The X---- Porsche cars

[Porschinelle]

[Porschinelle]

Friedrich Rometsch office were on the Westen side of Berlin when the workshop was in the Soviet side
A lot of US servicemen discovered the Rometsch cars through the Rometsch showroom and bought them and took them back to the States
Heinz Nordhoff VW Chairman became worried by the success of sport cars based on VW components and decided to stop to supply VW chassis and VW engines to any coachwork
To overcome this new difficulty Frierich Rometsch had to ask his own employees to buy bright new beetle in order to recover the chassis and engine but of course this was reflected in the price and sales started to reduce
At the same time, at Nordhoff request, Johanness Beeskow was approached by Karmann to help them to start the VW Ghia
The Rometsch Beeskow banana were stopped in 1956

[Porschinelle]

Happily for Rometsch the Beeskow Sport cars were not his only business
Rometsch studied and sold a 4 doors taxi version of the beetle

Rometsch also worked for Borgward and Goliath as seen on its stand at the 1953 Berlin carshow

[Porschinelle]

4 doors VW taxi

Rometsch Goliath Borgward

[356]

This car looks based on a Gmund coupe. Anymore details about this one Gerard? Very much enjoy your posts.
~Vance

[Porschinelle]

Hi Vance
Without doing a too long off topic here are some infos on the Borgward/Goliath/Hansa/Lloyd story
Carl Ludwig Borgward(1890/1963) was a German engineer who opened Borgward Werk in 1933 in Bremen
From 1933 Borgward manufactured mainly industrial (tri-cycles)vehicules
After the second WW Bremen was on the EastGermany side controlled by Communists
Carl Borgward run 4 car building operations :
Lloyd :Industrial and low cost 2 cycles small vehicules
Goliath : Industrial and popular front drive vehicules with 700-900 and 1100 cc 2 cycles/2 cylinders fuel injection
Hansa who was either an independant company but also added to Goliath or Borgward names to designate a specific model
Borgward-Hansa
Goliath-Hansa
Borgward was the Luxury range name
Borgward most famous car is the Borgward Isabella

[Porschinelle]

Borgward cars were
front wheel drive
4 or 6 cylinders engines
Being on the East Germany side, Borgward was asked by the Communist authorities to develop a race car, able to beat the Porsche 550 spyder
This car was the Borgward 1500RS

[Porschinelle]

On this famous picture taken during the 1953 Carrera Panamericana race you may see 2 Borgward 1500 RS behind a Porsche 550 spyder and a 356
Hans Hermann before to be one of the Porsche fovorite pilot did race several times with Borgward

[Porschinelle]

To come back to our topic





Rommetsch got a contract from Carl Goliath to bult for him the prototype of a light sport car built on the Goliath GP700 or GP900 car

[Porschinelle]

This car has nothing to see with a Porsche 356, except that in 1950 Porsche was a must several times copyied, and also that the body was, as for the 356 Gmund, in aluminium
The Goliath GP700/GP900 sport car was in fact produce in a very small quantity and is extremely rare nowadays
As the Sedan cars, Goliath GP700/900 have front wheel drive and a 2 stroke/2 cylinders engine

[Porschinelle]

In parrallel with the 1500 RS race car Borgward did produce a light sport car also front wheel drive but with a 4 cylindrs 4 stroke engine very similar to the 356

[Porschinelle]

[Porschinelle]

Carl Friedrich Rommetsch decease in 1959 but the Rommetsch Lawrence continued to be built up to 1957
Rommetsch Karrosserie was alive until 2000, but the Rommetsch Lawrence was the last car built on a VW chassis by this company
They continued to manufacture one shot luxury cars and buses but also funny applications as this VW based tourist train

[JTR70]

That VW tourist train had to have had major gear reduction. The weight of 10-20 tourists riding in those cars would be an awful lot to ask of just 40HP. Great stuff Gerard!

[Don C]

Boy Gerard did you jog my memory! When I was around 10 years old we owned a new Borgward Isabella! A Porsche was out of our price range.