Drew's body shop

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Drew's body shop
legal form Sole trader , most recently: general partnership
founding 1945
resolution 2001
Reason for dissolution Abandonment
Seat Wuppertal
management Gerhard Drews
Number of employees 45 (1960s)
Branch Body shop , automobile production

The street Rauental in Wuppertal-Oberbarmen with a view towards the southeast, front right is the entrance to the former Drews premises with the Wupper behind it (2008)

Drews body , including body Drews or short Drews , is a former German Coachbuilder of Wuppertal in Bergisch Land . It is known mainly by its 2 + 2-seater sports cabriolets from the years 1947 to 1955 light alloy - bodies on VW Beetle - chassis . In addition, various special bodies were made on the basis of various passenger cars in individual production on behalf of customers , as well as isolated complete racing cars and several light special bodies for motorsport .

Background to the company founder

The sole company founder and first owner was Gerhard Drews. He had five siblings and his family originally came from Neustettin in Pomerania . From there he moved to Berlin to learn the body shop, in which he subsequently worked for an unknown company during the interwar period . He came into contact with Friedrich Rometsch (1880–1959), who from 1924 ran the Rometsch body construction company in Berlin-Halensee and held an important position in the Berlin body construction guild .

During the Second World War , Gerhard Drews was called up for military service and from 1940 had to work in Riga for the air force of the Wehrmacht in aircraft construction . He then moved to the Gottlob Espenlaub aircraft factory , for which he processed aluminum sheets in particular in Düsseldorf , possibly on the original premises directly at the airport in the Lohausen district . In addition to Gerhard Drews, the aviator and aircraft manufacturer Gottlob Espenlaub (1900–1972) was interested in automobiles, who had been dealing with questions about aerodynamics and lightweight construction in automobile construction since 1928 and created several, sometimes bizarre, Espenlaub automobiles . Officially, however, both were not allowed to continue working on it until the end of the war.

Company history

Today Vorwerk -building on the former Drews -Betriebsgelände Rauental 36 in Wuppertal-Oberbarmen (2008)

Gerhard Drews founded his own company on January 1, 1945, before the end of the Second World War in Wuppertal- Oberbarmen . The company premises had the address Rauental 36 and lay in a commercial area with a plot depth of around one hundred meters towards the river Wupper . Why Drews chose the Wuppertal location is unclear. However, Gottlob Espenlaub had also relocated the headquarters of his company and the aircraft production, which was now banned in post-war Germany, to Wuppertal- Langerfeld in 1939 ; possibly this made it easier for Drews to obtain material in the early years. Furthermore, the long-established bodyworks Joseph Hebmüller Söhne were located in the Elberfeld district of Wuppertal ; in this respect, hopes could have existed for experienced skilled workers as well as for participation in the orders of the competitor, who was well-utilized before the war.

Initially up to the currency reform in 1948 , the main focus was on various repair work, which was often done in exchange for food or fuel . During this time, Gerhard Drews took his two brothers Werner and Erwin into the business. He himself was a member of the German Motor Club , the association of German sports and racing car drivers based in Wuppertal, which had around one hundred members at the end of the 1940s. This brought him into contact with entrepreneurs, designers and racing drivers such as Petermax Müller , Otto Glöckler , Emil "Teddy" Vorster and Alexander von Falkenhausen . This resulted in the first body construction orders for racing cars and monopostos .

The most important and best-known product from Drews Karosseriebau in Wuppertal was the Drews-VW sports cabriolet ; it was marketed in-house and could be ordered through VW dealers, but - unlike the cabriolets from Karmann and Hebmüller from 1949  - it was not part of the official delivery program of the Volkswagen factory . A first prototype was created as early as 1947, i.e. before the Porsche 356 No. 1 Roadster , which was not ready to drive at the Porsche factory in Gmünd in Carinthia until June 1948. One of the first newspaper reports on the Drews-VW Sportcabriolet appeared in the magazine Der Motorsport (3rd year, 1949 issue 1) on January 1st, 1949; the first public presentation took place at the 1st West German Motor Show in 1949 in Rheydt . From 1948 to 1955 Drews built the convertible in small series to order; Depending on the source, a total of “fewer than 100 copies” or “at least 150 vehicles” from 1949 to 1951 alone were produced. With the appearance of the VW Karmann-Ghia Type 14 as a coupé in 1955 and as a convertible in 1957, the comparatively expensive Drews model lost its attractiveness. In parallel to the VW-based sports convertible and until the end of the 1950s, Drews produced various custom-made special bodies, some of them passenger cars, some racing cars and monopostos. Around 1960 the Wuppertal company even produced its own Formula Junior racing cars with DKW mechanics.

