Any other Spohn owners around?

• 
• 
• 

by Wayne Graefen: "Post WWII  the business of coachbuilding took a significant downturn. Companies that survived the war looked for business but often had to seek other opportunities. The Spohn Carosserie in Ravensburg, Germany had bodied the vast majority of pre-war Maybach cars as well a building bodies on many other chassis. Post war they got a few contracts from BMW/Veritas and others but more work was needed.  
The proprietor of Spohn, Josef Eiwanger Jr., offered the firms considerable talents for the customization of any chassis brought in to the shop. A few dozen US servicemen brought in their American cars. Among them was the car I recently purchased. It was not until I had the car home summer of 2011 that I learned the chassis to be 1940 Ford DeLuxe. The car, however, is titled as a 1952 Spohn, the year it was coachbuilt.
Customers chose design elements from Spohn's sketchbooks to personalize their car. The most popular element was the tail fin and boattail trunk of the GM, Harley Earl concept car called Le Sabre which was first shown to the world at the Munich Auto Show in 1951.
This car first appeared on a driveway in my childhood neighborhood outside of Chicago, Illinois, USA in spring of 1957.  I followed and lost the car over ensuing decades but vowed I would own it if I ever had the chance. That happened this year.    
Anyone owning another postwar Spohn custom, please correspond."
    

Plaats een reactie...