When I used to visit my Verwandschaft in Germany as a young boy with my family in the early 1960’s, I remember being impressed by the many exotic (to me) cars that were rarely – if ever – seen in the UK back then, other than the VW Beetle and the occasional Mercedes. I used to find it fantastically exciting to see Porsche 356’s, (and later, early 911’s), Opel Rekords and Kapitäns, Ford Taunus’s, Fintail Mercedes’ and NK BMW’s, mostly go barrelling past whatever car my dad was driving at the time – a black Morris Oxford and a dark green Sunbeam Rapier Series III in those days.
One of the cars that used to grace German roads back then was the Borgward Isabella; I loved the name, and even though the company had failed in 1961, there were a fair number of their stylish saloons and coupés on German roads (though never enough, as their bankruptcy proved). Now I was still only six or seven years old at the time, so had no idea about motor industry business matters and had never heard of the word “bankruptcy”, but the cars looked good and the name sounded special, to my young eyes and ears.
Unfortunately, the story of Bremen-based Borgward was to end in ignominy and scandal – our own Søren Navntoft wrote about it here when discussing the company’s last gasp attempt to compete with Mercedes-Benz in particular, with their P100. Before that, though, Borgward had established itself as a company that made well-engineered premium family cars since before the Second World War.
Carl Borgward built his first “car” in 1924, the Blitzkarren, which was really just a tiny three-wheeled van that found enormous success as a local delivery vehicle. Through the ‘20s he built a series of small commercial vehicles, amusingly called “Goliath”- although they did get bigger – and his business grew to the point where in 1931 he took over the Hansa-Lloyd company and began producing cars. Borgward moved swiftly from producing a small three-wheeler to the Hansa 400/500, through the 1100 and 1700 saloons and cabriolets introduced in 1934, and by 1938 had entered the middle and executive saloon sectors with the Hansa 2000, 2400 Pullman and 3500. The following year, both cars were renamed the Borgward 2000 and Borgward 2300, being the first models to actually carry the Borgward name.
After WW2, Borgward created three separate companies – Borgward, Lloyd and Goliath – to take advantage of post-war steel rationing, but this had financial ramifications further down the road as costs were not centralised and as a result the company failed to benefit from the econimies of scale that its bigger competitors did. Still, that was later – meanwhile in 1949 Borgward launched its first new model, the Hansa 1500, followed by an 1800 version in 1952. These were thought to be the first new cars to be produced in Germany after the war.
The Hansa was replaced in 1954 when the company launched the Borgward Isabella, which became its most popular and durable model, being built through to 1961. In 1959 the Isabella was joined by the upmarket, more linear P100, with modest tailfins and pneumatic suspension, replacing the Hansa 2400 models, though in the end this wasn’t enough.
The Isabella was positioned as a premium family saloon, pitched between the Opel Rekord and Mercedes-Benz 180/190 Ponton series. Unfortunately, early cars suffered from a series of problems – a common enough story in the history of new model launches for many companies, and not limited to the motor industry.
Nevertheless, the Isabella was positively received by the press, being spacious, comfortable, well equipped and a brisk performer by the standards of the day, able to reach a top speed of 130km/h, propelled by the 60bhp produced by its 1493cc four-cylinder engine. However, it only came with two doors whereas the 180 and Rekord could both be bought with four, making them more practical as family cars.
All Borgwards had a reputation for being well built, and the Isabella was no exception, designed as a three-box monocoque, with weight-saving aluminium alloys used on the gearbox and other engine parts. The marketing for the car was clearly aspirational, as can be seen from some of the period adverts in the gallery below.
In its first year over 11,000 Isabella’s were sold, but sales dropped off in the following years so Carl Borgward decided to introduce a very elegant coupé version, and estate and cabriolet versions were also added to the range, resulting in an Isabella to suit any family. And if an Isabella wasn’t smart or big enough, there was always the P100, designed to take on the Fintails from Stuttgart. Unfortunately, as described by Søren, a damning – and controversial – article in Der Spiegel effectively killed the company.
By the time of Borgward’s demise, a total of 202,862 Isabella’s of all kinds had been sold, making the range by far the most successful and lucrative in the company’s history – ironic, considering its fate.
The name lived on for a short while after the company was closed, as the production line was sold to Mexico, where some 2,000 examples of the P100 were made between 1967 and 1970, and another 999 Isabella’s were produced by an Argentinian subsidiary of Borgward, Dinborg, based in Buenos Aires.
Sadly, the company’s founder Carl Borgward died on July 28th, 1963, his dreams ruined.
So what of our Prime Find? Well, the car is a 1956 Borgward Isabella Hansa 1500 saloon – the Hansa name was used until the following year – and is for sale with a dealer in Valencia, Spain (a wonderful city, incidentally) and if the description – and price – is anything to go by, is probably as good an example as you can find.
There’s not a lot of textual information about the car other than it’s been with the same family from new and has had a full restoration – indeed, the car is described as being in “perfecto estado”. As such, the asking price of €22,000 – or £19,995, bringing it in just under our self-imposed ceiling – is quite high for an Isabella; there are others for sale for between £10 – 15,000, though it has to be said they don’t look as good as this one.
However, while there is little written information about the car, there is a lot of pictorial information, with literally dozens of photographs and this Isabella does look really lovely. The paintwork is in a very ‘50s shade of green, the interior a combination of cream and grey, with door cards and dash in dark brown. The chrome looks good and the car looks to be in excellent shape.
The odometer reads 92,934km, but there’s no indication in the advert of whether this is genuine or not, though I imagine it wouldn’t be difficult to find out, given its single-family ownership. Everything on the car is claimed to work correctly, and documentation and Spanish MOT is all up to date.
I have no idea how many of these stylish medium-sized family saloons remain on the roads, though I do know I haven’t seen one other than at a show for quite some time, so they’re certainly rare – at least in the UK – so if you’re looking for something that bit different, maybe this is the car for you?
You can see the full dealer advert, including all 53 photographs, here, and of course, the usual caveats apply.
With our Saturday instalment of Prime Find of the Week, we’re offering our services to the classic car community, by passing on our favourite classic car for sale from the week that passed. This top-tip might help a first-time-buyer to own his first classic, or it could even be the perfect motivation for a multiple-classic-car-owner to expand his garage with something different. We’ll let us be inspired by anything from a cheap project to a stunning concours exotic, and hope that you will do the same.
Just remember – Any Classic is Better than No Classic! We obviously invite our readers to help prospective buyers with your views and maybe even experiences of any given model we feature. Further to that, if you stumble across a classic which you feel we ought to feature as Prime Find of the Week, then please send us a link to primefindoftheweek@viaretro.co.uk