In the further course the company traded as "Body Drews" and maintained the departments of radiator construction , paint shop and saddlery ; later the legal form changed to a general partnership with the new company name Gerhard Drews oHG . The company's focus was increasingly on accident repairs. When the business premises in Rauental 36 in Oberbarmen became too small in the course of the 1950s, Drews relocated to a larger area in the Elberfeld district of Wuppertal, again facing the Wupper; the address was initially Hofkamp 144b , later Am Wunderbau 7 , after the property had been accessed from the rear by a new connecting road along the Wupper, which connected the Bundesallee with the Hofkamp . The company was also expanded to include a petrol station . The factory site originally belonged to the large-scale dye works Wilhelm Morgenroth GmbH , which was founded in 1841 and which was used during the bombing raid on Elberfeld on 24/25 June 1943 had been completely destroyed.

The importance of Gerhard Drews oHG dwindled from the mid-1960s: The increasing transition to self-supporting bodies , increasing demands on road safety and a greater variety of models from the established manufacturers made the construction of special bodies more difficult or in many cases uneconomical; Accident repairs were increasingly carried out by branded workshops. In the second generation, Joachim Drews and Elfie Fischer, geb. Drews, the company continued until 2001, nephew and niece of the company founder Gerhard Drews and children of his brother Werner, who worked for the company. In 1995, in its 50th year of existence, 15 people were still employed. Special features from the last few decades, especially around 1982, were new builds or reproductions of vehicles that were bodied by Drews in the 1950s and 60s .

The former Drews premises in Oberbarmen is currently (as of 2019) being used by Vorwerk & Co. KG as part of the Rauental II plant . A leisure pool was initially to be built on the former company premises in Elberfeld , but this was ultimately rejected by the Wuppertal city ​​council ; then a new Peugeot agency moved into the premises.

The Drews-VW sports cabriolet

The model was designed as a sporty 2 + 2-seater convertible with a light metal body in a pure pontoon shape. The lightweight body rested on its own tubular space frame , which was connected to the unchanged platform frame of the VW Beetle ; the body structure was similar to the patented Superleggera principle of the Italian Carrozzeria Touring in Milan and reduced the weight compared to the original model by 40 to 700  kilograms . Usually, the Cabriolet received a through dual carburetor uprated four-cylinder - Boxer engine of the VW Beetle , but also the contemporary, closely related engines were the Porsche 356 are used. A first prototype was made in 1947. Small series production started with the currency reform in 1948; the price quoted was 10,000 D-Marks (for comparison: the four-seater Beetle Cabriolet from Karmann initially cost 7,500 D-Marks, the convertible Porsche 356 12,400 D-Marks). The production of the Drews-VW was particularly time-consuming and required around 1000 working hours. In terms of price and its sporty concept, it competed with the more powerful but shorter Porsche 356 and the special convertible bodies from Dannenhauer & Stauss in Stuttgart and the Rometsch-VW Beeskow model . There are also conceptual similarities to the early WD sports cars based on VW from Denzel in Austria and the VW sports cars from the Beutler brothers in Switzerland .

More Drews passenger cars

In addition to the mass- produced Drews-VW sports cabriolet , a number of other models on different chassis were created on behalf of customers from the late 1940s.

AFM

From the late 1940s to the early 1950s, the designer and racing driver Alexander von Falkenhausen endeavored not only to market racing cars and Formula 2 racing cars that he had designed himself under the AFM brand, but also to market small-series passenger cars. In 1949, Drews designed and built for him the AFM Super 2500 in possibly up to four copies, a luxurious convertible with a chassis designed by Falkenhausen and based on his racing sports car, as well as a modified, enhanced drive unit for the Opel Kapitän . The four-seater vehicle had a pontoon body with only slightly modeled rear fenders. In 1949, the open car took part in a much-visited car parade through Wuppertal together with a Drews-VW sports cabriolet. In addition, in 1951 a coupé on the same basis as the AFM 2.5 liter was presented, the body of which had also been designed and built by Drews according to individual sources. Also from 1949 was a sporty, elegant AFM convertible with a pontoon body based on a Fiat 1100 , which was clad by Drews and took up some stylistic elements of the Drews-VW sports convertible. Ultimately, however, von Falkenhausen lacked the financial means to be able to build up series production of his own passenger cars; In particular, considerations failed to market the AFM Super 2500 model internationally, especially in Brazil . So there were only a few unique pieces and von Falkenhausen returned to BMW in 1954 , where he had worked before the Second World War. As far as is known, none of the AFM passenger cars has survived to this day.

