No Reserve, Three Owners: 1957 Borgward Isabella Sedan
In 1929, Carl Borgward combined several companies, which themselves were already combinations, into his eponymous Borgward Group. He was making three-wheeled cars quite successfully, later turning to conventional four-wheelers – sometimes labeled Hansa, sometimes Lloyd, sometimes Goliath, and sometimes Borgward. In 1954, Borgward introduced the Isabella, first called the Hansa 1500. It was a sedan with a few luxury features, and its styling managed to strike just the right tone at the right time. Later, the Isabella could be had in convertible, coupe, and station wagon forms. A pickup was reportedly made as well, only for the US market. The Isabella series was easily Borgward’s best-seller, notching 200,000 cars by 1961. Here on eBay is a 1957 Borgward Isabella sedan, with one bid so far at $5,800, and no reserve. This car is located in Augusta, Maine. The seller has a clean Virginia title on which he accidentally stated the mileage was 67,000; he is the third owner and attests that the car has only covered 45,470 miles. The plates still read New Hampshire, where the second owner lived.
The car has the original engine, a 1493 cc in-line four-cylinder engine with a four-speed manual transmission. Horsepower was 75, and the car made it from zero to sixty in just under 18 seconds. The seller reports that the engine turns but does not run, and he couldn’t open the hood to take a photo. The gas tank has been removed and is in the trunk with several NOS parts to commence restoration. The interior is all original and generally in good shape given the age of the car. Borgward was known for its white bakelite knobs and steering wheel; these are in great shape and the dash retains all its rare trim. The headliner has just a few holes.
The paint is poor, as the seller notes. Apparently, a falling tree dented the roof and trunk, but the seller was able to pop the dents out. A bit of trim is missing from the rear window surround. The glass is good and the seller found wheel trim rings and hubcaps, as well as front and rear bumpers.
Until sometime in 1957, these cars still carried the “Hansa” name on the banner inside the rhombus on the grille. I can’t make out the detail in these photos, but the car is clearly badged “Isabella” on its trunk lid; the flank script says “Borgward”. The Isabella was Borgward’s swan song: the company had split itself into three divisions after WWII in order to maximize its chances of receiving raw materials. Rumor has it that the three divisions were poorly coordinated financially. Carl Borgward himself had no bank relationships and was not particularly friendly with politicians. Entreating the German Senate to help save his company earned him an emphatic “no” and Borgward went into receivership in 1961. In terms of collectibility, all the money is in the coupes, and if you can ever find one, the convertible. But this sedan is appealing in its own way and not an expensive proposition. There’s club help, and of course, the cachet of rarity. Could you see yourself driving the boulevard in this Isabella?
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Comments
That is some kind crazy large emblem on the front of the car. Could have been downsized for a better looking front view. Interior has held up quite well and if the milage is correct shouldn’t be a real problem to get it running again. Yes it needs paint, but you won’t park near another at the local show.
It was, in the midcycle facelift. If this is a ’57 it’s one of the last with the big rhombus.
“Engine turns but I could not open the hood to get a photo”. That’s a new one for me!
Makes me think it’s the vintage-car equivalent of “a/c doesn’t work but just needs charging.”
I’m the guy selling the car……to open the hood, there are two levers to pull….one is sticking and you need two people currently to open the hood. I didn’t have anyone that could help me. So no photos, the author here on the article mis-stated the comment from the listing. I explained that I’ve owned the car since 2007, clearly I’ve had the hood open, I just wasn’t able to take a photo. It’ has a bid and I’m happy it’s going to sell
How do you make a 22000 mile mistake on a mileage statement? That’s another new one. Bet there’s other mistakes to be discovered.
Because I was registering, two titles at one time and read off the paper the mileage from the other car in error when filling out the title application. I’m surprised you’ve never have heard of a person simply making a mistake. Most states don’t recognize the mileage on a car this old regardless because you can’t tell if it’s rolled over once or twice.
So this seller has owned the car for 20 years but bought it in 2007? Seems his math isn’t only dicey when it comes to mileage in the title..?
As for this Isabella, I think it looks pretty good but the bidding is a bit strange as it’s already all the money with one single bid.
As a side note story, no, the Isabella was not at all the swan song for Borgward. That was the stylish 6-cylinder P100. A direct competitor to the Fintail Mercedes 220S. Back in the mid-80’s I was at an auction in Sweden and among some quite interesting cars there was a really nice P100. It was all original, great condition but missing the windshield and the pump for the air suspension. As such parts would have been impossible to find in the pre-internet days it sold very cheaply, I think 2000 sek ($200). I was looking over the car together with the brave buyer when an old man came over saying “I’m the neighbor and I also have a P100 so when he stopped driving this car I got to borrow parts that I needed for mine. But I got the replacement parts but then he got ill and never came back home again. But if you just come over to my house you can take the parts and get this one running again!”
