be in Madison for the auction, but doubts he’ll bid on anything. “It’s another chance to have a party.”

Expect a big party, said Alain Squindo, a vice president of RM Auctions, the Ontario company handling the sale. He expects Weiner’s inventory may fetch $6 million or more, with bidders from across the globe. In addition to microcars, the auction features neon signs, coin-operated kiddie rides, discontinued soft-drink vending machines and other icons of the mid-century America Weiner knew as a child.

“This is, without exaggeration, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Squindo. Weiner has done “all the hard work,” Squindo said. “He’s spent years tracking these cars down.” He restored them, recorded the history of each, and now is ready to let them go.

Why? Weiner, who has a quick answer for nearly anything, paused as he considered an honest response. He’ll soon be 54. He’s accumulated a lot of things in his five decades. “It’s time to downnsize.”

When the auction is finished, he plans to have only 10 cars, roughly 5 percent of his current inventory.

Still, old habits die hard. On a recent morning, sitting in a cluttered office at his museum, Weiner flashed a sideways grin.

“Yesterday?” he asked. “I bought another one.”