Alfa Romeo

For the racing driver Walter Schlüter , Drews designed and built a sporty and elegant convertible based on an Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 with right-hand drive in 1951 . It is unclear whether a new post-war chassis was used or a pre-war chassis was rebuilt. The whereabouts of the vehicle is unknown.

DKW

The Drews-DKW Spyder with aluminum body based on the DKW 3 = 6 , taken in 2015

In 1956, Drews designed and built at least one DKW 3 = 6 Spyder. The open two-seater vehicle is reminiscent of the DKW-3 = 6-Monza- Coupé, but had a light metal body instead of one made of plastic. In any case, such a vehicle took part in the Rossfeld race , a hill climb in the Berchtesgaden Alps, in 1958 under the driver Hartmann . One example has survived to this day, was rebuilt by Drews around 1980 and is occasionally shown at events, for example in historical motorsport at the Rossfeld races in 2014 and 2015 and at a DKW brand meeting in Ingolstadt .

Dyna-Veritas S.

For Dyna-Veritas , Drews designed and built the sporty roadster version with two seats and a choice of 33 or 40  hp (24 or 29  kW ). According to individual sources, the model had its public premiere in October 1950 at the Paris Motor Show ; In Germany, the roadster only became a little better known in the following two years, which is why individual sources date it to 1951 or even 1952. A special feature of this roadster, which was vaguely reminiscent of the larger Jaguar XK 120 , was the windshield, which, together with the emergency cover, could be folded forward and stowed under the long hood that could be folded forward. It was probably left with a single piece because the manufacturer lacked the necessary money for series production and the company Baur Karosserie- und Fahrzeugbau in Stuttgart , which produced the convertible and coupé versions on behalf of the company, was not interested in designing a body shop Take over competitors.

ford

From 1951 Drews offered a four-seater two-window convertible with a pontoon body based on the Ford Taunus G93A with a platform frame ("Buckeltaunus"). Characteristic were the two-part windshield, the large side windows and the relatively high convertible top, which was pulled far to the doors in the rear area. Stylistically, it took up many of the features of the Drews-VW sports convertible. Several vehicles were created that differed in detail, such as the design of the vehicle front and the chrome-plated trim above the wheel cutouts; Individual specimens already show small tail fins , in line with the emerging fashion at the time . As far as is known, no complete vehicle has survived to this day; At the beginning of the 2010s, however, a body appeared as a so-called garage find.

Mercedes Benz

From around 1952, Drews offered conversions of the Mercedes-Benz 220 into two-door convertibles with four seats and a pontoon body. They dispensed with the typical Mercedes radiator grille and instead had a large oval cooling air opening with several vertical, convex, protruding chrome struts. At least three versions of the vehicle model are known, partly as a two-window, partly as a four-window convertible, i.e. with and without additional side windows behind the doors, partly with two unusual "kidney-shaped" ventilation openings on each side in the area of ​​the front fenders and doors and with different modeled wheel cutouts. As far as is known, no specimen has survived to this day.

Opel

According to a source, Drews also designed a special Opel-based body . Details on this have not been handed down.

Panhard

According to other sources, Drews also offered sporty, elegant, self-designed and built coupé and convertible bodies for the French Panhard Dyna X in the early 1950s . The demand dwindled after Panhard offered its own roadster model Junior from 1952 .

More Volkswagen

Basis of many Drews were vehicles platform under the VW Beetle, initially of repaired jeep from the VW Type 82 or Commander car from the Type 87 from war production, and later the "standard" -Käfer (type 11) and from July 1949 the model "Export" (type 11 a). As with other bodybuilders - with the exception of Karmann in Osnabrück , Hebmüller and later Westfalia-Werken in Wiedenbrück , who manufactured on behalf of the factory - the Wolfsburg-based Volkswagenwerk was at no time ready to deliver unbody chassis; Drews therefore had to procure complete vehicles (or have them provided by his clients) and use the sheet steel body parts that were not required for accident repairs or sell them on to insurance companies.

