Veritas Grossmutter

About this model

Following the Free France forces taking the region of Sigmaringen in April 1945, it came under French control following the collapse of the Vichy government. Later that year, the former head of BMW Works’ racing department, Ernst Loof, along with motorcycle racing legend Georg Meier and Lorenz Dietrich—a former BMW engineer—built their first car in the post-war era. It was built around a BMW 328 chassis. Dietrich, as he recalled in a 1975 interview, still had strong ties to BMW, and sought to name their new creation as a BMW-Veritas . However, this was prevented as BMW’s new representative in American occupation forbade the use of the manufacturer’s name. The BMW part of the proposed name was dropped, thus creating the Veritas sports car company.

Nameless at its time of construction, the car was nearly taken by the American Military Police. It assumed the identity 85335 , associated with a NSKK Works BMW 328, and was the first Veritas to be built. By 1950, it had earned the name Grossmutter, or Grandmother in English. It was powered by a tuned 2.0-litre BMW 328 engine—with a cylinder head designed by Loof—that had twin-camshafts, thus meaning the car had three camshafts including the one in the engine block, and generated a reported 140 horsepower. The bodywork was constructed from French supplied aluminium—sourced by Dietrich—in a pontoon style of what later would become known as the Veritas RS.