In 1949, a few years after zero hour, still surrounded by ruins and with a very unclear future, the Stuttgarter Karosseriewerk Reutter GmbH & Co – our old company name which the current name RECARO is based on – was awarded the contract of building 500 bodies for the first sports car developed in-house by another Stuttgart company: the Porsche 356.
After the war, Reutter let Porsche use some of its partially empty halls in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen and was awarded an initial contract of 500 coupé bodies in exchange. On one side of the room, Reutter produced the self-supporting bodies and on the other side – separated only by sailcloth tarpaulins – Porsche staff were responsible for finishing engines and assemblies, which they then installed into the body. They also carried out quality control work, ran the vehicles in and prepared them for sale. The five hundred cars were sold surprisingly quickly and a contract for 500 more bodies soon followed.
After the death of Professor Porsche, his successors – his son Ferry Porsche and daughter Louise Piëch, nee Porsche – came to an agreement with the Reutter family in 1951 about buying the factory site behind the body plant. At this time, the Reutter site was positioned between the two Porsche plants. In 1963, Porsche took over the entire Reutter body plant in Zuffenhausen, including 1,000 employees. Reutter was renamed “Recaro GmbH & Co”. With 250 employees, the new company produced vehicle seats – initially for Porsche – in the main plant in Augustenstrasse in Stuttgart. Since then the two companies – Porsche and RECARO – have shared a very special bond: a joint success story. Pictures: RECARO, Stuttgarter Nachrichten > More: www.recaro.com
