VW History

"To each its own" and to the gentleman you are about to know, upholstery is the name of the game. I am referring to Lumen Cruz, a native of the patriotic and mountainous town of Lares, home of so many epic stories. Lumen has dedicated his life to his passion, upholstery in general, but as his craft became known, his name is equivalent to quality and professionalism.

Every single car that needed upholstery redone from Dr. Norman's collection, has passed through Lumen's able hands, every convertible that needed a new top; every liner that needed up-grading, any car whose carpet was worn or damaged, they have all received the wonderful touch of Lumen's hands.

Actually, sometimes the museum has so much work for the master, that Lumen keeps a mobile workshop at the museum premises. The truck is equipped with the same machinery and tools as he keeps at his shop in Lares, it even is air-conditioned.

His success is not only because of his talent and attention to details, but also because he cuts no corners, using only the best materials, obtaining factory products for all his VW restorations. Lumen does things right! That in itself is an assurance to any car collector looking for someone to service his vehicle.

Although Lumen specializes in Volkswagen cars, he is a master in any European brand and just as comfortable will perform a master's job on a domestic classic, a motorcycle or a boat.

Lumen keeps his main shop in the mountain town of Lares, home of the patriots, located on Barrio Espino, on Road 124, Kilometer 17.7. Interested parties may reach him either by email at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , or by phone at (787) 632-3627.

Normally he has a pretty heavy workload, so if you are interested in Lumen working in your car, call and make a request for an appointment.

It is said that father is not always the person that performed the act of procreation. It is also said that father is the person that is there for you during your upbringing, present and caring during the most important stages of your life, it is he who has helped you grow and led by example.

Using that definition, and not taking away anything from the merit of Dr. Ferdinand Porsche for his work on the early development of the Volkswagen concept, there can be no doubt that the most important person in the life of the celebrated German Beetle was Heinz Heinrich Nordhoff, the German engineer famous for his leadership of the Volkswagen company as it was rebuilt after World War II.

Nordhoff (1899 - 1968), attended technical college in Berlin, where he became a member of the Roman-Catholic fraternity Askania-Burgundia and in 1927 began work for BMW, working on aircraft engines. Following his involvement with BMW, he went to work for Opel, where he gained experience of the automotive industry.

When war erupted Nordhoff held a seat on Opel's board, handling mainly finance matters. The Third Reich grabbed control of Opel in 1942 and assigned Nordhoff to run its primary truck plant in Brandenburg, outside of Berlin, which became Soviet territory after the War.

Following the War, Nordhoff ran west to operate a garage within the post war British zone of occupation. The area included Wolfsburg, under the administration of Major Ivan Hirst, the British officer tasked with reviving that area's civilian economy.

Technically, nobody had legal claim to the ownership of Volkswagen since the Third Reich abdicated. In 1948, Hirst and his superiors appointed Nordhoff as managing director of Volkswagen, in charge of its remaining assets that had not been bombarded to pieces by the Allied Forces.

Nordhoff became legendary for turning the Volkswagen Beetle into a worldwide automotive phenomenon. He pioneered the idea of constant improvement - improving the car's underpinning while keeping the styling the same. He gave liberal benefits to VW workers and increased pay scales. Within six years after taking over Volkswagen, Nordhoff reduced the number of man-hours to produce a single car from 400 to 100, a 75% reduction. His commitment to improving the workmanship at VW made the Beetle famous for its bulletproof reliability.

Nordhoff was involved in many initiatives, from building the city of Wolfsburg to financing the first run of Beetles after Germany's monetary reform in the summer of 1948. He called dealers to Wolfsburg and told them to bring every deutsche mark they could with them. By he end of 1948 he had 15,000 domestic orders and 7,000 export orders.

Nordhoff increased production from 19,244 units in 1948 to half a million by 1958. He was helped by the German economic boom, the Wirstchaftwunder. But Nordhoff could only achieve what he did through vision and skills, including the American production idea he learned at General Motors.

Volkswagen flourished with the Beetle. Nordhoff later added variants of the Beetle platform, such as the VW Minibus and the Karmann Ghia coupe and convertible.

Though he realized that professor Porsche's concept - with rear mounted, air-cooled engine- was becoming outdated, Nordhoff did not allow new developments. He died suddenly on April 12, 1968, following an earlier heart attack in January that year. By that time, annual production had reached 1.7 million units.

More than 60 years later, it is still common to award the credit for Volkswagen to Ferdinand Porsche, and that is accurate as long as the accolades are limited to his supervising the creation of the early KdF-Wagen prior to World War II. Granted Nordhoff benefited from the extensive testing and design proven prior to the start of the war.

