The bb Rainer Buchmann Book
Rainer Buchmann founded the bb car company in Frankfurt am Main in 1974, primarily dealing with modifications to Porsche cars. By the 1980s, he had shaken up the car world. His models ranged far beyond common car tuning. The Frankfurt car couturier’s most famous creations are the famous “rainbow” Porsche and, of course, the legendary CW 311 super sports car. The modified Mercedes was one of the fastest and most streamlined sports cars in the world, with a top speed of over 300 km/h. But Buchmann also made a name for himself in the German automotive industry with technical innovations. In addition to body conversions, as early as the 1970s he was a pioneer in car electronics, which today are often standard equipment: this ranged from remote-controlled central locking to distance warning systems for parking and digital computer systems to the multifunction steering wheel, for which a patent was filed in 1983, and a talking cockpit. In the mid-1980s, sales in the entire tuning industry declined rapidly, and Buchmann also suffered and had to close his company in 1986. In 2014, he started a comeback with completely new tuned models again.
Gerold Lingnau, long head of the “Technik und Motor” department at the FAZ, has written up this sensationally illustrated history of Rainer Buchmann and the creations of bb.
