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Canwest News Service
Vancouver-based Intermeccanica International Inc. was Frank Reisner's brainchild, family business and labour of love. Until his death in October 2001, Reisner was president, his wife Paula was secretary-treasurer and son Henry was vice-president. Henry is now president and Paula is retired.
Intermeccanica builds replica 1959 Porsches and Second World War Jeep-type Volkswagen Kubelwagens.
Frank Reisner came to Canada with his family from Hungary as a boy and graduated from the University of Michigan in chemical engineering. A job in the paint industry led him into the automobile business.
A nostalgic 1959 European tour with Czech-born Paula started an epic automotive odyssey that still continues. Reisner, an entrepreneurial, aspiring car builder, found Italy's skilled metal formers, fabricating shops, design studios and component suppliers made to order for his purpose.
Reisner stayed and established Turin-based Construzione Automobili Intermeccanica in 1959 to make high-performance parts and Stebro exhaust systems for cars such as Renaults and Simcas.
He soon built a rear-engined Formula Junior racer, followed by 21 little, 500-cubic-centimetre, aluminum, rear-engined, two-seater, high-performance (160 kilometres an hour) IMP (Inter Meccanica Puch) coupes based on a Steyr-Daimler- Puch model.
With Intermeccanica's quality reputation established, its next car, the Apollo, really launched Reisner into car building.
Intermeccanica built sleek Apollo two-passenger coupe and convertible bodies and shipped them to the United States, where they got Buick aluminum V8 engines. An Apollo won Best of Show at the 1965 New York Auto Show.
The U.S. firm failed, so Reisner began completing his cars in Italy using Ford V8s and running gear. He called them Italias and by 1970, Intermeccanica had built more than 500.
Intermeccanica's next customer, GM's German subsidiary Opel, commissioned Reisner to produce a version of the Italia with Opel Diplomat running gear and a 5.7-litre Chevrolet V8. Called the Indra, the company produced 125 coupes and convertibles between 1971 and 1974 before GM developed its own version. Intermeccanica's former German distributor, Erich Bitter, marketed it as the Bitter CD, much to Reisner's disgust.
His future looked dim until Reisner was lured to California by the City of San Bernardino, which offered to finance production of a speciality car.
Two Ford-engined prototype Indras were shipped, a deal was consummated and Intermeccanica moved tooling to California in 1975.
Within a month of Reisner's arrival with his wife and family, the financing evaporated. Undefeated, Reisner and a Santa Ana, Calif., businessman formed Automobili Intermeccanica to produce 1955-'58 Porsche Speedster replicas based on a prototype Reisner developed. Between 1976 and 1979, some 600 were built before his partner bought out Reisner's half interest.
Still enthralled by Porsches, Reisner developed a replica of the 1959 356A Convertible D. He moved to Vancouver in 1981 and formed Intermeccanica International Inc. to build these replicas.
Early Canadian Intermeccanica replicas had shortened Volkswagen Beetle floorpans with a subframe added. Recognizing the need for sturdier underpinnings, Reisner designed a stiffer tubular steel frame for the body and torsion bar trailing arm suspension.
Shortening the torsion bars moved the engine/transaxle 75 millimetres forward for improved weight distribution. It handled better than the original Porsche.
The high-quality, one-piece fibreglass body resists cracking, creaking and flexing, and attaching it to the chassis with aircraft-quality rivets produces a very rigid fibreglass-steel monocoque.
Volkswagen's air-cooled, horizontally opposed, overhead-valve four-cylinder engines from Brazil or Mexico, or Porsche 911 sixes, are used in several sizes and power in Roadsters and replica Kubelwagens. While these engines have served the company well, it has recently added modern VW and Audi in-line four- cylinder water-cooled engines, which provide current electronics and emission controls. It's an amazingly tidy package tucked into the tail where the VW/ Porsche air-cooled engine was.
Annual production out of the 7,500-square-foot plant is about 24 vehicles.
Eight regular staffers plus contract workers do everything except mould the body and final painting. All vehicles are built to order with approximately 75% exported to the United States.
Intermeccanica sells its cars across Canada through a Burnaby, B.C.-based distributor and in the United States and many countries around the world.
Prices start around $39,000 for Kubelwagens and $43,000 for cars. Many have tried to start car companies and failed, but Reisner succeeded.
Although annual production wouldn't match one day at General Motors, Reisner's enterprising spirit and uncompromising engineering, drive and determination produced a legacy of wonderful specialty cars.
Although currently suffering the effects of the recession like every other automaker, those jewel-like Intermeccanica Roadsters and Kubel-wagens continue to roll out of the little Vancouver factory and into the hands of appreciative buyers around the world.
National Post
bvance1@cogeco.ca
