The Laplace–Beltrami operator in the curved Möbius strip is investigated in the limit when the width of the strip tends to zero. By establishing a norm-resolvent convergence, it is shown that spectral properties of the operator are approximated well by an unconventional flat model whose spectrum can be computed explicitly in terms of Mathieu functions. Contrary to the traditional flat Möbius strip, our effective model contains a geometric potential. A comparison of the three models is made and analytical results are accompanied by numerical computations.