Heinkel

Heinkel Price Guide

The Heinkel Kabine is one of the classic bubble cars of the 1950s, sitting alongside the BMW Isetta and the Messerschmitt KR200 in a category of vehicles that has gone from being a joke to being a genuine and increasingly valuable collector market. If you own a Heinkel, you own a characterful, cleverly engineered piece of post-war European motoring history with a growing international following and values that have risen substantially over the past decade.

What Affects Heinkel Values

Condition and originality are the dominant factors, as with all microcars, but the specific production origin also matters. Heinkels were built in three countries – Germany (by Heinkel), Ireland (by Dundalk Engineering), and England (by Trojan in Surrey) – and the German-built cars are generally considered the most desirable, followed by the Trojans. Dundalk-built Irish cars are the rarest of all. Engine size has a modest effect, with the later 204cc four-stroke unit being more practical for modern road use than the original 174cc version. The Heinkel and Trojan Owners Club is the essential resource for parts, knowledge, and access to the market.

The Market

Heinkel values have benefited enormously from the wider bubble car boom. Clean, roadworthy examples now command strong four-figure and even five-figure prices that would have seemed impossible twenty years ago. The three-wheeled version (which required only a motorcycle licence to drive in period) and the four-wheeled version are both collected, though the four-wheeler is considered the more practical and usable. Restored examples in correct colours with documented history achieve the strongest prices at specialist microcar events and auctions. Mechanically, these cars are simple, well-supported, and inexpensive to maintain relative to their current market values, which makes them a genuinely enjoyable ownership proposition as well as a collectible.