The story about the legendary Hebmüller Type 14A.

In May 1948 after the25 000 post-war Volkswagen left the Wolfsburg factory. The new leader of VolkswagenWerk Heinrich Nordhoff started to plan new model, of which a ”Kabriolet" version was the first.

Two coachbuilders were chosen to produce two different types of convertibles. Karmann in Osnabrück, who was commissioned to build a fourseater, and Hebmüller a twoseater version.

Karosseriewerke Josef Hebmüller Söhne was founded in 1889 in Wülfrath. 1919 they moved from horsecarriages to coachbuilt carbodies. At first they built bodies for Ford, Hanomag, Opel ja Hansa-Lloyd.

The first three prototypes were built from three used 1946 sedan limousines . The windscreen was left stock, doors were modified, and the doorglasses were stiffened with aluminium frames. The engine covers (they are not modified front bonnets) where handcrafted. The rear number plate light and single brakelight were housed in the standard so called Popes nose light unit.

Prototype number one (body nr. 14-00001) was finished in the 21 March 1949. It had the ”banana” bumpers and pre-49 hubcaps with big VW-logo, rearview mirror was fitted on the dashboard. The horn was fitted on the front bonnet. It was also fitted with a radio with the aerial in the center of the windscreen and some big foglights.

It was painted black.

Prototype number two (body nr 14-00002) was finished in January the 8th 1949. It was fitted with later grooved and a set of very unusual hubcaps (only ever seen again on a special made Beetle saloon for the emperor of Abyssinia at the 1951 Frankfurt Motor Show). The rearview mirror had found its right place.

It was also painted black.

Prototype number two (body nr 14-00002) was finished in January the 8th 1949. The third was almost identical to the second except for stock hubcaps and a cromed popesnose on the decklid. It was painted grey.

(body nr 14-0003, was finished in June 26th 1949).

Here the body number 14-0003 is with a nice looking pedalcar on the decklid…

The biggest problem with these first prototypes was the poor stiffenings in the body which lead to severe body flexing and bad door fitting. The windscreen frame was also flexing which lead to cracking the glass when the top was up.

These problems were fixed on the fourth testmodel (body nr. 14-00004), which was finnished in July 18th, 1949. The windscreen frame was stiffended and got a more square shape. It was stiffened all the way into the trunk. The heaterchannels were strenghtened and the kickpanels got a double sheetmetal stiffener. It also got a strong crossmember under the rearseat. This car also became Volkswagenwerk’s testcar. It was driven about 10 000 km’s (about 6250 miles) in very rough conditions and passed the tests well.

Wolfsburg was very pleased and ordered 675 cars. The production started already with body number 14-0005 in June 21st, 1949.

View over their exhibiton stand in 1949.

Other major changes were made to the rear decklid. The popesnose was exchanged with a long scoop with the brakelight /licenceplatelight in. The louvers were moved form the decklid to the area between the decklid and top. Off course with all limousine accessories.

The Hebmüller’s were awailable single coloured in black, red or white, and also two toned black/ivory, black/red, black/yellow or red/ivory. The two toned colours were the most popular.

They were sold through ordinary VW dealers, and sold surprisingly well despite the high price at 7500 DM.

There is a fire in the factory!
On Saturday the 23rd of July 1949 at about 14:00 a clock there started a fire in the paintshop. The fire spreads fast and destroys the whole painting section of the factory and parts of the rest of the factory. 33 bodies were destroyed int the fire. The sheetmetal pressing area is saved unharmed. After 4 weeks of hard work to rebuild the factory the production can start again. After the fire the production rised increasingly up to January 1950 when 125 cars were produced..

The factory got financial problems after the fire, partly because they had to pay for the damaged goods delivered from Wolfsburg. In May 1950 only 17 cars were delivered and only one in 1951. The factory went bankrupt in 1952.

The rest of the unfinished cars were assembled in Karmann’s factory along side with their own 4-seat cabriolet. A total of 14 cars were assembled in the Karmann’s factory in 1952 of which the last one was made in 1953 (Body number 14-00730) According to some sources the last one in 1953 was based on an "oval" body.

Later Ford bought the factory and started to produce steering parts and so on….

How many were made?
The official number given from VW is 696 cars, which actually could be right even if there are a few cars with bodynumbers over 700, since there were 33 bodies destroyed in the fire, and the 40 chassies were delivered to Karmann’s factory for their production during the Hebmüller factory’s rebuild. The highest known body number is 14-00735 and was delivered in 1951. The bodynumbers are not necessarily in chronological order, especially after the switch to Karmann factory.

Production year	Prod. nr
1949	3 protos+359
1950	319
1951	1
Production moved to Karmann
1952	13
1953	1
Total	696

Hebmüller also made one Coupé prototype in. It was probably damaged beyond repair during test too.

Alongside with the T-14A a T-18A was built. It was made only for police forces.

How many survivors?

According to some registers there are 99 cars and other registers about 120 cars. There is no really verified numbers known yet.

In 1999 in Bad Camberg some VW Hebmüller history was made in two ways. The 50 years of VW Cabriolet was selebrated and at the same time a Hebmüller record was made. There was up to 19 Hebmüller in the same place at the same time!