From that moment on, Nordhoff never looked back. With a single, very simple platform, Nordhoff engineered the entry of Volkswagen into the booming United States market less than five years after the war ended. He retained marketing genius David Ogilvy to create a global campaign for the Beetle, still considered among the most effective auto advertising ever created. He took Volkswagen outside Germany by building a Brazilian factory in 1953 and later a Mexican plant in Puebla, Mexico in 1954. Nordhoff actively considered an assembly plant location in New Jersey.

Nordhoff passed away in 1968 after suffering a heart attack, while still presiding Volkswagen. Part of his legacy was a close agreement with Porsche to do the engineering work on Beetle's the inevitable successor, a corporate relationship that holds to this day.

Except for Henry Ford and the Model T, no person has ever been more closely associated with the success of a single car model than Heinz Nordhoff is with the Volkswagen Beetle. Heinz Nordhoff was quoted for saying: : "Offering people an honest value appealed to me more than being driven around by a bunch of hysterical stylists trying to sell people something they don't really want to have."

The more than 21 million Beetles that have been produced are all a tribute to Heinz Nordhoff.

During the Second World War, Ferdinand "Ferry" Porsche and a handful of faithful employee started work on development number 356 in their workshops in the town of Gmünd in Kärnten, Austria. The first design drawings were completed in July 17, 1947.

Nearly a year later, on June 8, 1948, the Kärnten state government issued a special permit homologating the prototype. Returning home after being held prisoner by the French as a prisoner of war, Professor Ferdinand Porsche, Ferry's father, saw the new car and immediately stated that "every single bolt was just right".

The prototype 356 was then followed by a small series of 52 additional cars built in Gmünd. Further production in Stuttgart from 1950 to 1965 amounted to 78,000 units of the 356 model. The first 356's featured an engine with just 1,131cc displacement and only 35hp, almost necessitating that the first few 356's be as light as possible. The bodies, therefore, were crafted from light alloy.

The early 1950's were good times for the family-owned company; aside from relocating business back to a revitalized Stuttgart, they soon found that demand for the 356 far exceeded their expectations. The car was simple in design and relatively straightforward to produce.

The chassis was boxed, pressed steel assembly in unit with the floorpan, and with the engine slung low at the back. The interior was relatively basic but offered plenty of usable space and good visibility. Final assembly of the bodywork was entrusted to Reutter. Performance was initially modest - but entertaining-and the handling characteristics were easy to cope with.

In the summer of 1951, the company reached a milestone 1,000^th. car in Germany. As the 1950s unfolded, Porsche triumphed in grueling road-race events, with cars entered in all of the important rallies of the day, the Mille Miglia, Alpine, Berne and Campione events.

This early production split window "interim bumper" example of a 356 (pre-A) coupe received a high quality restoration several years ago. The car was originally sold at the Park Avenue dealership owned by Max Hoffman. It was bought by an unknown owner who kept it until 1964, when it was sold to a New York City auto dealer. The car was restored in a Lime Rock, Connecticut, barn until it was discovered in 1989 by Porsche restorer Craig Stevenson. The vehicle was found complete, though partially disassembled.

The car currently sports a 1500cc engine. The panel work is very straight, with good shut lines to the doors, engine lid, and front boot, while attractive green finish exhibits care and quality of workmanship.

Inside, contrasting green upholstery can be found on the folding front seats, as well as on the matching door trim and door pockets, while correct square-weave carpeting covers the remaining surfaces. The dash layout includes clear gauges and an original and rare Telefunken period radio. The engine compartment is as tidy as the rest of the car and has had just a nominal amount of running since it was last overhauled.

The early 356s are an acquired taste, but they have a strong and rabid following. Because of its VW heritage, this car will drive a lot like an old Beetle, but a little faster, with better braking and handling, due to a lower center of gravity.

Many feel that the split window shape of the early 356 is the purest and most beautiful of all. Those early coupes had the lowest coefficient of drag of any 356 ever built. As time went on, differences in headlight and bumper heights and other requirements made obtaining those cd numbers impossible.

Prior to World War II, coachbuilt automobiles were primarily built for the rich and famous. These special, even one off vehicles helped promote the status of the aristocracy, the rich industrialists, the actors and even Royalty. Companies such as Horch, Bentley, Bugatti, Maybach, Rolls-Royce and Cadillac all offered special vehicles using bodies created by German coachbuilding firms. These German coachbuilders were well established in the late thirties and early forties, receiving some minor competition from other coachbuilders such as the French Talbot Lagos, the Delahayes and the Voisons.

