Recaro
Encyclopedia : R : RE : REC : Recaro
Recaro is a German company based in Stuttgart, well known for their bucket seats and commonly contracted to produce upgraded racing style seats for all the sporty cars built by the Volkswagen Group as well as many other manufacturers.
History
Founding and Beginnings
Founded in 1906 by Wilhelm Reutter Reutter Carosserie-Werke car body producer, the company made a name for itself producing Limousine bodies in the 1920s. In 1930 they started producing bodies for the Volkswagen Beetle, and in 1949 had a huge break though when Porsche started using their bodies for their sports cars.The move from Car Bodies to Racing Seats
New car manufacturing methods reduce the size of the car body market in the 1950s, and Reutter finds itself on hard times. They built many cars for Porsche, though.
In 1963 Porsche takes over the car builing factory, merging it with its plant. The remaining company is renamed it Recaro GmbH & Co, changing its focus to producing top quality seats for Porsche vehicles. The company begins producing both production seats for Porsche and a separate line of seats for re-fits into any car.
In 1969, The Reutter family sells their ownership of Recaro to three companies, Keiper, Huber & Wagner, and Metzeler after facing economic problems.
In 1983, Keiper purchases all shares in Recaro and establishes Keiper Recaro GmbH & Co in Kirchheim (Teck) near Esslingen am Neckar.
Recaro today
The 1990s was a period of great change for Recaro. Their operations went world wide as they established Recaro North America, Recaro UK, Recaro South East Asia in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Recaro Japan, and Recaro France in Mont Saint Algnan.
Meanwhile, Recaro seats were seeing applications in a variety of cars from the Aston Martin V03 to the Audi S series and RS Series, to the Beetle RSI, as well as the addition of the side Airbag seat to the Recaro Product line.
Recaro seats are also used in the Leopard 2 MBT and these cars:
- Aston Martin:
- *DB9
- *Vantage
- *Vanquish
- Bufori La Joya MKIII
- Ford:
- *Focus ST, SVT Euro Pack
- *Mondeo ST 220
- GM:
- *Chevrolet Cobalt SS
- *Pontiac Trans Am
- *Saturn ION Red Line
- *Opel Astra OPC
- *Opel Zafira OPC
- Honda:
- *Accord Type-R
- *Civic Type-R
- *Integra Type-R
- *NSX
- *Odyssey
- *S2000
- Jaguar:
- *XKR
- *XK8
- Mazda:
- *Eunos Roadster
- *RX-7 Spirit R Type-A
- Mercedes-Benz:
- *Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16
- Mitsubishi:
- *Lancer Evolution
- *ek-Sports
- Porsche:
- *911
- *Boxster
- *Carrera GT
- Renault Clio Sport
- Subaru Impreza STi S204
- Suzuki Ignis Sport
- Toyota:
- *Caldina
- *Supra JZA70
- Volkswagen Group:
- *Audi A4 / S4 (B6)
- *Audi A4 DTM Edition
- *Audi RS4
- *Audi TT Quattro Sport
- *Lamborghini Gallardo
- *SEAT León Cupra R
- *Volkswagen Golf GTI
- *Volkswagen Jetta GLI
References
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.