Topic: Eigenbau of the month

[grobmotorix]

Nice finds!

[Allemano]

Eigenbau of the month: November 2020

No faded pictures of unknown home-built cars this month, but recent pictures of an Eigenbau with a known builder. The car has even puzzled here before. So you may ask why feature it in this thread? Well, I was pleased to see that a car that had disappeared from view for many decades was unearthed and advertised for sale. The lucky survivor is the NSU Prinz 1000-based coupe built by Gerhard Leun, a coachbuilder from Gießen. So far I just knew the two pictures of it in our puzzle thread: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2015-44/gerhard-leun-s-nsu-one-off-sportscar-19651973, one from a NSU book and the other from a 1973 magazine ad. The Leun coupe has a fiberglass body, was built over the period of 18 months and the final costs amounted to 40,000 DM. You could buy a brand new Porsche 911 plus a Mercedes-Benz 250 SE for that back then. Initially the Leun NSU had the stock Prinz 1000 engine fitted, but later on it received a Spiess engine delivering at least 75 hp and rocketing the car to 200 kph instead of 150 kph with the works engine.

Just curious if the "Kirchler" NSU Eigenbau has survived, too

[Wendax]

Eigenbau of the month: February 2021

A few days ago I came across some pictures showing a small workshop, its owner and a three-wheeled car under construction. The technician who ran this workshop was Hans Schertz. His company was located in Woltersdorf Schönblick, a municipality in the Eastern vicinity of Berlin, and seems to have existed from 1926 to 1932. Going by one of the pictures, the main business was bicycle and motorcycle repair. But the one picture that took my interest shows a car with a single rear wheel. The body consists just of a few steel tubes defining the outer shape. A single-cylinder engine sat between the front wheels. No way to tell whether it was thought to drive the front wire wheels or the wood spoke (!) rear wheel. I wonder if it ever was finished.

[Wendax]

Eigenbau of the month: March 2021

When you hear of Avus and Nordschleife you certainly might imagine sleek Silver Arrows speeding on the banking. You can hear the mighty 8-, 12- or 16-cylinder engines roar past you. Well, you might have to take a step back for this month's featured Eigenbau. Although the magic words AVUS and NORDSCHLEIFE (together with a third one I can't decipher) were written on it, the engine roar might turn out to be a two-stroke rattle and the sleekness of the bodywork is manifested in the radiator grill probably borrowed from another car. Here we are in postwar Berlin, the registration KB standing for Kommandantura Berlin. The back side of the picture tells us that the photo was taken in 1951 and that the car belonged to a guy named Wolf. He must have had a sense of humour painting the magic words on his partly weather-protected tricycle.

[Wendax]

Update on the Eigenbau of the month September 2016

Yesterday I got in contact with Oliver Balthun who has some more pictures of the Eigenbau-Mercedes from Eastern Germany featured in September 2016 (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg414318/#msg414318). In his opinion the car might have been built in Görlitz, either by Waggonbau Görlitz or by the Schwarze company known for their Wartburg-Mercedes hybrids (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2011-39/gg-52-wartburg-mercedes-170v/).

Furthermore I noticed that the Eigenbau-Fiat featured in March 2017 (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg428892/#msg428892) not only has a numerically close registration number but also bears stylistic similarities (headlights, flashers, etc) so that it might have been built by the same person(s).

November 2024: The coachwork was probably done by Fiedler of Neugersdorf (see https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg642680/#msg642680)

Anyway here are some more views of the Mercedes-Benz:

[Wendax]

Eigenbau of the month: April 2021

Our featured car today is a nice little roadster with pleasing lines. And that's where I thought that the rather simple doorless and windowless body doesn't exactly match the elegant front part of the car. It puzzled me for a while, but finally I recognized the base car, a rarety by itself. Our unknown Eigenbau creator turned a Hercules Motorradwagen which had survived the Second World War into a summer fun car. When you take a look at the original Hercules (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2011-39/hercules-motorradwagen-200ccm-ca-1935/msg498580/#msg498580) it becomes obvious. The license plate is from postwar Berlin and probably a preliminary one.

[Wendax]

Eigenbau of the month: May 2021

This time I'll present to you a kind of academic Eigenbau. The bodywork is somewhere between a beach buggy and a hunting car. It was built at the Meisterschule für Handwerker in Kaiserslautern and surely was the masterpiece for a team of coachbuilders. It is based on a Volkswagen 1500 or 1600 Typ 3 Variant. This Kaiserslautern car, so far unknown to me, was recently for sale. I hope somebody will find the energy to restore this unique piece of design.