That’s a great scenario.
When I was a kid, before the weight of the world crushed my fragile spirit, we had an old Jewish doctor that made house calls( remember those?) and he drove a Borgward like this. Me and my brother laughed at that name, sounded like a beer belch, and always seemed odd, why a Jewish doctor would drive a German car. I seem to remember Lloyd, as well. It’s a neat car, a little weak for American roads, but a LS3 should fix that, huh? Cool find.
Except that the LS3 engine is bigger than the Lloyd car! I owned a 1959 Borgward Isabella TS and it was a really great car, beautifully built, economical, good road holding, paintwork etc. Only sold on due to my emigrating to UK.
Solosolo–Absolutely, I did not mean to infer, whatsoever, that a Lloyd was anything close to the “big” Borgwards. Rather, I was trying to make the point that Borgward has a stellar reputation, both in racing as well as serious competition to luxury cars, namely Mercedes.
There are two versions of the 2 door saloon, the regular and the TS with a 2 barrel Solex. I had a TS and liked it. A widow said she’d pay us $35 to haul it away but Dad saw the shop manual and called it even. Blown engine but found and put in a good junkyard TS engine. My first car, nicknamed “Warthog”. Easy to work on. Aussies bought them for dirt road racing.
I’ve never seen one in person,but had a neighbor who told me
that he had one in high school.I’ve heard that they were well-built
cars.
Nein.
Carl F. W. Borgward was more a entrepreneur then a manager.
Not a bean counter as we consider today a person who
leads a big company. More like Victor Muller, the owner
of Spyker, and for a short time of SAAB.
FW 200
Alexander
Arabella
Isabella (the coupe’s and the convertible)
Pullman 100
Borgward bus and lorries
I knew only one person who had a Arabella and he only said:
It was good. So like the other sunken brand who spelled
‘ask one who owns one’.
https://www.borgward-club-bremen.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/100ProspektSparkassenbus1.jpg
Packard, “the American Mercedes”.
Nice background fill Beyfon – My first car was a ’59 Isabella TS, bought in ’62 for me by my father, who also later bought another one for my sister. We grew up in Salt Lake city Utah, and had lots of strange furrin cars back in the ’50s, probably since a large US air base was in the State, and the military guys got free air transport for the cars they found across the pond. My first ever view of one of those furrin cars was of a Messerschmidt “cockpit” car driving on a local road.
I drove that Isabella 750 miles one way straight thru to get to college in Claremont, ca, from salt lake, starting ’62 as a freshman. The car ran strong, often at 90 flat out, and maybe i should have slowed, as I managed to blister those 13 in. whitewall tires the first trip! I did find what I considered a really weird design problem after owning the car for nearly a yr. The front wheels wobbled, so I tore into the front suspension and found the front A arm spindles were a strange THREADED design at their pivot ends. For some bizarre reason, the Deutsche-sprachers had designed a sort-of adjustable caster approach where the “bushing” between the A-arm pivot holes and the spindle ends were internally and externally threaded Steel NUT/BOLT, with all rotating (relatively) surfaces being STEEL – NOT a bearing material!! No bronze bearings anywhere!! I was appalled, even at age 18 – to see that so-called bearing. No wonder they wore like crap!
Having no machine tools at my disposal, I used an awful hack, but the only one I had at the time. I welded extra metal to the spindle pivot end male threads, and same into the interior of the large pivot nuts, as these were the surfaces that mated with each other and took all the wear. The “nut” outer threads were stationary in their A arm sockets. It was a bitch of a job, but only thing I could think of at that age, and having just managed to take a welding class as Sr. in HS, fighting my counselors all the way vs taking another AP class – far less useful than welding!
Oh – one more failure: Somewhere around L. Vegas, the gen quit, so I had enough battery to get to a shop who of course didn’t a set of shot brushes for that BW. I persuaded the garage to let me rummage thru their supply of brushes, found an oversize set, used their bench grinder to whittle the US brushes down to a rough fit, finished them with a file, reinstalled & never looked back. Incidentally, this hack can work for anything with brushes.
Then using my trusty Dremel, which thankfully existed back then, with tiny grinding wheel, to hand-reshape the inner & outer threads to minimize the SLOP. That kludge worked well enough for me to trust the steering that 1st yr of long distance highspeed driving – pre-55. Only other prob. was the hydraulic clutch cyl leaking, and that I rebuilt in the Physics Dept. machine shop as a frosh. That BW served me fairly well, but was replaced by a ’59 ID19 Citroen after a local bloke hit the BW and it was retired. That ID was my first Cit, and I’ve never looked back – still driving them 59 yrs now. Would be buried in one, but that would be a terrible waste of the most brilliant car ever built, so would just pass it along and recycle me as soylent green.
