Bought some vintage racing pictures recently. The car in the back seems to me more interesting than the convertible.

After some research I would say it is made by Wendler (Reutlingen, Germany) on a beetle chassis.

Can anybody confirm this and knows something about theses cars? Known survivours?

The infos I have are that Wendler made them only 7 years and most of them were sold to the US.

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All I know about Wendler is that they built the bodies for Porsche Spyders, we sell the badges for them!!

I've never herd of them building anything else VW or Porsche related.  porsche_spyder_wendler_body_badges.jpg You have insufficient rights to see the content.

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I think this one is probably too close to the 356 to be independent from the porsche factory.

The Wendler I know was less porsche like..  57_Wendler_Special_SL-05_por_04.jpg You have insufficient rights to see the content.

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Thanks for the quick response!

Here is the picture from the "Der Käfer IV" book.

The text says that the body is made from alloy and the top disappears completely when opened.

You can see the badge behind the front wheel 😎

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That first photo... the car behind is a "bent window" 356 Porsche Cabriolet...circa 1953 or thereabouts. Wendlers don't look like that.

The later photo... the side view... is of a "body bumper" Porsche 356 cabriolet...circa 1950 or so. It has a wendler coachbuilder badge... but Porsche bodies were built by many coachbuilders. This fact doesn't make the car a true Wendler... rather it is just a Wendler bodied Porsche

The Wendler cars that Wendler built and sold under their own name have their own look.. another view

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I borrowed the picture of the body bumper 356 pre A (in front of the Dealer window) and posted it on 356registry.com and asked if anyone knew anything... (I hope is was ok to borrow the photo... I gave kdf-wagen.com credit ) Anyway... here is a link to the discussion there:

https://356registry.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=90014#90014 

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Thanks for placing the topic in the Porsche forum! Interesting feedback in this thread as well.

In the "Der Käfer" book is also mentioned, that the idea for that model came from an american citizen, that it was built in small numbers and
that most of the cars were sold to the USA. The production numbers of Wendler made cars are unknown.

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