I rode this Messerschmidt once, it was called "Kabinenroller", some friends of mine who worked on and collected old motorcycles like NSU Max, Maico a.s.o. and old cars had one. There are a lot of airplane parts in this car since this was the easiest and cheapest way to build a car after building planes. The one I drove had a real pilot's glass bubble as a roof which opened to the side, like a plane. Also the steering was no wheel but a just an axle with two grips for the hands; it took some getting used to since it took only about a quarter turn to lock the wheels from left to right. The noisy 200cc two-stroke was in the rear and gave the thing a go-cart feeling.
As mentioned by Pico-Pico there were quite a few interesting cars on the road in the fifties and even sixties, Germany still suffering after the war. Most people were riding motorcycles since cars were too expensive.
There was also the Goggo, a four-wheeled small car with a 250cc single in the rear. My grandfather had one, I rode often in it as a kid, my job was to turn the fuel cock on and off. When he sat in it, his feet were right behind the headlights. There was the LLoyd which had a 175cc two stroke engine in the front! BMW built the Isetta, a four wheeler but the rear wheels were close together so you wouldn't miss a pothole of which there were plenty. It used the R25 motorcycle engine. BMW also built cars with a 600 and 700cc boxer engine in the rear. There were lots of small brands that have long since disappeared, like NSU, DKW, Glas, Borgward and more.
It's amazing how quick things changed fom the sixties to the seventies, until now - VW started out with the Beetle and is building SUV with V10 engines now!
