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‘A combination of everything that is best in Continental craftsmanship plus the experience gained in many racing successes in the 1,500cc class’. At first glance, this may appear typical 1956 vintage advertising copy designed to persuade a motorist to call FREmantle 5471 to arrange a test drive. Yet the Borgward Isabella really was that good – and in fact, has a fair claim to being one of the finest German cars of the 1950s.

The Isabella was largely born of the determination of the industrialist Carl Borgward. After the Second World War, his Bremen plant produced three brands of car - Goliath, Lloyd and Borgward Hansa. – partially in order to maximise his quota of raw steel. The last-named targeted the middle-class buyer, and 1954 saw the introduction of the new 1500 - known at the factory by the nick-name Isabella. Buyers who might have otherwise looked at the Mercedes-Benz 180 “Ponton” were immediately taken by a handsome two-door saloon capable of 87mph on the autobahn.

The Isabella badge was official by 1955, and in that same year, the range was expanded by a Combi estate and an utterly beautiful cabriolet. Meanwhile, in the UK, the price of the saloon was £1,131 13s. 10d - expensive but worth every penny to the true enthusiast. As Motor Sport put it in 1955:

For a 1½-litre car with the passenger accommodation of a scaled-down Yank, the finish for which German cars are famous, good handling qualities and a very fine performance, with a top speed of better than 85 mph and a top gear suited to high-speed cruising, the Borgward Hansa 1500 Isabella is a car virtually without rivals.

It was indeed the ideal car for the young lawyer or property developer beginning to experience the Wirtschaftswunder economic miracle. Such drivers tended to regard the Ponton as middle-aged and the Ford Taunus 12M and the Opel Olympia Rekord as pseudo-Detroit. The Isabella was also more than a match for a formidable trio of Italian competitors - the Alfa Romeo Giulietta, the Fiat 1100TV and the Lancia Appia.

By the middle of the 1950s, the Borgward was West Germany’s second-largest car-maker after the Volkswagen. A TS engine option offered greater power and Motor Sport of 1956 thought it ‘a remarkable and unique motor car’. My own experiences of the Isabella for a Classics Cars magazine test echoed this opinion, and the interior especially took me:

The cabin boasts such practical touches as separate heaters for driver and passenger and split reclining backrests on the front bench. Even the quarter lights are opened via rack-and-pinion handle... any driver who does not feel inspired by the mere appearance of the art deco instrumentation clearly has no soul.

Furthermore, ‘the all-synchromesh shift is always an utter delight to operate; and only the brakes reminded me this was a car ‘designed when Winston Churchill was Prime Minister’.

In 1957 Borgward offered an Isabella Coupe as their alternative to the VW Karmann Ghia, by which time the Hansa suffix was dropped -

NB. No, the commentator on this hilarious newsreel is not Harry Enfield.

Yet by the end of the 1950s, Carl Borgward’s empire was encountering significant problems. The development of their flagship 2.3-litre P100 saloon was proving costly while the Lloyd Arabella economy car suffered from technical issues. At this point, the story descends into a morass of accusation and counter-accusation, and you may read more here.  

The writer also contends ‘The Quandt family, which had just taken control of BMW, used their considerable influence to ensure that the banks that had so far propped up Borgward would now close their line of credit’. On 4^th February 1961, Bremen Senate took over the firm. At one point there was talk of BMC acquiring Borgward or setting up a dealership/co-operative, but these ideas were to no avail. The final Isabella departed the factory on September 1961, its place in the German car market taken by BMW’s new 1500 “Neue Klasse”.

And perhaps one of the greatest tributes came from the late Brian Sewell. Recalling his first encounter with the Borgward during his National Service, he wrote:

to any young subaltern who had been driven to his prep school in his father’s Rover 12, or set off for the family holiday in Devon (then a 10-hour journey from London in a Wolseley), the Isabella was a revelation.

In 2020 it still is.

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