Remarkable Fiat Geburth: The Full Story

By Pete Vack and Alex Vazeos
Geburth Fiat Photos courtesy of Alex Vazeos
From the VeloceToday Archives, March 2012

What about sending an Italian chassis out of Italy to have coachwork built? The normal direction would be to send your chassis to Italy where it would be given a fine set of new clothes by one of the famous carrozzerias that dotted the landscape in the 50s and 60s. It would be unique, well done, inexpensive and probably beautiful. Being contrary then would involve having a chassis made in Italy bodied in some country not particularly known for automobiles and automobile design, like Austria.

Of course Italian chassis have been sent outward of their native land to be bodied and re-bodied for years, for example many pre-war Alfa Romeos were sent to the UK and bodied by James Young, Ranalah, or even more obscure firms such as Thornton. There was even a Ferrari 166 bodied by Abbot which did not last too long before being re-bodied again; another example was the couple of early Ferraris bodied by the Swiss firm of Ghia Aigle.

But still, such attempts go against the tide and in many cases were not very successful. Recently another such effort was uncovered in Austria, and therein lies our story, and as our resident car collector, Alex Vazeos, was quick to point out, “There couldn’t have been so many Austrian bodied Fiat 1100’s around so it might be worth a story”. We agreed.

The Fiat 508C

The Fiat in question was a 1938 model, a simple 1089cc 508C four-door sedan, officially still called a “Balilla”, but the name was fading by then. The 508C was one of the most popular and successful Fiats to date, and over 250,000 were built between 1937 and 1939.

This 508C found its way to Austria, but the first ten years of its life are unknown, probably due to the war. It re-surfaced in November of 1948, when a Carl Rainer Harbach duly registered the car in the town of Pörtschach, famous for Johannes Brahms, who worked on his second symphony while staying in the tiny town, about 125Km from Venice. The next year it made its way to a new owner and location in Wein, a suburb of Vienna. After changing hands a few more times, on April 23 1955, it became the property of Dr. Oskar Göhring, the owner of a Heating-A/C firm by the name of Geburth-Kühlanlagen. Little did it know that it would be transformed, given a new life, and unlike most of the other 250,000 examples of 508Cs, be saved for posterity.

The 508C was about to come into contact with a young man interested in participating in motoring competitions. Rudolph “Rudi” Wein, the nephew of Dr. Göhring, had already been thrashing the Doctor’s Aero estate wagon about on competitive events such as the Alpenfahrt Rally, an event descended from the great pre-war Alpine Trials. Here, drivers could test themselves and their cars (and motorcycles) against the majesty of the Austrian Alps.

Uncle Göhring’s newly acquired but aging Fiat inspired Rudi to think further along the lines of a car for rally use and he began sketching out his ideas. Then, Rudi persuaded Göhring to allow him to build a sports car on the chassis of the 508C.

Wein’s vision

As Rudi´s wife Renate Wein later reported, her husband “had a very clear vision what the new car had to be: elegant, sleek, sporting, following the Italian style he had seen from Cisitalia and other Italian car designers.” If you can’t send the car to Italy, take the designs to Austria.

Wein was probably just as inspired by American, German and French designs as Italian. One of the more interesting features of what would be called the “Geburth” was the two removable roof panels originally made of Plexiglas. The year was 1955, and in America another home built car was getting a lot of attention…the Flajole Forerunner, which featured a Plexiglas sliding roof operating on nylon rollers. The Geburth front end also had hints of the 1952 300SL racing coupes. At the rear, the view was similar to a Facel Vega.

Like many professional carrozzerias, Wein made use of available hardware; taillights from an Opel Kapitan, the Italianate door handles were from a Mercedes Gullwing, the seats from a 190SL and the instruments were from Italy.

Remarkably, once Wein had sketched out the basic design, the steel body was then handcrafted by workmen in the Geburth factory. Our guess is that the employees really enjoyed putting their considerable metal crafting skills to good use. There would be a few problems, the major ones being proper weather sealing of the removable Plexiglas tops. But it was a good, sturdy car, albeit a bit on the heavy side due to the thick steel used in the construction of the body.

The engine was tuned and equipped with a side draft Weber and reportedly produced about 55 hp in that form. To further aid performance, Wein found a reduction gearbox which was activated by a lever under the dash. The gearbox doubled the four speed’s ratios, providing a handy eight speed box. The rest of the mechanicals were standard Fiat.

Then came the icing. According to the car’s history sheet, Elisabeth Mohsler, Prof. Göhring’s life companion, later confirmed the unusual color of the car: “Rudi”, she wrote, “was a man of taste and he wanted for the car to really look extraordinary, therefore the turquoise color so as to give the car an extravagant look.”

A short but happy life

Amazingly, the car was designed and constructed before the year was out. As period photographs show, Rudi Wein not only enjoyed his creation, but at least at one point had racing numbers taped to the bodywork. However, it served as more or less a boulevard street racer for Wein. The Geburth Company itself was in financial difficulties and there was little money to further develop what was now a 20-year-old Fiat.

By the early 1960s, Geburth filed for bankruptcy and the car was acquired from the estate by a local scrap yard owner and antique dealer by the name of Stefan Paradeiser. Into his warehouse went the Fiat Geburth and there it stayed, long forgotten, until…

Resurrection

In one of those amazing, happy circumstances of fate, in the 1990’s a real estate developer, Winfried Kallinger, bought out some of the properties once owned by the family of Dr. Göhring, including the scrap yard in which the Fiat Geburth was lying neglected since 1960.

“The Fiat is really unique and my relation to it was also very personal,” wrote Kallinger. “I had a business connection with the family of the late Dr. Göhring, and while doing this purchase I found the car which was the last remains of the Geburth company, sitting neglected in a scrap yard. With that emotional background I had it restored with no expense spared.”

That restoration was completed about three years ago. According to Kallinger, “The condition of the car is excellent and it was used only sparingly after its restoration. The mileage of 8,365 Km on the clock is likely to be correct. There are photos of the car as found. It was complete then but in bad condition and the restoration was not an easy task because of its one-off body.” In 2007, the restored Fiat Geburth was shown to Renate Wein, wife of the late Rudi Wein, its designer.

After some use, Kallinger put the Fiat Geburth up for sale. You do remember we mentioned that Alex Vazeos is a car collector of the most discriminate tastes? He even has the author’s old Abarth, so his taste therefore must be impeccable. And guess who now has the one of a kind Fiat Geburth with the Targa top and eight-speed tranny….

A new home

The rare Fiat Geburth was shipped to Greece and its new owner, and Mr. Vazeos was kind enough to send us a few photos of the car after arrival. The new photos below do more justice to this one off Fiat.