Lost&Found One time while surfing the internet, we came across a picture of a classic car that looks very elegant and unique. From some pictures, it can be seen that this classic car has smooth curves all over its white colored body. So it is not surprising that he look so unique and elegant.
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The beautiful cabriolet classic car (today version) was built on the Citroën Traction Avant 11B chassis by Willy Bernath commisioned by an Arab prince back in the 1944. (Picture from: Flickr)
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Then we tried to find out what car it was? From several sources on the internet we found that the beautiful car was built on the
1938 Citroën Traction Avant 11B chassis by
Willy Bernath back in the 1944.
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| An original version of the Citroën Traction Avant 11B cabriolet classic car creation of
Willy Bernath before restored with the grille covered the headlights. (Picture from: Aventure-citroen-min.forumactif.com) |
For your info,
Willy
Bernath was born in La Chaux de fond on March 1, 1914. In the mid-1930s, he had ever worked in Hamburg and Zurich to become a master coachbuilder, and beside that he was also skilled sky athlete whose ever participated in the
Winter
Olympics in Garmisch Partenkirchen in 1936.
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| The
beautiful cabriolet classic car was built on the Citroën Traction Avant 11B chassis by Willy Bernath featured with his typical
styles of a wide horizontal grille composed of aluminum rods which
surround the front of the wing, usually accompanied by integrated
headlights. (Picture from: Aventure-citroen-min.forumactif.com) |
Then in 1938 he started his coachbuilt workshop in Geneva, unfortunately, it had a short but brilliant career until 1946. During and immediately after World War II, the new automobile chassis were hard to come, and
Bernath resorted to offering custom-made convertible coupe bodies on secondhand chassis.
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| The
beautiful cabriolet classic car was built on the Citroën Traction Avant 11B
chassis by Willy Bernath sat on display in the museum that was gathered
for the 75th birthday of the Traction Avant in 2009. (Picture from: Flickr) |
During these hard and short 8 years of production, only 25 car chassis were bodied in his workshop ranging from
Lancia,
Fiat,
Talbot,
Jaguar,
Alfa Romeo and
Citroën. As you could be seen, the unconventional style of
Willy Bernath's car is influenced by several famous coachbuilders at the time such the
Figoni et Falaschi and
Pinin Farina, and also adopts a relatively modern style for the time.
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| The partially restored and unpainted cabriolet styled Jaguar SS100 classic car creation of
Willy Bernath workshop during 8 years production periods of 1938 to
1946 was sat on displat at the ClassicAuto Madrid 2019. (Picture from: ClassicandSportsCar) |
His trademark, a wide horizontal grille composed of aluminum rods which surround the front of the wing, usually accompanied by integrated headlights. His patented construction method,
similar to the
Superleggera construction used by
Carrozzeria Touring,
involved a light tube frame covered by aluminum sheets.
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| The beautiful cabriolet styled Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 classic car creation of
Willy Bernath of Willy Bernath workshop during 8 years production periods of 1938 to 1946. (Picture from: Aventure-citroen-min.forumactif.com) |
This beautiful cabriolet-styled car was built on
the chassis of a
Citroën Traction Avant 11B in 1944 and was initially for an Arab prince but remained in a garage in Geneva until
the end of the war. At the end, it was sold to a doctor from Neuchatel, and then found in the collection of the famous collector
Jean Tua who
kept it since 1972 until his museum was sold in 2005.
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| Another beautiful cabriolet classic car creation of Willy Bernath workshop during 8 years production periods of 1938 to 1946. (Picture from: Aventure-citroen-min.forumactif.com) |
This car is one of just three
of
Bernath's creations that are known to exist today, among other a
Jaguar SS100 (last seen at the
ClassicAuto Madrid 2019) and an
Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 (was sold in original, unrestored condition for $146,000 (10% over top estimate) in 2000 by
Brooks in Monaco).
As a closing, Willy Bernath was certainly not one of the trully successful coachbuilders of Switzerland, but his efforts were brave, with advanced styling and high-quality workmanship, offering a second life for many fine cars of prewar.😎
*** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | AVENTURE-CITROEN-MIN.FORUMACTIF.COM | COACHBUILD | HEMMINGS ]
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