Johannes Beeskow

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Johannes Beeskow (born May 21, 1911 in Berlin ; † June 14, 2005 in Bad Neuenahr ) was a German coachbuilder .

Years of apprenticeship and work at Neuss

Karl Trutz , owner of the coachwork company Wagenfabrik Jos, founded in 1857 . Neuss in Berlin-Halensee , employed Beeskow as an apprentice in 1925. Beeskow also attended evening classes at the Berlin bodywork training institute for five semesters. The journeyman's piece, for which he also received the State Prize from the Chamber of Commerce, was a 10/40 hp Opel with a four-seater convertible body.

He now worked as a mold designer in the design office at Neuss. In addition to the sporty body for a Bugatti , the Maybach 12 for Werner von Siemens and an Austro-Daimler ADR convertible, there were many other one-offs.

Head of Construction at Erdmann & Rossi

As early as 1932, Beeskow had been working as a freelancer, such as a two-seater Steyr convertible for the luxury body builder Erdmann & Rossi , then in 1933 Erdmann & Rossi took over Neuss, Erdmann boss Friedrich Peters made Beeskow head of construction and left him with hundreds of special bodies in a wide range design, from conservative Pullman limousines to elegant touring convertibles and sports cars. Peters and Beeskow also shared a weakness for streamlined vehicles. In the same year 1933, Beeskow caused a stir at the trade fair known at the time as the International Automobile and Motorcycle Exhibition with an aerodynamic conversion of a Mercedes-Benz 170 model , also in an idiosyncratic color combination of gold metallic with moss green seats . Encouragement and violent rejection were balanced, Mercedes forced Erdmann to remove the star from the radiator and create a replacement logo. Business ran brilliantly until 1939, but the war meant the end of the luxury conversions and Erdmann and Rossi could not get back on their feet after 1945 after the destruction of the factory premises, the island location of the city and the difficult economic situation, so that Beeskow emigrated.

Post-war period until 1956

Rometsch convertible from 1956, model "Beeskow" Hollywood Car

In 1949 Beeskow worked for Karl Deutsch GmbH in Cologne on a convertible based on the Buckel-Taunus .

Then he returned to the Spree to Fritz Rometsch , whom he knew from his time at Erdmann & Rossi, both companies were based in Halensee. It was there that Beeskow achieved his greatest success: a sports coupé and a convertible based on the Beetle chassis. This vehicle production came about by chance when Rometsch's newly hired master body builder Beeskow showed old Rometsch sketches of a new car he had designed in 1949. The senior boss was so enthusiastic about these designs that he ordered the production of this vehicle in his company: Rometsch Modell Beeskow Cabriolet. In 1954 and 1955 this car received the "Grand Premier Prix" at the Geneva Motor Show.

The Berliners lovingly christened the vehicle Banana. In addition to Victor de Kowa , Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn also owned one of the 585 vehicles (Rometsch years 1950–1961, coupés and convertibles, including the successor model "Rometsch Lawrence") made of aluminum.

At the 1951 Berlin Motor Show, which is counted as the 35th IAA, his employer Rometsch presented the Goliath 1100 as a coupé and a convertible made of aluminum.

In 1953 Beeskow moved back to the Rhine to German in Cologne, where, in addition to the convertible and coupé variants of the Borgward Isabella, he also designed some convertibles based on Ford 12m and 15m .

At Karmann

In 1956 Beeskow moved to Karmann in Osnabrück , where he took over technical development. In the years of his activity there were developed resp. Manufactured under contract: VW Karmann-Ghia (further development), BMW-Coupés (production) and the Opel Diplomat V8 Coupé (development and production). In 1976, after 51 busy years as a body designer, his professional career ended.

literature

  • Rupert Stuhlemmer: Coachwork of Erdmann and Rossi . Dalton Watson, 1979, ISBN 0-901564-16-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Volker Schindler, Immo Sievers: Research for the car of tomorrow. Springer Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-540-74150-3 , pp. 73ff.
  2. ^ Rupert Stuhlemmer: Coachwork of Erdmann and Rossi. Dalton Watson, 1979, ISBN 0-901564-16-8 , p. 27.
  3. ↑ Car dreams of the 50s. ( Memento from October 23, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Beeskow, Johannes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German coachbuilder
DATE OF BIRTH May 21, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH June 14, 2005
Place of death Bad Neuenahr