Back in the70s I was selling foreign car parts and a guy came in looking for the phenolic fiber camshaft gear for his Isabella. I had to dig a little but I found him one and the joy on his face was worth whatever searching I had to have done to get it. He told me he was headed straight to a machine shop to have it copied in aluminum so he could supply all his buddies in the Borgward club. I suspect owners of cars like this have to band together to keep them alive and running.
I’ve seen modern vehicles with the fiber camshaft gears and figured that they had interference heads such that the gear would fail first allowing the piston to push the Ill timed valve out of the way.
Just once I would like to hear over the PA system at Walmart, “Will the owner of a cream colored Borgward Isabella sedan please come to the front desk, you left your lights on…”
Just once is all I ask.
Carl F. Borgward was a tireless enterpreneur who by 1939 had arrived to even challenge Mercedes at the Berlin auto show. He built the lowest and possibly best half-track truck for the Wehrmacht and moved heaven and earth to restart his totally destroyed conglomerate after 1948. He was driven to bankruptcy by Mercedes and Deutsche Bank, dying of a broken heart 2 years later. Lots of dirty business there neither Mercedes nor Deutsche Bank would like to be uncovered.
Not to mention they cancelled deliveries for the German army at the same time…material for over 50 million Deutsch marks has been ordered just for the birds. After they forced Carl F.W. Borgward out of the factory, they called the manager of ” BMW ” to cure financial problems – he cured his own financial problems and drove the factory into bankruptcy. When there were no more cars to build for Carl F. W. Borgward, his heart stopped beating – by the day two years after closure of the plant.
Recently there’s been a commercial for the prescription drug “Entresto” that shows a couple driving a red Borgward Isabella convertible. It has been debadged and most visibly does not have the big diamond emblem in the grille.
https://www.jeffreysward.com/editorials/entresto.htm
I think that’s a Skoda (Octavia?).
It’s a Borgward, they do look similar but it’s a Borgward
Entresto? Isn’t that the drug for the treatment of bi-polar disease?
One of the very first cars I remember as a child. My father’s was black with a red interior. Seemed like a nice enough car to a 2 year old. He traded it on a new 62 Beetle in late 61.
Recently, a friend loaned me a great book, mostly dealing with the history of Porsche. However, there’s quite a bit about the very successful racing success of Borgwards . . . as in winning quite a few races against Porsche and others. It also covers some of the nasty business perpetrated by Mercedes to put Borgward out of business. Apparently, Mercedes considered the top level Borgwards a serious threat. Finally, for about two years, my ride to school was in a friend’s Lloyd. That thing was small and scary
Small being the operative word! Here in UK they are known more as a Micro car than an automobile.
There was a British Lloyd unrelated to the German one. Somewhat earlier and even more obscure.
It wasn’t Mercedes, it was BMW. BMW was smaller than Borgward…..BMW would eventually use the Frua Cars Designs that had been done for Borgward for their range of sedans. If you look at a South African BMW 1800, you’re looking at what was to be a Borgward by Frua.
The prototype still exists. Frua offered the design to the Hans Glas G.m.b.H, Dingolfing, Bavaria, they produced it under the name of ” Glas 1700 “. Unfortunately, Glas was another victim of Beamer…
Borgwards were fine cars, my uncle in Germany used to drive them until they disappeared and he switched over to Mercedes. He always lamented that they were no longer made. This appears to be a solid example.
Holy crap, what a lot of comments about a Borgward! And as always, a great writeup by Michelle. Thank you-
My first car was a borgward coup I bought in Germany in 1971. What a car! I found it in a junk yard, and paid 150$ for it guaranteed to pass inspection. I marveled that the parts to fix it came from the full size borgward to replace the front steering problem. The car came with so many futuristic concepts. Like a totally sealed driveshaft, hydraulic clutch, a four on the column shifter. Plus a really good sunroof that didn’t leak.my only regret was leaving this car behind, after my service was up.
thnx 4 da history lesson (1 more time here). Tells us just what corporations R capable of just ona B2B level, never mind social, ecological, etc. Shame as I want every orphan around – possible. Let them die a natural death (Studi, Packard, AMC, etc) as I think they have much to offer…
chrisful,
Once again – ENGLISH PLEASE!
Thank you ! Yes ,chrisful. it usually sounds like you have interesting and informative comments , but nobody can make out what you’re saying, and because of that you’re kind of wasting your time posting .
Has anyone considered that possibly English is not his native language? I would submit that many of us would do worse replying to an unfamiliar language.
Mileage is irrelevant for Borgwards. The engine almost got an eternal life, a friend of mine has an engine with over 500.000 mi – this is no exception. If greased properly, the front axle does not cause much trouble. ( But you must not forget to do that regularly ! ) If the engine does not start, my first question would be : compression ? If compression is zero, then the timing gear ( Novotex ) is faulty. She would not bend any valves, I had that whilst driving, she simply stalls – thats it.
Apart from that, she is a nice base but overpriced.