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Building the Perfect Hebmüller
Text by Roger Dean

Restoration of a genuine Hebmüller is one of the most complex processes ever undertaken by a VW enthusiast or restorer. More than one restorer has sworn they would never do it again. Targeting the correct day, month and year can be daunting to the extreme. The Beetle changed dramatically between 1949 and 1953 so those changes need to be identified in a proper reconstruction. In retrospect we regard those changes as the Split, Zwitter and Oval eras. In reality dozens of changes were initiated as improvements were progressively made to many parts. Both the Karmann and Hebmüller cabriolets received a constant flow of changes but these were not necessarily concurrent with those of the sedan. Hebmüller also made their own modifications as they moved through their prototypes and into production with at least three generations of rear decklids and rear cowls. Add to that the personal touches added by those constructing the bodies, which is typical of hand built cars. Anyone who has restored more than one Hebmüller will tell you that if they have two in their shop they each have unique differences.

There has been a void for some time for quality made parts in order to produce a clean Hebmüller restoration. Thankfully as more Hebmüllers have degraded and needed restoration there have been those who have stepped forward to make the tooling and dies to create parts that are true enough to be used for Hebmüller reconstruction. There is an obvious expense to this, which is assumed to be justified by the finished value of a restored Hebmüller.

If we compare creating dies for a Split era decklid the justification is that there are still thousands of surviving Splits that can benefit from the design/tooling process and so the end justifies the means. Enough stampings can be produced to reduce the cost to the buyer. This allows the Split era restorer to use a new part where the integrity of the part is equal to the original. Of course the original part will still be just that, something that was placed on the Beetle the day it was made. There is something about original patina isn‘t there? It doesn’t get better than that!

But as the supply of original parts for any vehicle diminishes or virtually disappears, the reality is that original era cars need reproduction parts in order to survive and be put back on the road. Until someone with the ability to produce parts begins making them antique cars will languish in ruins, unrestored. This is true of the Hebmüller Roadster, which compounds the difficulty of its restoration. Many Hebmüllers needing everything from mechanical tops and wood to rear decklids and complete reconstruction of the lower body were considered virtually unrestorable only a few years ago. Reports have circulated of record prices paid for “spare” decklids needed to complete these roadsters. As a Hebmüller owner I can tell you that the thought of having a rear end accident can be the subject of the most vivid nightmare! How would you ever replace it?

That never stopped me from driving it though. Touring in a Hebmüller with the top down is truly an exhilarating feeling. One VW meet that I attended back in 2000 was a turning point for me. It was a great California summer day, almost warm enough to drive to the meet with the top down. Certainly I was looking forward to the ride home with only the sky above. It was the end of the day and I was packing things in for that ride. Some of the last people at the meet were wandering though and I greeted a nice couple for the second time. I had talked to them earlier in the day and they were just enthralled with the Heb and so returned to take one last look before parting.

“Its so neat” she mused, “How much different is it from a Beetle?”

I began describing where the sedan left off and the little cabriolet began. Waving my hands and demonstrating what was different and what was the same. She was actually surprised that Hebmüller had actually started from sedan parts and after slicing and dicing ended they ended up with convertible.

“You mean that you could actually take a Beetle a make it into a Hebmüller?” She quizzed as she looked directly at me.

Now I’m sure that she didn’t really mean “ME” when she used the term “you“. It is just the way we phrase things in English. What she meant was “you” in general, as in “a person” could make a Hebmüller from a Beetle. Well maybe I took it too personally. I’m a designer by trade. I deal with my own clients and have to do a lot of hand waving as I’m designing to bring the project to life. It was a natural response, I assure you, when I replied “Sure it could be done“…As if somehow I could do it!

