Reutter certificate

[James Davies]

Cloth only in the center was common in 1953 and onward. Reutter decreased the number of channels in the cushions starting in Nov 1952. They also got rid of the door pockets. This made the seats, side and rear panels and the rest of the interior much quicker to make. Interior was probably one of the bottlenecks that they thought they could speed up if the simplified some things. 1953 was the year Porsche really tried to up production numbers and simplify construction.

I've seen orignal seats like yours with cloth covering the whole top and just vinyl on sides and back on cars from 1951 and 1952. So it looks normal. Many Hoffman cars in 1953 got all corduroy and no vinyl. Cheap and easy to make. =)

Don, thanks for the info on "ERA". That must be an abbreviation for some German words?

[Jules Dielen]

Thank you James, happy it is correct.

Don, I believe ERA stands for Ernstmeier GmbH, in Herford, now called Eratex. It is still around and still offers vinyls.

http://www.ernstmeier.de


Cool history on their site showing when they started offering vinyl in 1930:

http://www.ernstmeier.de/unternehmen/historie

[Donald Zingg]

Jules

Great info!
While researching factory records for the TYP 540 Speedster book there were quite a few "ERA" entries instead of specific materials, color names or a code numbers. When we asked what it meant, the "various suppliers" answer was the response. Just goes to show no matter how much you think you know there is always one more thing to learn - - -

[Edwin Ek]

Jules, that is great information! I can't get your links to work. Is it just my computer?

[James Davies]

Thanks for the digging Jules! Great info.