[Wendax]

Eigenbau of the month: June 2021

Stepping back in time a few decades this month I present to you a car where I'm not sure whether it was an Eigenbau or the work of a local coachbuilder. But surely it was an early post-WW2 one-off. Based on a prewar Mercedes-Benz it carries a quite classic roadster body not unequal to the one fitted to the derelict Maybach Zeppelin chassis from Denmark we've seen on this site before: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2012-41/maybach-zeppelin-ds8-roadster-wreck-(1938)/msg226598/#msg226598. But our coachbuilder combined it with a postwar grille denying the Mercedes-Benz roots. The front end treatment leads the way to the pontoon body design of the years to come and reminds me of some late 1940s Wendler designs, although less elegant. The picture was taken in Berlin some time before 1956. It blends quite well with the residential building in the background which survived the war without major damage.

[Wendax]

Eigenbau of the month: July 2021

A classic roadster with a huge chrome radiator, exhaust pipes like a supercharged Mercedes-Benz, double spare tyres at the rear, large shiny wheels, a low windscreen and a two-tone paint scheme emphasizing the flowing body lines. If that is your personal idea of a classic car, this month's Eigenbau is the one for you. Most of all it comes in combination with an economic mid-engined chassis! Well, it is hard to understand why this Hanomag 2/10 PS "Kommißbrot" conversion remained a one-off. 
At least it has a lot more style than most VW-based Bugatti, Bentley or Mercedes-Benz replicas of the 1970s and 1980s. Hard to tell when this Hanomag was converted, but I'd guess sometime in the late 1950s, early 1960s.

Addition June 2023:
My guess was wrong! This terrific little roadster was built in 1927 by Otto Wächter, a craftsman trained at Ruppe & Sohn in Apolda, the builders of Apollo cars. He not only built this aluminium body, but also transferred the original radiator to the front and added a water pump for better cooling. Below attached is a picture of Otto Wächter with his Hanomag in 1925, so before the conversion.

[pnegyesi]

very cool

[sichel]

This is a perfect tuned "Kommissbrot" 

[Wendax]

Eigenbau of the month: August 2021

Today we are following last month's theme and turn the looks of a car towards a classic appearance once again. Do you remember the neoclassic conversion of a Mercedes-Benz 600 by Rainer Buchmann for a Saudi king in the 1980's? It must have left a deep impact on the owner of a Mercedes-Benz 250 SE Coupé in France. Unfortunately the result was not just of doubtful taste as the Buchmann car, but our customizer also lacked the skills and the talents of the Buchmann company. But compare for yourself. 

[sichel]

Where did you get the pictures of my cleaner's car?

[Wendax]

Eigenbau of the month: September 2021

Over the years I have collected some pictures of East German VW Typ 2 copies (and lost some of the most interesting ones when my then brand new laptop had to be reinitialized after denial of work  ). These vehicles, mostly minibuses, were based on leftover Kübelwagen chassis. Most of them were built by coachbuilders, we've had some before:
https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2014-43/solved-wendax-999-volkswagen-bus-on-kubelwagen-chassis-(probably)-by-deckwerth/
https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2013-42/solved-tgf-277-fleischer-minibus-on-vw-kubelwagen-base-1948/
https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2019-49/wendax-2875/
But some were private Eigenbau buses. A few days ago I stumbled across one that is especially nice, because it tries to copy the impression of being a VW bus without really pretending to be one. Its builder probably knew his personal skill limitations quite well, but that makes it look even more authentic. The picture was taken in Erfurt, capital of Thuringia, a nice city I visited this summer. Even most of the pictured buildings are still in place, looking much better than in the 1950's when the picture was probably taken.

[Allemano]

Eigenbau of the month: September 2021

Over the years I have collected some pictures of East German VW Typ 2 copies (and lost some of the most interesting ones when my then brand new laptop had to be reinitialized after denial of work  ). These vehicles, mostly minibuses, were based on leftover Kübelwagen chassis. Most of them were built by coachbuilders, we've had some before:
https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2014-43/solved-wendax-999-volkswagen-bus-on-kubelwagen-chassis-(probably)-by-deckwerth/
https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2013-42/solved-tgf-277-fleischer-minibus-on-vw-kubelwagen-base-1948/
https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2019-49/wendax-2875/
But some were private Eigenbau buses. A few days ago I stumbled across one that is especially nice, because it tries to copy the impression of being a VW bus without really pretending to be one. Its builder probably knew his personal skill limitations quite well, but that makes it look even more authentic. The picture was taken in Erfurt, capital of Thuringia, a nice city I visited this summer. Even most of the pictured buildings are still in place, looking much better than in the 1950's when the picture was probably taken.

It looks like a very large paper model!

[Wendax]

Indeed! 

[Wendax]

Eigenbau of the month: October 2021

Today I want to show you an Eigenbau that was photographed during construction. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the completed car. I don't even know whether it was ever finished. The car was built in postwar Austria and it looks as if its builder knew what he was doing.

