Frank Reisner
Frank Reisner (born February 15, 1932 in Gyula , Hungary , as Ferenc Alfred Reisner ; † October 2001 ) was an automobile designer active in Italy and the USA . He was the founder and owner of the automobile manufacturer Costruzione Automobili Intermeccanica .
Life
In January 1949 Reisner emigrated to Paris with his family . Three quarters of a year later, the family moved to Canada and finally settled in Montreal in 1950 . Here Reisner completed an engineering apprenticeship and later worked in an automobile paint shop. In 1958 he married Paula Frei, a native Czech, with whom he later had three children named Henry, Edward and Evelyn. In 1959 Reisner went to Italy with her . There he initially worked at Giannini Automobili SpA in Rome before moving to Turin, where he founded Costruzione Automobili Intermeccanica SpA . Different sports cars were built here based on the hybrid concept: Reisner's Intermeccanica models combined European-style bodies with drive technology from American large-scale production. Reisner mostly worked with the former Bertone designer Franco Scaglione , who designed most of the company's bodies and also held shares in Intermeccanica. At times there was also a business relationship with Erich Bitter , who sold Reisner's cars in Germany and took their conception as the basis for his own Bitter CD .
In 1975 the company ran into economic difficulties and relocated its headquarters to San Bernardino in California with financial support . Here he started the successful production of replicas of the Porsche Speedster , in cooperation with Tony Baumgartner from Santa Ana . In 1982 he moved the company headquarters to Vancouver, Canada . Today his eldest son Henry runs the company.
Reisner died in 2001.
literature
Andrew McCredie, Paula Reisner: Intermeccanica: The Story of the Prancing Bull , Veloce Publishing Ltd, 2010, ISBN 9781845842499
Web links
- The Story of a DeTomaso Competitor: the Tenacious Frank Reisner ( Memento from October 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (English).
Individual evidence
- Jump up ↑ Andrew McCredie, Paula Reisner: Intermeccanica: The Story of the Prancing Bull , Veloce Publishing Ltd, 2010, ISBN 9781845842499 , p. 9.
- ↑ Andrew McCredie, Paula Reisner: Intermeccanica: The Story of the Prancing Bull , Veloce Publishing Ltd, 2010, ISBN 9781845842499 , p. 10.
- ↑ History of the Intermeccanica company on the website http: intermeccanica.com (accessed on May 23, 2015).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Reisner, Frank |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Reisner, Ferenc Alfred |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Hungarian automobile manufacturer and founder of Intermeccanica |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 15, 1932 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Gyula , Hungary |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 2001 |