IT'S HAMMER TIME

WHEN BRIAN Tanti bought an incomplete pre-WWII Parx 49/00 power hammer from a local munitions factory almost 30 years ago, he never imagined one like it could have been used to fabricate original Spyder bodies. Now, thanks to some great detective work he knows that his hammer is not just the only 49/00 in Australia but the exact model used to make Spyder bodies. “Someone saw it in the background of a photo on social media and contacted me,” Tanti said, smiling. “He had just bought one and had been in contact with Olaf Deitz, the grandson of the original owner of the German company that made them. He offered me the drawings to make the (missing) lower arms and I jumped at that. I made the arm and Leussink Engineering made me the upright and we recommissioned the machine. “I contacted Olaf and he told me some of these hammers, they didn’t make many, were sold in the Reutlingen area of Germany where Karosserie Wendler, which made the Spyder bodies, was based. I now have a copy of a German receipt showing my 49/00 was delivered to a company called Ferrocast Pty Ltd in Little Bourke Street, Melbourne, in 1953 and the same machines were delivered to Wendler in early 1954. “The hammer is slightly faster to work with than the English wheel which I’m more used to, but it’s more of a cultural difference. The wheel machine was developed in the UK but on the Continent, they used power hammers. So using the power hammer gives the Spyder project another layer of authenticity, which is fantastic. I was almost ready to get rid of it.”