1952 – 1955
Hermann Holbein built 1,902 examples of the Champion 400 small car in Paderborn from February 1951 to October 1952. The two-seater coupé body was built by Drauz in Heilbronn. Due to financial difficulties, the production facilities were taken over by the Rheinische Automobilfabrik Hennhöfer & Co, Henning Thorndal in Ludwigshafen and production resumed in December 1952. Another 1,969 were produced by October 1954. Instead of the ILO engine, however, a power unit from Heinkel was used.
The Champion estate also contained drawings for a station wagon and Hennhöfer wanted to build it. Since there was not enough money for new press tools for the tail section, it was decided to build the tail section in the fashionable US Woody style. Because of the extra weight, the Heinkel engine was bored out to 500 cc. Under the direction of Uttenthaler, 25 examples were built by the spring of 1955. Then Champion went to Maico, where another 21 were built until December 1956.
One of the surviving examples was shown at the Bremen Classic Motorshow from 2 to 4 February 2023.
Edit by Carrossier: This is a Maico, built by Maico with leftover parts from Thorndal's Champion, who took over the Champion two years earlier from Hennhöfer (who was a car dealer, not a coachbuilder and Uttenthaler was an electrician), who took over the Champion from Holbein.
- Champion 500 G (1954).jpeg (326.26 KiB) Viewed 673 times
For more information on Champion and Maico bodies, see also my posts on Böbel and Drauz.
