1000 miles ahead: The RECARO Porsche 356 at the “Mille Miglia”

With the 220-kilometer “warm-up” evening stage from Brescia to Padua on Thursday, May 15, 2014, the latest edition of the “Mille Miglia” was launched. A team from RECARO Holding is part of the classic car road tour, which is likely the most steeped in tradition: With a Porsche 356 built in 1951 – the oldest car of the brand among the vehicles at the start – the driving team of Martin Putsch and Frank Jung entered the race, which covers more than 1708 km leading on a large loop from Brescia to Rome and back. While running with the number 213 the team “REutter CAROsserie” entered the race only two cars behind the team of the car buff and legendary TV host Jay Leno. In the next few days, you will be able to find more info and pictures from the rally here in the blog. What many do not know: The companies Porsche and RECARO share a common history. Stuttgart’s Karosseriewerk Reutter GmbH & Co., which had been in existence since 1906, was commissioned in 1949 to manufacture 500 car bodies for the type 356 of the newly established sports car manufacturer Porsche. Also all following car bodies of this model were built by Reutter. After many years of intensive cooperation between the two companies – in addition to the bodies, the seats of the Porsche 356 were also manufactured by Reutter – in 1963 Porsche took over the entire car body manufacturing plant from Reutter, which thus became the nucleus of the Porsche headquarters in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen. The Reutter company henceforth focused on the interior and developed into a specialist for vehicle seats under the new, catchy name of RECARO – derived from the first letters of the words REutter CAROsserie.