Miata Mailing List: October 1998, Message #3669

I got this off the Porsche, list.  Another of the greats is gone:


Wilhelm Karmann passed
away this past Sunday, after a lengthy illness. He would have been 84 years
old on December 4.

Karmann's firm, founded by his father in the early years of this century,
became famous for two projects for Volkswagen. Karmann conceived the idea of
the convertible Beetle in 1949, convinced VW that they needed such a
"frivolous" car in the sober times after WW2, and then produced it at his
plant in Osnabrück, Germany. The Karmann Ghia, conceived entirely in-house by
Karmann with body styling contracted to Luigi Segre's Ghia studio, gave VW its
own affordable sports car. Later the first-generation Scirocco would be built
by Karmann.  

Convertibles were a house specialty, and many carmakers sought out Karmann
when they needed a specialist to engineer and produce a drop-top version of
their production sedans. Other clients included VW, Audi, Opel, BMW, German
Ford, Renault, and Mercedes.

For Porsche, Karmann built many 356 bodies for Porsche. Beginning in 1961,
Karmann built the "Karmann hardtop coupe," and continued to produce regular
coupe bodies through the end of 356 production in 1965. By the end of 356
production, as Porsche switched over to the 911, almost all 356 coupe bodies
were being made by Karmann. In 1965 Karmann too switched over to making
911/912 bodies because Porsche could not meet the demand at its own plant. 

Karmann also built the 914 (body as well as assembly of the entire car), sold
as a VW-Porsche in the rest of the world and the Porsche 914 in the USA.

After the passing of Ferry Porsche earlier this year, the German auto industry
has lost another of the key figures who guided it through the postwar years
and the last half of this century.