This supremacy came to a halt during and after World War II, as the production of automobiles was basically controlled by the occupying forces. Only a handful of companies were given the necessary permits to produce new cars, therefore putting the coachbuilding business on a hold. At the time labor was cheap, and people eager to work, but raw materials were difficult to obtain. Many companies that before the war had specialized in building large luxurious cars were now facing hard economic times and were searching to obtain orders and commissions to build them. Those companies that could not adapt to the market changes that the post war brought would find their products obsolete. Basically the market had switched from a need for expensive coachbuilt Mercedes, Daimlers, Maybachs or Horchs, to a market in the need for smaller, sportier and more economical cars.

Friedrich Rometsch had been involved in the coachbuilding business in Berlin since 1924. His firm supplied taxi bodies for various German manufacturers including Opel and Ley. World War II put a hold on the taxi business and his company was forced to build mobile field kitchens for the German Army. Rometsch picked up were he left after the war and returned to his coachbuilding business.

Johannes Beeskow, a native of Berlin, began his coachbuilding career in 1925, at the early age of 14, working for Coachbuilder Josef Neuss. His spare time was spent at the Citizens of Berlin Institute od Coachbuilding school. Working during the day and studying by night, Beeskow went on to design many of the large coachbuilt cars for Rolls-Royce, Horch, Bentley and Maybach for Neuss during the late thirties and early forties. At some point in this time frame, Neuss retired and Beeskow continued to design cars for Erdman and Rossi, who took over the Neuss operation.

Again, after the war, the whole market changed, wherein gasoline rationing and foreign occupation stymied automotive sales. Only commercial vehicles could get gas, but this was a very small market for the coachbuilding firms. It is said by historians of the time, that there were large luxury built Maybach converted to trucks, having their rear ends cut, and flat beds installed behind the front seats, so that the owners could obtain a rationing allowance that would allow them to use their cars. There simply was no market for new coachbuilts, forcing Erdman and Rossi to close business, sending Beeskow to search for a new job.

As fate would have it, in 1949, Beeskow would approach Friedrich Rometsch and convince him to build a production car series of coachbuilt cars based on the Volkswagen chassis. Prior to this project, coachbuilders had basically built one off cars, but the new market demanded new thinking and new approaches to survive. Beeskow selection to use a Volkswagen vehicle as main donor for their project presented a very simple plan to obtaining parts and supplies. The Rometsch-Beeskow car saw the beginning of a new era in the coachbuilding business.

With this plan in mind, in 1950 Rometsch Karrosserie became on of the first coachbuilding firms to produce a production run of cars. They may have been the first, but certainly not the only ones who would produce small sporting cars based on Volkswagen components, firms like Karmann, Dannenhauer und Stauss, Drews, Beutler, Wendler, Hebmuller and Porsche, most of them practically unknown, wanted a piece of the pie.

At this point, and with the intention to maintain historical clarity, we find it necessary to quote from Karl Ludvigson, author of "Excellence Expected", the most important reference book on Porsche. According to Ludvigson, "Porsche was actually an engineering firm rather than a coachbuilder, the car most often considered the first true Porsche, a 356-01, was actually a design study proposed to Volkswagen. Even the later 1948 Porsches use Volkswagen engines, transmissions and suspension while the bodies were built bu coachbuilders such as Beutler, Kastenhofer, Keibl, Tatra and Reutter."

Rometsch first displayed the "Sport Cabriolet" in 1950 at the Berlin Motor Show. The company had been so busy building that they had even settled on a price for the car. When at the show German film star Victor de Kowa asked to buy the car, Beeskow and Rometsch had to quickly decide on a price. The puzzled men looked at each other, glanced at the Porsche exhibit and looked at the price of the new Porsche Cabriolet which was marked at 8250,00 DM, and decided right there, that the price for their new "Sports Cabriolet" would be 8250,00 DM. For reference, that was almost twice the price of a production Volkswagen at the time.

Rometsch would continue aggressively with production of the cars and the Beeskow model would go on to win the coveted "Golden Rose of Geneva" at the 1953 Geneva Auto Show. Two years later the Beeskow Coupe would win the same award. The "Rometsch Beeskow cars would continue winning concours events around the world..

The Rometsch Beeskow vehicles crafted at Rometsch Karrosserie were produced from 1950 to 1957. During the seven years production run, only minor changes in the bumpers, the windshield and dash design would be made. The vehicle was considered the "Volkswagen of the High Society" thus the very first production car was sold to the King of Sweden, and others were acquired by celebrities such as Victor de Kowa, Gregory peck and Audrey Hepburn.

The aluminum bodied sports car was never officially blessed by Wolfsburg, and in fact, Volkswagen refused to supply the long established coachbuilders with the rolling chassis and other components needed, so the company was forced to buy complete cars through their fifty employees.