  • Flatbed truck : In the immediate post-war years, Drews produced at least one pick-up with a high loading platform and protection of the load with a tarpaulin with high bows ; A single-axle trailer could be coupled to the rear. The concept was similar to the Type 83 , which was built in small numbers by the factory during the war , but differed from it in that it had a square instead of a round rear end and additional side air slots for engine cooling. Background of the design was that owners of such commercial vehicles in the times of state coercion management fuel - rations could claim and the first VW bus as type 2 (in the form of transporter T1 ) until 1950 was available.
  • Coupé: According to individual sources, Drews also built coupés based on the VW Beetle. The idea for this went back to the end of the 1940s and the design largely corresponded to the sports convertible. In addition, a special VW coupé from 1951 with a Porsche engine and several atypical body features has survived: the front window was already one-piece and curved, the rear window, a large three-part panoramic window, was drawn around to the side; the roof pillar behind the doors had an unusual trapezoidal shape that widened towards the top . The taillights were shaped like a cambered shape, the wheel cutouts were shaped differently and the rear was more rounded and provided with more striking, American-style chrome-plated decorative elements. The design shows similarities to the Aspen Leaf 1000 from 1952 and 1953 , especially from the rear . In this form, the model probably remained a one-off; its whereabouts are unclear.
  • Four-window convertible: In contrast to the conventional sports convertible, Drews built at least one other convertible that was intended for Sweden in the mid-1950s . It had additional retractable side windows behind the doors, a one-piece, curved windshield and different, fashionable chrome trim strips in front of the rear wheel cutout (three short horizontal strips, one on top of the other and tapering towards the rear). There was no small series production, possibly because the VW Karmann-Ghia Type 14 factory model appeared shortly afterwards in 1955 .

Drews vehicles for motorsport

A Veritas Meteor racing car from 1953 according to the Formula 2 regulations; As early as 1950 Drews had built a Veritas RS racing car that was both visually and conceptually similar
  • AFM
  • DKW Formula Junior
  • Scampolo BMW
  • Veritas RS : Around 1950 Drews built at least one single-seater racing car in Wuppertal with the mechanics of a Veritas RS and distinctive slotted light alloy disc wheels in accordance with the Formula 2 regulations . It is unclear how a connection between Veritas and Drews came about; possibly it was originally an order for the competitor Hebmüller in neighboring Barmen, who had already dressed several Veritas racing cars, but had delivery problems due to the catastrophic fire in the larger Wülfrath branch in July 1949. It is also unclear who commissioned the monoposto; The entrepreneur Emil "Teddy" Vorster (1910–1976) from Rheydt comes into consideration , who had already had several racing cars built by Drews , but had given up his own racing career in mid-1949 after a serious accident.
  • Vorster-KdF Monoposto

