Schwebbe (sp*?) The guy who designed our rado's...

[_Meth 0]

Firstly i oppologise if that is not his name :lol:

 

Anyway, I see a few pictures of him floating around on here, and I think I remember hearing he was at the german meet earlier in the year?

 

How did anyone of us mere owners get into contact with him? Why does he come to the meets? Is it not realy odd for him? Im realy confused!

 

Can you imagine the designer of the escort turning up to a ford meet somewhere? It just seems realy bizzare! Maybe im just starstruck perhaps at the thought of someone like that perhaps being normal and just liking corrado's like us. However what must the guy think when he gets to a meet like that? He must be treated like royalty im guessing? God I would have so many questions for him etc...

 

I know this post makes no real sense, but im sure you must get the general point :lol:

[dukest 0]

The guys in the Scirocco/Corrado clubs in Germany have (or had) established a relationship with the people at Karmann where the car was built and the Karmann people were able to ask him if he wants to attend when they arranged visits for fans to the factory. I havent heard of him attending any other meets but he has returned to the factory on a number of those occasions.

[davidwort 0]

look right, at my avatar :grin:

[Alex_G60_Fanatic 0]

Yeah.. but why would the escort designer want to advertise this! It is after all... an escort...

 

If i designed the Corrado I'd wear a god dam badge to prove it!

[poll250 0]

look right, at my avatar :grin:

 

 

I always wondered about that Avatar! Which one is he?!!

[Alex_G60_Fanatic 0]

look right, at my avatar :grin:

 

 

I always wondered about that Avatar! Which one is he?!!

 

:lol:

[coullstar 0]

What else did he design?

[delfinis38 1]

must be the good looking one on the right :norty:

[h6 vwc 0]

Lol! I always looked at your avatar and thought you lucky sod you've met michael winner! :D

[corradophil 3]

look right, at my avatar :grin:

 

:grin: I thought, how nice, you have a photo of you and your dad as your avatar. :bonk:

 

I guess it really is a photo of you with our Corrado's dad :clap:

[davidwort 0]

poor old Guy, I reckon he thought we were a bunch of nutters... well I suppose we are :)

forget who it was, but at least one guy managed to get him to sign their sunvisors with a marker pen, that was an inspired idea :clap:

[Guest]

The sun visor signed guy was VAG-Hag. And it's still there, he's never going to wash it off.

[Jim 2]

He's become friends with some of the people in Germany and consequently they invite him along to some of the meets now. Obviously he doesn't sit there getting drunk.. but he comes in the day and just hangs out and chats with people.

 

It's difficult to convey his level of enthusiasm for the work he did at Karmann - he's really passionate and very proud of some of the designs and innovations they came up with and he loves to come along and share some stories and talk about his time with them. He talks very fondly about the Scirocco and the Corrado though is less than complimentary about the involvement with Volkswagen. On the development of the Corrado, Karmann had lots of good ideas which VW simply didn't want.. and similarly VW were suggesting features to Karmann which people like Schwebe thought were terrible. So it certainly sounds like the Corrado went through a very difficult conception!

 

It's infuriating to be stumped by the language barrier - we get trickle fed bits of translation by Eric when we're there listening to him, but I'm sure we miss out on a lot of what makes him the character he is. Once he gets going it's hard to stop him! :)

 

And he used to drive a Corrado G60 up until a few years back where he finally gave in to old age and bought an Audi estate!

[quicky1980 0]

And he used to drive a Corrado G60 up until a few years back where he finally gave in to old age and bought an Audi estate!

 

Man after my own heart, except I'm keeping the rado and just buying the Audi Avant as the work horse.

 

Would be interesting to see if he finds some of the modifications we do a bit of an insult or whether he would have implemented them himself if they were still making these.

 

I wonder what ideas that Karmann and VW wanted to include ...

[Jim 2]

I know one thing that VW wanted and that Karmann were very upset at were pop-up headlights! Karmann told them where to get off.

 

They also (and I swear this is true) wanted a modified seat design for the American market with a wider seat base, because (on average) they had fatter backsides. Schwebe simply told them that if they wanted to get into a Corrado then they'd have to lose weight as he wasn't modifying the seats.

 

You gotta laugh.

[dgtvr6 0]

And he used to drive a Corrado G60 up until a few years back where he finally gave in to old age and bought an Audi estate!

 

Man after my own heart, except I'm keeping the rado and just buying the Audi Avant as the work horse.

 

Would be interesting to see if he finds some of the modifications we do a bit of an insult or whether he would have implemented them himself if they were still making these.

 

I wonder what ideas that Karmann and VW wanted to include ...

 

Where di dyou get your avater from? It is very very cool

[davidwort 0]

...

I wonder what ideas that Karmann and VW wanted to include ...

 

I feel the cabrio discussion coming back again :)

[_Meth 0]

I would realy love to know more about the ideas between karmann and VW...

 

I feel realy geeky recently, but im so interested in it all :)

[quicky1980 0]

Where di dyou get your avater from? It is very very cool

 

Cheers dgtvr6, it's actually me in my car driving past my friends in their car, I just edited it in photobucket with the neon option.

 

...

I wonder what ideas that Karmann and VW wanted to include ...

 

I feel the cabrio discussion coming back again :)

 

Didnt really like the look of the cabrio, quite liked the estate though...am I wierd? These concepts are quite well known, but I was actually wondering if they had less known ideas, such as was awd, indipendent rear suspension etc

[leeeeshad 0]

And he used to drive a Corrado G60 up until a few years back where he finally gave in to old age and bought an Audi estate!

 

So its official, the G60 is better than the VR6 :norty:

[The_Dude 0]

He was at the 20th Anniversary meeting at the Nurburgring in 08. Seemed pretty cool about the whole thing. I've got a pic of him having a butchers under the new Rocco bonnet. (too much plastic for my liking)

 

Isn't there a story about someone asking him about water dripping in the cabin when the windows were open and it was raining, to which he replied "don't drive with the windows open then!"

[Kempy 0]

look right, at my avatar :grin:

 

 

cool.. didnt know that

[Yandards 0]

Jim the wider seat for the American market was for the Scirocco not the Corrado.

 

Schwebe is a really interesting guy and loves talking about all the cars he was involved with from when he started at Karmann back in the 50s through to his last car the C. He does seem to have more love for the Corrado than anything else, even at a rocco meet a few years ago when he was talking about all of his work he spent some time on the rocco but ages on the Corrado.

[RW1 0]

He does seem to have more love for the Corrado than anything else, even at a rocco meet a few years ago when he was talking about all of his work he spent some time on the rocco but ages on the Corrado.

 

Perhaps because the design origins of both Mk1 & Mk2 Scirocco were not Karmann.

 

.

[Tempest 0]

Perhaps because the design origins of both Mk1 & Mk2 Scirocco were not Karmann.

 

They were very much actually. What else was Karmann going to do with the ageing platfom their Ghia was based on? So Wilhelm Karmann Junior invited his close friend (as these things work in the automotive sector) Giugiaro to design a successor to the Ghia, which VW couldn´t be bothered (for financial reasons, they were nearly going bust end of the 60s) to design, finance or prototype, so Karmann did all of that.

 

A good book to read on everything related to our beloved coupes are:

 

1. The Karmann Story, Germany´s Coachbuilder to the World by Dieter Knust

2. Scirocco, Aufregend vernünftig. Der Volkswagen Scirocco 1974-1992 by Claudia Böhler (covers the Rado, too)

 

Then come along to German meets, where a visit in some shape or format to Karmann´s still existing car collection (the museum) is involved :D

 

Tempest