Rainer Buchmann

Rainer Buchmann is a German car designer, who founded the „bb“ company specialised in the modification of luxury cars.

Rainer Buchmann founded the bb company in Frankfurt in 1974, when he converted a Porsche 911 Coupé into a Porsche Targa and painted it with the rainbow colours of Polaroid. The car was exhibited for Polaroid at the photokina fair in 1976. Buchmann produced a number of unusual modifications of Porsche and Mercedes cars for international clients.

Buchmann employed the former Porsche employee Eberhard Schulz in 1978 and built together with him the bb Mercedes CW 311 in Frankfurt, which was permitted to bear the Mercedes star. It was one of the most streamlined and fastest sport cars of its time with a maximum speed of above 300 km/h (186mph). Both the Turbo Targa and the CW 311 had their debut in the German movie Car napping of 1980. Later cars included the bb Flatnose Porsche, the bb Magic Top Mercedes, the bb VW Polo Paris/Carat and a conversion of one of the last Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman with free standing wing arches in 1930s style. Buchmann became partner of well known German companies including car and paint manufacturers.

Buchmann saw himself as a car couturier, because his designs were further advanced than those of commercial car tuning companies. He excelled also by technical his developments. Beside his car body modifications he was a pioneer for leading edge automotive electronics, which is today common in many mass produced cars: a remote control for the central locking system, infrared sensors as park assistants, digital computer systems and the multi function steering wheel, for which he filed a patent, and the speaking cockpit.

His turnover declined in the 1980s as in the world wide aftermarket tuning sector. The deteriorating dollar exchange rate affected his exports to the USA and Near East, so that he closed his business in 1986. Subsequently he worked as a self employed consultant.

Buchmann started a comeback in Frankfurt in 2014. He presented the bb Moonracer, a new interpretation of the Turbo Targa Rainbow Porsche of 1976 based on a 1980s Porsche Targa. Parallel to this a book about bb was published by Heel, which was written by Dr. Gerold Lingnau the retired editor of the technology and motor section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The book reviews under the title „bb Rainer Buchmann: Innovation-Design-Emotion“ the achievements of the car couturier.

• Electric steering device for vehicles. EP 0153434 A1.