Westfalia Mobil

Westfalen Mobil GmbH
legal form	GmbH
founding	October 1, 1844
Seat	Rheda-Wiedenbrück , Germany;
management	Pierre Rousseau,; Mike Reuer, managing director;
Number of employees	220 (August 2012)
Branch	vehicle construction
Website	www.westfalia-mobil.net

The articles Westfalia Mobil and Westfalia-Automotive overlap thematically. Help me to better differentiate or merge the articles (→ instructions ) . To do this, take part in the relevant redundancy discussion . Please remove this module only after the redundancy has been completely processed and do not forget to include the relevant entry on the redundancy discussion page{{ Done | 1 = ~~~~}}to mark. Aeggy ( discussion ) 8:01 am, Apr 29, 2015 (CEST)

"Wolfsburg" trailer 1949

Camping box 1950

Exhibition trolley

VW Bus T2 Westfalia built in 1978 on the Ligurian border ridge road northwest of Upega

James Cook

Westfalen Mobil GmbH is a vehicle manufacturing company in the East Westphalian town of Rheda-Wiedenbrück . Since November 2010 it has belonged to the French Rapido Group , a strategic investor. Until then, the company operated under the name Westfalia Van Conversion GmbH for a long time . Westfalia mainly manufactures motorhomes and had great success in the 20th century with products such as the Joker and James Cook .

history

On October 1, 1844, Johann Bernhard Knöbel opened a blacksmith's shop in which horse-drawn carriages were built. The construction of the train station of the Köln-Mindener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft and the completion of the railway line a few years later gave him hope that there would be an increased demand for such vehicles. As usual, horses were also shod in the forge. Later carriages were built and cars were imported. In 1887 Wilhelm Knöbel took over the business as the oldest son. His brother Franz got the paint shop and the upholstery. This partnership lasted until 1917, when the brothers separated. Wilhelm called his new company WEKA-Fahrzeugbau and Franz founded the Westfalia company.

In 1927 Westfalia offered an open box trailer for passenger cars for the first time, thus opening a product line that was of great importance for the rise of the company. The further development of this line also included the ball-head trailer coupling developed in 1932 and introduced worldwide .

Field kitchens, truck bodies, trailers and mobile homes were also manufactured in the production halls until 1950. This year marks the beginning of a long-term collaboration with Volkswagen . The first result of this collaboration was the "Camping Box", a box for the VW T1 that made it suitable for holidays. From 1952 there was also an awning . In the years up to 1958 the comfort of the box was steadily improved until it was finally replaced by VW buses that were completely converted into mobile homes . In 1959 the 1000th VW conversion was celebrated. The production numbers rose with the steady growth of German prosperity:

year	Number of vehicles (total)
1961	030,000
1969	050,000
1975	150,000
1977	175,000
1978	200,000

Well-known models of this time were the James Cook and the Sven Hedin . In another production line Westfalia presented from 1952 to 1979 also cabs of the Mercedes-Benz Unimog 401 / 411 ago.

joker

Nugget

Westfalia Marco Polo (2013)

The success story of the Joker began in 1978 . 70,000 of his vehicles were sold by 1987. For many campers , it became a “multi-vehicle” that they also used to go shopping or to work. In this way it was possible to dispense with an additional car and for many households the purchase became financially justifiable in the first place. Later models were the Nugget , the VW-California , the Vito Marco Polo, the Vito F and the partially integrated motorhome based on Ford Transit , the Westvan.

Decline, new beginnings and bankruptcy

Former trademark

Disagreements in the Knöbel family that owned the company almost bankrupted the company in 1994. The bankruptcy announced by the company's management led to violent protests among the workforce. On banners on the A2 motorway , she demanded the “dismissal” of the family shareholders. At that time, Westfalia was the market leader for trailer hitches in Germany and the workforce was convinced of the future of this product and the jobs it offered. There were three managers from the East Westphalia region (Gunther Berg, Werner Gehring and Mark Wössner ) who bought the company with their private money. The former family owners were compensated by pension payments . The three business areas of the company were transformed into independent legal entities:

Westfalia Trailer Group GmbH
Westfalia Van Conversion GmbH
Westfalia-Automotive GmbH & Co. KG.

In 1999 the economic situation had stabilized to such an extent that a resale of the newly formed companies could be considered. The Westfalia Van Conversion GmbH went initially to 49% in the possession of Daimler Chrysler over and 2,001 years to 100%. A planned relocation of production to Düsseldorf , which originally would have meant a total loss of the approx. 250 jobs in Rheda-Wiedenbrück, was prevented by a site security agreement between the works council and management that was concluded at the beginning of 2006 . Six million euros should be invested in the location. In October 2007, Westfalia Van Conversion was sold by Daimler to Aurelius AG , a Munich-based industrial holding company. Westfalia has had sole distribution rights for the Sprinter James Cook since 2009. With the exception of the Mercedes-Benz Marco Polo , the motorhomes produced are marketed through a dedicated dealer network.

The American-British investment company Granville Baird Capital Partners entered the profitable business of Westfalia Automotive with trailer hitches with an 85% share . The remaining 15% of the capital was taken over by the new five-person management (2 managing directors and 3 authorized signatories) with the support of the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW). This financing was based on the leveraged buy-out scheme (40% equity and 60% debt). Granville Baird's investment volume in 2000 alone was EUR 11.7 million. With 385 employees, sales of 110 million euros were achieved. The orientation of the investments was aimed at increased exports in order to increase the previously low export share of 10% of production.

After the company was renamed CVC-Camping Van Conversion in January 2010, it filed for bankruptcy on January 27, 2010 . In November 2010 the French Rapido Group bought CVC Camping Van Conversion GmbH . After the takeover, the company was renamed Westfalia Mobil GmbH and has been operating successfully again since then. Since February 16, 2015 the company has been called Westfal en Mobil GmbH. Westfalia Mobil GmbH has been operating a plant in Gotha as a sister company of Westfalen Mobil GmbH since mid-2017 .

vehicles

Westfalia currently offers the following camping vehicles:

Amundsen and Columbus based on the Fiat Ducato
Club Joker and Club Joker City based on the Volkswagen Transporter T6
Jules Verne based on the Mercedes-Benz Vito and Kepler based on the Volkswagen Transporter T6
Marco Polo and Marco Polo Activity based on the Mercedes-Benz V-Class
Westfalia Business Edition , Euroline and Nugget based on the Ford Transit Custom