Kenn and Donna Poore’s 1957 Messerschmitt KR200 and 1958 Vespa 400.Supplied
It isn’t just the biggest or fastest cars that are worth checking out this year when the Canadian International Auto Show opens on Friday.
There’ll be huge SUVs and blindingly fast performance cars, but Kenn and Donna Poore are making sure at least eight of the vehicles on display are very small indeed. Some aren’t much more than two metres long and have engines that produce just a few horsepower.
They’re “microcars” – tiny vehicles that gained popularity in Europe throughout the 1950s when regular cars were expensive and gasoline was rationed. Most seat only two people and they’re powered by small engines more common to motorcycles. Those with just three wheels were often classified as motorcycles, too. They were popular until the mid-1960s, when the ending of rationing and the introduction of the more practical Mini made the genre redundant.
“In Europe, people don’t have big garages and the roads are narrow and there isn’t a lot of public parking, so there was a real demand for very small, fuel-efficient cars,” says Kenn Poore. “There were companies all over Europe that just started producing these in their backyard or their garage, or in their factory that they had to retool for various reasons.”
One of those companies was Messerschmitt, famous for building the warplanes of the German air force and forbidden after the Second World War to produce aircraft. It switched its factory to building sewing machines and then cars that people could afford to buy and maintain. One of those vehicles was the two-seater Messerschmitt KR200 that will be on display with the rest of the Poore’s collection, in the basement of the north building of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
The three-wheeled KR200 (for “Kabinen-Roller,” or cabin-scooter) seats two people, one in front of the other, and is powered by a 191 cubic-centimetre two-stroke engine that produces 7.5 horsepower. The company built about 40,000 of them between 1955 and 1964. Poore believes his 1957 model is worth about $45,000, though a mint-condition restored car could fetch $75,000 at auction. That’s a big increase from the original sale price of 2,500 deutsch marks, or $600, when the average car in Canada sold for about $2,000.
There are fewer than a dozen Messerschmitts now registered in Canada. One of them was owned until recently by Ralph and Wendy Hough, who had driven one when they lived as a young couple in the U.K. and then sought out another after they moved to Canada in 1970.
“A week before we got married, in 1962, we upgraded from a Lambretta scooter to a Messerschmitt,” says Ralph Hough. “It was covered over from the weather and it was the only sort of car we could afford.”
“It cost 300 pounds (about $900 then), and we thought, ‘wow!’” adds Wendy, “because we’d been on a scooter for miles, getting the cold and the rain, and now we’ve got a car, and we thought it was marvellous.”
They upgraded after the birth of their son to a (slightly) larger Fiat 850 but always felt sentimental toward the Messerschmitt. When Wendy later saw one with a Michigan plate in the parking lot of the Orillia Holiday Inn, she called Ralph who hurried over to leave his business card on the tiny car’s windshield. His note asked the driver to contact him before leaving town.
Ralph Hough with his Messerschmitt KR175 in 2011.Supplied
Ralph and Wendy Hough with their BMW Isetta in 2022.Supplied
At the time, Ralph Hough was a staff sergeant with the City of Orillia police. “A few hours later, I heard this familiar putt-putt-putt coming into the parking lot,” he remembers. “When I said to the driver, “I want to talk to you about your Messerschmitt,” he said, ‘Oh, thank God for that. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong.’”
The American driver restored Messerschmitts as a hobby and eventually sold one to the Houghs. They then invited other owners of microcars to gather for the day at their hobby farm near Coldwater, and so began the almost 30-year tradition of the annual Micro North meet for enthusiasts.
“I never intended being a collector, but I did finish up with about six or seven Messerschmitts,” says Ralph, who sold most of his collection four years ago, when he and Wendy recognized they weren’t getting any younger. Now, they just own one microcar, a BMW Isetta, known as a bubble car and recognizable by its front-mounted door.
Kenn and Donna Poore’s 1958 BMW IsettaSupplied
The Poores also own an Isetta and it, unlike the Houghs Isetta, will be among the cars on display at the auto show. They caught the collecting bug from the Houghs when they visited Micro North with their 1932 Austin Bantam, and they now own nine microcars, down from a peak of 16, that they keep in a garage near their Sarnia home. Kenn is a retired commercial realtor and Donna a retired Grade 1 schoolteacher and, in good weather, they both enjoy driving all their cars.
“They’re such fun, and they get lots of smiles and thumbs up,” says Kenn. “It’s usually the getting in or out that’s the problem. I’m six feet (tall) and 200 pounds, but once I’m in, the seating is usually pretty generous.”
The original Austin is now in parts and waiting for restoration, but all the Poores’ other microcars will be at the Canadian International Auto Show. As well as the 1957 Messerschmitt KR200 and 1958 BMW Isetta, there will be a 1958 Vespa 400 (Donna Poore’s favourite), a 1962 NSU Sport Prinz, a 1960 Berkeley B105, a 1962 Goggomobil TS300 Coupe, a 1969 Subaru 360 “Sambar” van and a 1956 New Map Solyto Break Camping.
Kenn and Donna Poore’s 1960 Berkeley B105Supplied
Kenn and Donna Poore’s 1956 New Map Solyto BreakSupplied
The French-made New Map was designed for weekend camping, with removeable front seats that double as camping chairs, and enough room inside for two sleeping bags. It’s powered by a pull-start (from within the car) single-cylinder, two-stroke engine that produces just 4.5 horsepower. Have the Poores ever taken theirs’ on a road trip?
“We had it at Hilton Head (South Carolina) and people noticed the Ontario plates and asked if we’d driven it there,” says Kenn. “ I said no. I mean, top speed on that thing is probably only about 20 miles per hour and it feels dangerous at 10 miles per hour. So – no.”
The show runs Feb. 13 – 22.
Kenn and Donna Poore’s 1958 Vespa 400 and 1969 Subaru 360 Van.Supplied