bb-Auto: Looking back at fifty years of innovation

As we noted at the beginning of July, legendary Porsche customiser bb-Auto is coming to America with a new partnership with Galpin Motors, the Southern California auto dealer juggernaut. The collaboration will be first celebrated during Monterey Car week, with a new concept car debuting at the 2024 Porsche Restoration Challenge at the Werks Reunion.

Led by the husband-and-wife team of Rainer and Kathrin Buchmann (the b and b in the name), bb-Auto recently celebrated 50 years of transforming Porsches, Mercedes and others into bespoke creations. Porsches have been the majority of their transformations though, and despite some excellent work on other brands, it’s clear this is where the Buchmanns’ hearts lie.

“My fascination with Porsche developed from very unemotional points of view – engines, quality, reliability,” Rainer recalled. “British cars at the time had great interiors and leather quality, but the engines didn’t last long and the electrics were undersized. BMW wasn’t ready either, and Mercedes wasn’t a sports car manufacturer. So Porsche seemed like the logical choice.”

Buchman began his customising career painting his friends’ Volkswagen Beetles and Karmann Ghias, and eventually moved into Porsches, opening his own shop in Frankfurt. His first creations tended to centre around flared fenders and stereo systems before expanding into paint and custom interiors.

“I used the gaps that Porsche left,” he explains. “The focus was clearly on engineering – engine, chassis and aerodynamics were always the priority – while equipment and interior design came afterwards.”

Among the many bb-Auto technical innovations were the first multi-function steering wheel, a digital display instrument panel called “DINFO” which showed speed, fluid levels and distance traveled. Then there was a remote locking system, and backup parking sensors which borrowed range-finding tech from the camera industry.

Sound systems have been one of bb-Auto’s most enduring innovations, especially in Porsches. “Mercedes, VW and Porsche had radios with a maximum of four watts at the time, all of them thought that was enough to hear the latest news!” recalled Rainer. In contrast, bb-Auto would install as many as eight or sixteen speakers, plus amplifiers, graphic equalisers, and more exotic tech like phones (this before cellular telephony), and even televisions.

For all the interior innovations bb-Auto has introduced, it has been the variants of production Porsches that garnered the most attention. It started with a Porsche 911 Targa, which Porsche had declared unsuitable for a Turbo version. The Buchmanns would transform a 911 Targa into, yes, a Turbo, by reinforcing the frame and body, widening the rear end and flaring the fenders. As Polaroid was looking for an eye-catching car for the 1976 Photokina trade show, bb-Auto painted the car with Polaroid’s signature rainbow striping and the Rainbow Porsche was born.

The car was a smash hit at Photokina, and brought great publicity to both Polaroid and the Buchmanns, who soon had more orders than they could fill. More variations on the Targa and Turbo Targa would follow. A 911 was customised for a lottery owner in Curaçao, loaded with electronics and a bespoke interior which included gold leaf on the dash. There was a 911 “slantnose” that preceded Porsche’s bespoke model by over a decade. The 928 got a cabrio treatment, as well as two versions of a convertible, the only 928 convertibles known to exist.

What did Porsche think about all the attention bb-Auto was receiving about the various Porsche “alternates”? Management were not amused, and the word got back to Buchmann that “model policy is made in Stuttgart, not in Frankfurt.” Porsche resources began to mysteriously dry up.

Parts, which bb-Auto was previously able to purchase wholesale, suddenly were only available retail. This nearly killed the company’s main source of income, converting German Porsches for the US market.

By the mid-1980s bb-Auto was reduced to brokering classic Porsche sales, and some customisations. But the market for their bespoke creations has increased in recent years with the worldwide resto-mod movement. But now, thanks to a partnership with Galpin, a bb-Auto Porsche can be placed in the collections of Porsche enthusiasts in the U.S.

Beyond his passions for cars, was there a motivation that drove Buchmann to continue to create, through good years and bad? He reminisces, “My father was a famous tailor around Germany. I saw all his customers and how they loved to have something individual made. I believe there is a part in all of us that wants to have something special and unique.”

He concludes: “First, I built dream cars for myself. I put everything in the cars I thought was good for the future and what I like at home. The car is my driving home.”