I guess that was the beginning of the journey for me. Over the next couple years I was intrigued with the idea. I had already begun the history of the Volkswagen / Hebmüller that is recorded on this website in installments. There was a part of me that wanted the complete story and how better to thoroughly understand these cars than to construct one. I didn’t know what I was in for! Even when my design firm has enough clients there is still some down time between projects. So, I began tracing the parts from my Hebmüller and duplicating them into AutoCAD. I needed a donor VW. The body from an appropriate Oval era car would do. Part by part each unique piece was recreated in my computer and then carefully checked. Even the simplest, benign parts went through dozens of changes before they were pronounced Good. It is one thing to design a part, it is quite another to duplicate a part. I was resolved that it wasn’t a race with some kind of time limit. It was the systematic design of a Hebmüller, one little part at a time. That process began over seven years ago for me with literally thousands of adjustments since!

A few years into the design I had traveled to Germany again with my family.   I have a cousin, Astrid, who works for Daimler in their advertising department. I had greeted her only a few weeks earlier over lunch near the company museum. We had exchanged email addresses and so I took the long shot and sent the message flying across the continents.

“Yes, how do you know Dr Hortig?” was her reply back.

Well!……..‘How do I explain this in an email?’ I thought. She’s never going to get it. Was I wrong, she loved it!

“Yes, I’ll contact him for you. Dr. Hortig works in a department with which I would like to cooperate. So it helps us both and I find it rather funny that I establish contact with Dr. Hortig via my cousin.”

“I didn’t know if you would go for this but you obviously like the idea” I wrote.

“This is really no problem. Since I’m an auto freak myself, I find it very interesting.” she came back.

I guess the Automobile gene runs strong in our family! (Understatement)

Astrid made contact with Dirk Hortig , which I’m sure peaked his curiosity. Dirk made contact with me and we were off and running. From the very beginning we forge a common bond. The perfect Hebmüller parts were all that we wanted, nothing less. We began by determining that we should not duplicate each other’s efforts by designing the same parts. That was a great idea because I can’t do what he does so it works perfectly! He is truly amazing!

As an avid VW collector Dirk had somehow located an original raw pressing of a Hebmüller decklid from the try out phase of the original die in 1949. To say the least this is an amazing find. From purely a design perspective it has an incredible value because it is an unmolested piece of steel that is one of the first pressed in the original dies. All of the information regarding those dies can be read from that piece of steel. At least it can be read by someone who understands that language, IE, Dr. Dirk.

Today, four Years after this first reengineered die, Dirk has reengineered and reconstructed all of the dies for the most important Hebmüller parts. This includes the rear decklid, the rear cowl, the front cowl and windshield frame as well as the reinforcements that were also pressed parts in the original VW Type 14 body.

Through the process I have stayed with the minutiae. All of the little parts that take so much time to R&D, like the articulating mechanical top. I have gained a sobering respect for those designers and fabricators that went before us. Here I have a CAD program were I can work out most of the kinks inside the program, shifting them until the movement operates as it should in the computer. However, the craftsmen and engineers at Hebmüller were working from experience attained and passed on through guilds and apprenticeships. It is still amazing to me that just a few millimeters of difference and the top will not articulate properly.

As Dirk and I worked through our respective assignments an important issue became self-evident. The original Hebmüller parts were not perfect in the absolute sense. By that I mean not that they don’t work perfectly as they should but that sometimes the radius of a part is not true in the “perfect” sense. It is just off a little here and there. One of the definitions of “Perfect” is “Perfect for its intended use”. That means that something can have imperfections and yet function perfectly. What would we do with all of these (lets call them) anomalies?

When inspecting duplicated parts in a computer program we can easily pick up that a radius is off or that left to right orientation is not absolutely correct. It hard to lie to programs that have been designed to determine a few thousandths of a millimeter of difference. All of that can be “corrected” but should it be? That was the question. Would it reflect an automobile that came from a time when everything was hand built? It seams that it would suck the spirit out of the project! Many of the original parts were likely “perfected” by hand as they constructed their prototypes at Hebmüller. This would have meant taking a part that may have had a “true” radius in the design and grinding it down in the shop until it performed as they had intended. That modification would then be passed on to every following vehicle as an “improvement” even though, in effect, it may have detrimentally effected the appearance of the part to some degree.

