Hi Gang…
Back in 2014, we were honored to participate in the Boca Raton Concours d’Elegance with our 1955 Californian Sports Car (later identified as the LeGene Sports Car). The class was arranged by Paul Sable and it was called “One-Offs and Limited Production.” One of the cars that was showing that day was Wayne Carini and Ralph Marano’s Spohn – a car they had acquired a year or so earlier.
Let’s check out some photos of their Spohn at Boca Raton and we’ll begin by sharing the history of it as posted on the concours signage for the car.
The Story on the Sign:
To make it easier to read, I’ve re-typed the information on the sign. It appears underneath the image below.
“Built in 1957, it is one of the last Spohns ever built. Spohn was a coachbuilder from Ravensburg, Germany, who was credited for building bodies for the pre-WWII Maybach luxury cars. After WWII, Spohn purchased left-over cars from the U.S. military for their chassis and continued as a coachbuilder taking orders on a one on one basis. Each car was built to the specific desires and specifications of the buyer.
There were less than 200 cars built and no two were alike. This car is built on a 1939 Ford chassis with a 1953 Cadillac, 331 cubic inch V8 engine, with a 4-barrel carburetor, and is backed by a 3-speed Ford transmission.
On The Field: 1957 Spohn
It’s Always Great To See Wayne Carini and His Cars. It was an Honor to show our car in the same class that he and Ralph Marano were in.
Summary:
It’s always fun to see a Spohn on the field, but like most of the cars we study here at Undiscovered Classics, they’re quite rare. For those of you interested, you can review additional stories we’ve done on Spohn cars by clicking on the link below.
Click Here To Learn More About Spohn on our Undiscovered Classics Website
Hope you enjoyed the story, and remember…
The adventure continues here at Undiscovered Classics.
Geoff
You can tell it’s a Carini restoration by the white pinstripe on the blackwall tires. Wayne hates whitewall tires, and apparently the pinstripe on the blackwalls is something he learned from his father.
I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder!!! Got to be one of the strangest and unattractive cars I ever laid eyes on!!! Sorry but what a waste of money, time and effort!
I’ve heard before, that Spohn has been called the Barris Kustoms of Germany. I think that’s a great compliment for both parties. I wish Spohn produced more vehicles for the world to enjoy.
The Carini “show card” sign grossly overestimates the quantity of Spohn Custom cars that were built to the designs of the owners that drove them into the Spohn Carosserie. There is nothing to support more than approximately two dozen builds. Five cars are known to exist today. Most of the owner’s contracting Spohn’s work were US Air Force pilots stationed in Europe after WWII. Their preference for fins came from their planes and from seeing Harley Earl’s LeSabre concept car in publications as well as perhaps in person at the Paris Auto Show.
The rear of this one is definitely LeSabre-esque, even if the proportions are a little off…
I saw this Spohn at Amelia Island one year – what an unattractive car.
I posted my photos here: https://mycarquest.com/2015/12/the-ugliest-car-at-amelia-island.html
Spohn’s hall-marks were fins and chrome. I have never seen a Spohn body that looked as if a professional designer had a hand in it, or even a non-professional designer with some taste.
Spohn Carosserie was not a design house. Prewar they were the primary builder of Maybach’s in-house designs. Postwar they built the designs contracted from Veritas, VW, Brooks Stevens and numerous private contracts. Those private contracts included all the Spohn Custom cars. The Carini “show card” sign is incorrect. Spohn did not buy any “left over cars”. Private owners drove them in to Spohn for custom work.
While it is true that most of the genre known as “Spohn Customs” of the early-mid-fifties had fins like the GM /Harley Earl LeSabre, the Spohn Carosserie had been building cars since 1920. ALL prewar Spohn-built cars and more than half of their postwar products were professionally designed. Think Maybach for example.
Cool. Did I see where the white Spohn from Dale’s Wheels of Time motorcycle museum is hitting the auction block soon? That car was here in Illinois for many years.
Not being auctioned. Walksler has consigned the car to Hyman Ltd. to sell through advertising. See Hemmings for example.