Veritas RS – Sculpture on wheels
Veritas — reliability! This was the name under which racing drivers Ernst Loof, Schorsch Meier and commercial manager Lorenz Dietrich founded the company “Veritas — Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Sport und Rennwagenbau” in 1947. Veritas GmbH followed in 1948.
Veritas is also the story of the phenomenal rise and crashing failure of a German racing brand.
Initially still under the name BMW-Veritas, powerful and very successful racing and touring sports cars were built as one-offs using pre-war engines, mostly from BMW 328s, with 1.5 and 2‑liter BMW engines and the simplest of means. Their success prompted BMW VERITAS to ban the reference to BMW engines. This resulted in a total of 11 BMW Veritas and 25 Veritas RS, in addition to other models. As great as the sporting success that Veritas achieved on the racetracks was, the company’s business situation was less successful and so it disappeared again as early as 1953. However, the name Veritas became legendary.
In 1948, Veritas acquired the chassis and engines number 74209 from BMW, which had already been produced in 1939, and built a 2‑seater racing sports car based on the BMW 328 Touring NSKK Roadster. This vehicle with the number 5074 served primarily as a demonstration vehicle and exhibit for performance shows before it was sold to the Swiss racing driver Franz Hammernick in 1949 as the BMW 328 RS “5074”. In order to be able to compete in the 1.5 liter class, the engine was downsized accordingly. Equipped in this way, Hammernick won several Grand Prix races in Switzerland. In 1954, the engine capacity was increased again to 2 liters.
From 1982 to 1990, the car was extensively restored with great attention to detail and fitted with a new aluminum outer skin. In 2015, the newly manufactured bodywork was severely damaged by the extinguishing agent when a carburetor fire was extinguished, so it was decided to restore and reinstall the original bodywork manufactured in 1949. The body was not repainted afterwards, so the high quality of the restoration work can be admired.
While an engine with approx. 1,500 cc was used in the races, the original engine with the number 74209 is now back in the vehicle.
Finding a Veritas RS is very difficult due to the small number of vehicles produced, and when a vehicle does come onto the market, it has usually been brought to its current condition using many rebuilt components. A vehicle with a high degree of authenticity and a traceable history is a special feature. Original substance is simply not reproducible.
