More new Autocult releases announced - Citroen, Opal, and Tatra!

1948 Citroën Traction Avant 11 BL Spohn

When the son-in-law of a lady with the initials V.D.B. rediscovered a Citroën Traction Avant 11 BL in the barn after the end of World War II, the car had been standing around unused for a long time. His name was Antonin Castor Mann and he ran a workshop called ‘La Rose des Ventes’ at the end of the village Fayl-Billot. To his chagrin, he was called up for military service – in the 1st Army of General Lattre de Tassigny. His military service took him to Germany and had to act there within the framework of the French occupation government, he was assigned to the C.R.A.S. department. In this capacity, he probably came into contact with Hermann Spohn’s company in Ravensburg, which carried out work for C.R.A.S. – presumably repair for cars.

Antonin Castors brought the Traction Avant 11 BL to Ravensburg and had the production body replaced by a sheet metal body implemented according to his own ideas. In 1948-49, the Citroën is said to have been adapted to the requirements of the Frenchman in the Ravensburg workshop and a single-axle trailer in matching styling to the car was also created at this time. However, the story that has been so well handed down until then fades abruptly.

It is no longer certain whether Antonin Castor used his car at all and if so, for how long. According to the condition found several decades later, it can only be said that the Spohn Citroën was at the mercy of wind, weather and perhaps theft over a long period of time – probably even a very long time – without any attention.

1934 Opel Blitz Ludewig Aero

In the mid-1930s, it was also daring to clad buses in aerodynamically shaped sheet metal. Although this may have been practiced in passenger car construction in some cases, it remained the absolute exception for buses. The company ‘Gebr. Ludewig Karosseriefabrik’ must be credited with a pioneering role in this, even though the driving force behind the production of streamlined bus bodies was the DRG – the ‘Deutsche Reichsbahn Gesellschaft’.

Around 1935, the coachbuilder Gebr. Ludewig built at least four, probably even completely identical buses based on the 3-ton chassis of the Opel Blitz truck. The Essen-based factory did not conceal the substructure they were relying on, because the name ‘Blitz’ was attached to the round radiator grille, which was almost abstract by the standards of the time, in chrome-plated letters.

Anyone at the Ludewig company who put the completely new and very independently shape sheet steel structure on paper on his drawing board has been lost in the course of history, as has the client for it. The only reliable information seems to be that four identical vehicles were dressed and provided with different lettering, whereby one bus with the lettering of the Deutsche Reichsbahn was used.

The clear eye-catcher of the buses were the two upright fins at the semi-circular rear. Charismatic for the aerodynamic zeppelins of the Ludewig brothers was the seating with swivel chairs at a 45° angle, so that the passengers on both sides could enjoy the passing landscape. Of course, this extravagant seating came at the expense of passenger capacity. Unfortunately, according to current knowledge, none of the streamlined Ludewig road zeppelins have survived to this day.

And in the Avenue43 line, two color options for the Tatra T77A (just a reminder, the typical total number of releases is split in half by color)