Tuesday, November 01, 2011
Even Bavarians Make Mistakes
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
If you've got a junk yard, used car business, and a scrap metal business, it's no surprise if sometimes odd and wonderful things come across your line of vision, and you just have to divert the scrap from the scrap pile. That's what happened to Mr. Lee Roy Hartung, who died in May and whose automobile, motorcycle, and bicycle collection will be sold off in bits and pieces. The car here is one of those, a 1949 Veritas, with running gear by BMW and a body by Spohn, a German company. Take a look at The New York Times article on Hartung here and a site called Bring a Trailer with lots of pictures of the old beast here. Now I'm a big fan of some of the good work the Bavarian Motor Works has done, but this thing looks more like the whale that Captain Ahab was hunting than the spritely convertible the wife and I brought back from Seattle.
Two Kinds of Luck
2 comments:
Neither BMW nor Spohn designed this Veritas body. At this time period the renowned Spohn Caroserrie was creating custom cars to the owner's wishes. Spohn had sketches of various design details to assist the owner but the combination of these facets was entirely chosen by the car owner. Among the choices on this car is a facsimile of GM's Harley Earl's tail fins from the Le Sabre concept car.
Someone liked it well enough at auction in 2011 to pay 200 large.
Well, let's say someone saw what they thought was a good investment. Too bad the Spohn fellows ended up with their name on it. In then end they probably wished they could harpoon or send it back into the deeps where it came from.
Still, strange and interesting, you've got to admire those who stick to their own vision, no matter how monomaniacal it is.
Post a Comment