DAY IN THE LIFE
Peter Spillner, restorer of Audi museum-pieces
I GET UP AT 5AM and start work at 6am. It’s not so bad because we have an apartment above the workshop, and I’m in the office first, going through my paperwork. My wife is in the office too, and, when I’ve prepared the list of tasks, the workshop technicians can then ask questions and raise problems. We have a workshop meeting at 7am, work out what needs doing, what is missing, what parts are needed. We always have a break for breakfast, the whole team, around 9am.
I recently established the business as FZR GmbH; really it’s called Fahrzeugrestaurierung Rosenow, and it was founded by Peter Rosenow in 1987 – he was the 1970 World Raceboard Champion, so quite well-known in East Germany. Back then, he was based in a small workshop in another village not far from here [a few kilometres outside Berlin], specialising in crankshaft repairs for Wartburgs and Trabants, the staple East German cars. It wasn’t easy work but, as soon as the reunification happened in 1990, we couldn’t sell a single crankshaft! Suddenly everyone wanted West German cars.
Peter and my father had worked together in the same truck factory, and I used to come to his workshop after school. I grew up around old cars and motorbikes, and joined the business in 1988. Then, in 1997, I bought it. Soon the premises became too small, so I bought a larger workshop, here, after the company that occupied it went bankrupt.
I spend a lot of time working out how cars were made originally, and what is not original so it can be removed. I want to build the car our grandfathers created, not my own version. We thoroughly research old papers and photographs so we can get the job right.
On quiet days I go into the garage and work myself, but I’m careful not to immerse myself too far. The technicians leave at 4pm. Then I spend time with customers or ordering parts.
We restored our first car very soon after the reunification, a 1946 Mercedes-Benz 170/V that Mr Rosenow bought from my father. We took it to several Mercedes-Benz meetings all around Germany – remember, before 1990 we hadn’t been allowed to leave the East! They saw that East Germans are good craftsmen. And so came more and more work.
In 1995 we restored a Horch 853 for a private customer. Peter Rosenow knew a university professor who was a friend of Ralf Hornung, the chief archivist for Audi Tradition, and he came to see the car. He then gave us a test: a DKW three-cylinder engine to rebuild. Of course, we knew the Wartburg and Trabant engines, and they were related to the DKW. So in 1998 we were given a Horch to restore, for the August Horch Museum in Zwickau.
Audi opened its new museum at Ingolstadt in 2000, and we had been asked to restore a number of cars ready for the opening. The first was a 12-cylinder Horch 670. I worked only on that car during that time, and it took me 1½ years to finish. Back then, the business employed three people. Now I have five people plus two apprentices, and I don’t want to get any bigger. Quality is everything to my reputation. I do not advertise; demand arises because of the company’s reputation.
I have some lunch – a bowl of porridge, usually – while I continue to work, but no one day is like another. My passions include my 1964 Land Rover and my 1957 IFA P2M jeep; I used to ride motorcycles but I have little time for hobbies. A current project is a MercedesBenz World War Two staff car, which I’m restoring for British enthusiast and collector Kevin Wheatcroft. It has gun holsters in the rear doors. I started two years ago and it will take five years to complete.
My favourite project was the Audi M-type cutaway for the Audi Museum, complete with its overhead-cam straight-six. Such an advanced car, and you can see every single screw. Then there was the Audi Type R Imperator, the only one left and the only car for which I have ever had to create the entire body from scratch.
In the evening I have dinner with the family; that is very important to me. It’s the only time we are complete.
The August Horch Museum and the Audi Type R Imperator will feature in a future issue of Octane.
‘I WANT TO BUILD THE CAR OUR GRANDFATHERS CREATED, NOT MY OWN VERSION’