[Wendax]

Eigenbau of the month: November 2021

This month's Eigenbau is more of a modification, but it comes with a nice series of photographs. We can see a Fiat 500 A Topolino with a nicely altered rear end to provide larger luggage space an. A full-length chrome strip connects the new rear end with the rest of the car. New bumpers add a modern horizontal touch. The headlights were placed lower reducing the mouse-like impression of the front view. Picture 3 even shows a two-tone paint giving the car a different appearance, too. The registration number is from Eastern Germany and was issued in the Leipzig district in Saxony.

[Wendax]

A side view added for the Eigenbau of the month June 2018:
https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg462526/#msg462526

[Wendax]

Eigenbau of the month: December 2021

Attracting the ladies' attention! One of the best known motives for driving a sports car has been obviously working with this Eigenbau. I hardly know anything about this cute three-wheeled roadster. Looking at the rear wheels it might have been built on a late Goliath F 200 or a Borgward FW 400 chassis, but the wheels might have come from another car as well. The women's clothing makes me think that the picture was taken in the first half of the 1950's, probably somewhere in Germany.

Certainly the little boy in the second picture, leaning onto a stock Goliath would have preferred the sports car, too. 

[Wendax]

Eigenbau of the month: January 2022

Half a year ago I showed you a Hanomag 2/10 PS turned into a supercharged sports car, at least by the looks. Today we move on about 30 years finding ourselves in the late 1950's. This month's featured Eigenbau is also an upgraded microcar, a Goggomobil sedan converted to look like the very fashionable Ford Taunus 17M P2, Germany's ultimate adaption of American Chrome and Fins styling of the late 1950's. Nowadays you might call it "hip" and that's what the license plate on our Goggomobil says. But that is not a marketing gag, but just the code for the Hilpoltstein district in Bavaria. The conversion looks professionally made like an upmarket version of the Goggomobil, but its design was outdated quite soon just like the Ford Taunus 17M P2 which was already succeeded in 1960 by the Linie der Vernunft design (line of reason) of the P3 model.

At first I thought I had a front and a rear view of the same car, but I was wrong. The builder of this Goggomobil must have built two of them, similar but different. While HIP-J 620 is a miniaturized Ford Taunus 17M, the other car HIP-J 31 just follows the general style of its time with headlights and rear lights at the top of the fins and a low set horizontal grill. It was the identical side chrome strip and color scheme which made me think of only one car at first, but I found a front picture of HIP-J 31 in one of Thyssen-Bornemissza's books which makes the difference apparent.

[Wendax]

Eigenbau of the month: February 2022

Today's eigenbau is one of the numerous attempts to rebody VW Kübelwagen chassis in postwar Austria. Apart from rebodied Jeeps these seem to have been the most popular conversions of used automobiles back then. They were done by individuals or small bodyshops. Quite a few pictures of them have survived, because the registration papers required a photo of the registered vehicle. This month brings us a woody-style station wagon from Vienna built in 1951 whose front end follows the looks of a VW Beetle. It lacks the elegance of the better-known Kohlruss creations (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2013-42/solved-wendax-960-volkswagen-woody-by-kohlruss/msg286261/#msg286261) or the professional finish of a Wendler bodywork (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2012-41/solved-neh-1810-wendler-holz-kafer/msg416386/#msg416386), but it would have made a perfect pair with our featured VW bus from Erfurt (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg562051/#msg562051), don't you think?

[pnegyesi]

And a similar one from Austria: https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/new-board/pn-1498/

[Wendax]

Right, I had forgotten about the Schuh woody. 

[Wendax]

Eigenbau of the month: March 2022

The attentive visitor of this site might remember this month's Eigenbau. It was already part of my Enigma Variations (Postwar edition), opus 3, as car #6. I saw a second picture of the car just a few days ago, so I decided to feature the car right here. I tried to eliminate an ugly watermark, I hope I didn't fail. The car is based on a prewar BMW six-cylinder chassis and has a pontoon body formally not too far away from the Eigenbau of the month April 2018 (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/features-stories-and-photos/eigenbau-of-the-month/msg459288/#msg459288). it just looks more adult due to its much bigger base. The convertible was registered in Eastern Germany in the Frankfurt (Oder) district, just like its smaller counterpart. The registration fits in with the photo shop's stamp at the backside of the picture from Fürstenberg (Oder), a town that was merged with Stalinstadt to become Eisenhüttenstadt. The car is bodied as a sports car with a quite low beltline. The bulge in the front hood is characteristic for so many bodies on prewar BMW six-cylinder chassis. The newly found picture shows a winter cover on the front grille. I like the little search light on the A-pillar.