VW Beetle Taxi
- Monday, 24 November 2008
- 0 Comments
Two months ago we brought you a feature on one of, in our opinion at least, the best looking coachbuilt VWs ever - the Rometsch Sport Kabriolett. While we waxed lyrical in that feature about its fine lines and its film star qualities, we didn't talk too much about the company that built it. At least, not about the background of the company that built it, mainly because prior to turning out their magnificent, special-bodied Volkswagen-based automobiles in the 1950s, Rometsch was mostly concerned with more mundane projects - taxis, to be precise.
But we're not talking about the dull, four-door minicabs that clog up the roads today, we're talking about coachbuilt 'specials' designed to whisk the rich and famous about their everyday lives.
Ever since the dawn of time, there have been people too lazy or too posh to walk or who fancied a glass of beer or two on a night out, and so taxis have had their place. The Celts had them, the Romans had them and when, in 1834, Joseph Hansom hooked up a horse to a natty little wooden and fabric carriage and called it a Hansom Safety Cab, the name Cab came into being (a truncation of the word Cabriolet) and it has stuck ever since.
The word taxi, incidentally, comes from the original word for the meter that calculated the fare - taximeter. But we digress.
As the taxi market boomed during the roaring '20s, an opening for more snazzy ones
opened up and so our old friend Friedrich Rometsch seized the opportunity and
began Rometsch Karroserie in 1924. As was common with pre-War (and by that we
mean pre-Second World War) automobiles, coachbuilders would purchase complete
rolling chassis from the car manufacturers and build their own bodies on top.
Being Germany in the 1920s, it almost goes without saying that the chassis Rometsch
principally chose came from Opel, the largest car manufacturer in the country at the
time. Their products were very successful and, as mass produced automobiles took
the place of the old separate body and chassis cars, so Rometsch moved with the
times. Bearing in mind the company's history, it should come as no surprise that they would be attracted to the Volkswagen Beetle.
Here was a thoroughly modern car - in the late '40s at any rate - but one that was built on the old self-contained chassis principle, and so lent itself perfectly to the coachbuilders' art. The result was the aforementioned Sport Kabrioletts that are so sought after today by collectors of rare VWs.
For the full story check out the December 2008 issue of VolksWorld magazine. On sale on 31 October and then available through back issues.
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