But it was only then Hebmüller perfect…for its intended use!

We decided, early on, that if there was no reason to change a part to help its performance it should remain exactly as the original was. So, the rear decklid is a “perfect” match to the original with a shadow of difference from left side to right side. (Trust me, a Beetle isn‘t mirror perfect!). I’ve checked many Hebmüller mechanical tops and there are always the same quirks in the lines and that’s exactly how they should be. No different. And so ours have the same quirks. Perfectly Hebmüller.

Both Dirk and I have sold our parts to Hebmüller owners, which is a gratifying feeling. It is now possible to restore a Hebmüller using our parts. So now all of those rusty Hebs can get a resurrection. These parts are interchangeable with Hebmüller parts. They are not necessarily made the same way as the originals but they perform the same. Remember that Karosserie Hebmüller went out of business. This was partly do to the start-up costs that they could not assimilate over so few cabrios built. Having parts stamped and cast for a special built car was, and still would be, prohibitively expensive. Many of our parts remain “alive” only in the computer until we need them. I have developed CAD drawings for parts that are plasma cut from steel. We also have produced simple dies and steel fixtures to fashion these parts like the originals.

The decklids, cowls and other parts that Dr. Dirk Hortig supplies are low production pressed steel parts. Very expensive to produce! If we go back to the analogy of the Split era decklid that was referred to earlier in this discussion, you can begin to understand the cost relationship to product ratio. When hundreds or perhaps even thousands of parts can be pressed per run these parts come into an economic realm that is affordable to most restorers. But what happens when there is a run of only 20 or less? It could be compared to booking a flight on jumbo jet and splitting that cost of operation with only 20 passengers.

You get the point!

While we’re on the subject of steel pressings one thing that I would like to tout is that Dirk’s steel is pressed by the same firm, in the same plant, in the very same location as the originals were 60 years ago! He missed the original press which was replaced only a few years ago. Oh well, I guess we can’t have everything!

This brings us to the subject of the responsible use of the parts that we have recreated. Virtually every part that we create is identifiable to us as a reproduction. There are markings and coatings that identify these. For instance, the decklids are numbered and registered with a special tag and are coated with zinc for corrosion resistance. This functionally identifies them from the originals. The latches for the top are actually cast from bronze which has a higher strength than the original brass latches.

Could someone actually pass off something purchased from us as an original? Now we get into the issue of discloser. Let’s say that someone purposely sold an authentic Hebmüller not disclosing that the decklid was purchased through us. That’s wrong! It would be the same as selling a Split Beetle with a repro decklid and not disclosing it. But lets carry this point a little further for discussion. Does everyone who restores a VW disclose every part that is not original…Hardly! There are a lot of quality reproduction parts out there. We all understand what it takes to restore a VW that is half a century old. By that I’m not suggesting that its OK to conceal where the parts come from. That is why we will completely disclose our new Hebmüllers with a portfolio of the parts that are used to create each one, prepared for the buyer. That portfolio will include who was used to build each Heb that we produce today. It is also why our Hebs need to be registered not as authentic Hebmüllers made between 1949 and 1953 but as authorized versions made now. If our cars are numbered from front to back and these are recorded with the Hebmüller Registry it protects the owners of the originals. This prevents someone from attempting to counterfeit an original.

Our cabrios are not counterfeits. We are restoring using early Beetle sedan parts to construct Type 14 Roadster Cabriolets. We are creating perfect, coachbuilt Roadster VWs that meet Hebmüller specifications as closely as humanly possible. We are building them using the finest restoration materials and fabricators. These are hand crafted cars built using NOS and restored original VW parts wherever possible, as well as our purpose-built new parts. Most of our original parts are harvested from Beetles considered economically unrestorable. From the rubber to the steel and the glass many of these components are made by the original equipment manufacturers. Whenever possible we will build on original matching numbers chassis from the Volkswagen / Hebmüller era.

In our opinion this conserves historic vehicles in a responsible manner.