literature

  • Bernd Wiersch: The noble beetles - special bodies from Rometsch, Dannenhauer & Stauss, Wilhelm Karmann, Enzmann, Gebr. Beutler, Ghia Aigle, Joseph Hebmüller & Sons, Drews, Wendler . Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-7688-1971-8 , pp. 194-203.
  • tm: Ford car body cutter part 20: Drews in Wuppertal , in: "Ford-Setzung", club magazine of the Ford Oldtimer and Motorsport Club Cologne eV in ADAC (fomcc) , issue 1/2010 ( online version on the web portal fomcc.de , accessed on 2 October 2019).
  • Roger Gloor: All Cars of the 1950s - 1945–1960 . 1st edition. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-613-02808-1 , pp. 48, 270 and 358 under AFM or Panhard and Veritas .
  • Marian Suman-Hreblay: Automobile Manufacturers Worldwide Registry . McFarland Books, Jefferson, North Carolina, United States, 2000, ISBN 978-0-7864-0972-3 , p. 95 (English).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Bernd Wiersch: The noble beetles - special bodies by Rometsch, Dannenhauer & Stauss, Wilhelm Karmann, Enzmann, Beutler brothers, Ghia Aigle, Joseph Hebmüller & Sons, Drews, Wendler . Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-7688-1971-8 , p. 194 f. (Section: "Drews - The Founding Story").
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Bernd Wiersch: The noble beetles - special bodies from Rometsch, Dannenhauer & Stauss, Wilhelm Karmann, Enzmann, Gebr. Beutler, Ghia Aigle, Joseph Hebmüller & Sons, Drews, Wendler . Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-7688-1971-8 , pp. 196-203 (section: “The Drews Sportcabriolets”).
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o The history of the Drews company on the web portal sv-drews.de (nephew of the company founder and automotive expert) , accessed on October 2, 2019.
  4. ↑ The by Drews designed and built Drews-VW Cabriolet Sport on the web portal coachbuild.com , accessed on 2 October 2019 (English).
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h tm: Ford Karosserieschneider Part 20: Drews in Wuppertal , in: "Ford-Setzung", club magazine of Ford Oldtimer and Motorsport Club Cologne eV in ADAC (fomcc) , issue 1/2010 ( online version on the web portal fomcc.de , accessed on October 2, 2019).
  6. ↑ a b c d e f Bernd Wiersch: The noble beetles - special bodies by Rometsch, Dannenhauer & Stauss, Wilhelm Karmann, Enzmann, Beutler brothers, Ghia Aigle, Joseph Hebmüller & Sons, Drews, Wendler . Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-7688-1971-8 , p. 203 (section: "Drews after the Volkswagen sports cabriolet").
  7. ↑ a b Bernd Wiersch: The noble beetles - special bodies by Rometsch, Dannenhauer & Stauss, Wilhelm Karmann, Enzmann, Beutler brothers, Ghia Aigle, Joseph Hebmüller & sons, Drews, Wendler . Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-7688-1971-8 , pp. 194-203.
  8. ↑ a b c d e The history of commercial enterprises in Wuppertal-Elberfeld on the web portal stadtgeschichte-wuppertal.de ( pdf, pp. 26 and 75 f. , Accessed on October 2, 2019).
  9. ↑ The AFM vehicles designed by Drews on the coachbuild.com web portal , accessed on September 24, 2019.
  10. ↑ Roger Gloor: All cars of the 50s - 1945-1960 . 1st edition. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-613-02808-1 , p. 48 under AFM .
  11. ↑ The Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 designed by Drews on the coachbuild.com web portal , accessed on September 24, 2019 (English).
  12. ↑ George Nicholas Georgano (Ed.): The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile: Coachbuilding . Routledge, New York City, New York, United States 2013, ISBN 1-57958-367-9 , keyword: Drews (English).
  13. ↑ The DKW 3 = 6 Spyder designed by Drews on the coachbuild.com web portal , accessed on September 24, 2019 (English).
  14. ↑ The Dyna-Veritas S designed by Drews on the coachbuild.com web portal , accessed on September 24, 2019 (English).
  15. ↑ Roger Gloor: All cars of the 50s - 1945-1960 . 1st edition. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-613-02808-1 , p. 358 under Veritas .
  16. ↑ The Dyna-Veritas including details on the Drews- Roadster on the web portal of the German Panhard Club (translation from Bernard Vermeylens: Panhard - ses voitures d'àpres-guerre , p. 192 ff.) , Accessed on September 25, 2019.
  17. ↑ The Ford Taunus Cabriolets designed by Drews on the coachbuild.com web portal , accessed on September 24, 2019 (English).
  18. ↑ The Mercedes-Benz 220 Cabriolets designed by Drews on the coachbuild.com web portal , accessed on September 25, 2019 (English).
  19. ↑ Roger Gloor: All cars of the 50s - 1945-1960 . 1st edition. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-613-02808-1 , p. 270 under Panhard .
  20. ↑ a b Bernd Wiersch: The noble beetles - special bodies by Rometsch, Dannenhauer & Stauss, Wilhelm Karmann, Enzmann, Beutler brothers, Ghia Aigle, Joseph Hebmüller & sons, Drews, Wendler . Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-7688-1971-8 , p. 195 f. (Section: "Drews and the Volkswagen").
  21. ↑ a b The VW special models “Flatbed Truck”, “Coupé” and “ Four-Window Cabriolet” designed by Drews on the coachbuild.com web portal , accessed on October 2, 2019 (English).