Hebmüller

Hebmüller Sons

1950 Hebmüller cabriolet
Former type	Private company
Industry	Automotive
Fate	Bankruptcy in 1952
Founded	1889, Wuppertal, Germany
Founder	Joseph Hebmüller
Defunct	1952
Number of locations	One
Products	Volkswagen Type 14A, Opel Kapitan & Admiral, and many other manufacturers like Ford and Mercedes

The coachbuilding company Hebmüller Sons (Karosseriewerke Joseph Hebmüller Söhne) was founded in 1889 by Joseph Hebmüller, it was established in the town of Wuppertal in Germany.

At start it constructed horsedrawn carriages but after the death of the founder Joseph in 1919, his sons started building bodies for automobiles. After World War II, the company received an order from the British Army to build 15 Humber based cabriolets.

The company's best known model is perhaps the two seater convertible based on Volkswagen Type 1 platform - known as Volkswagen Type 14A. It was widely reported that Volkswagen ordered 2,000 vehicles, and the production started in June 1949. Hebmüller completed only 696 of these two seater cabriolets, however, before the Hebmüller business was wound up: the last batch of Hebmüller "Beetle" conversions was produced by Karmann of Osnabrück, (who by this time were already producing a four-seater Type 1 cabriolet to their own design).

Hebmüller also built a number of four-door cabriolets on the Type 1 platform (Type 18A), with doors that were canvas.

By the end of the 1940s, Hebmüller's economic situation was deteriorating. The company also suffered from a massive fire at its Wülfrath factory on 23 July 1949, which could not be extinguished because of water shortage. Almost the entire factory was destroyed. The company never recovered from the destruction, although the factory itself was rapidly rebuilt, and in 1949 alone more than 350 more cars were produced. By 1952 the company had run out of cash and credit: Hebmüller met its end in bankruptcy in May 1952.

Ford Motor Company subsequently purchased the former Hebmüller factory.