Researching Reichmann, the Netherlands' rally-driving carpet tycoon

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Many years ago, a well-known Dutch classic car dealer managed to bring back an intriguing car with equally intriguing Dutch pedigree to its home-country. It was a Talbot-Lago Grand Sport with bodywork by Pennock of The Hague. The Grand Sport had spent 45 years of its life in the USA by that point, but had originally been commissioned for rallying by a wealthy Dutchman, or so it was believed. The was just one problem: no one seemed to know whom that man had been.

The ‘Pennock-Lago’ was supposedly displayed at the 1952 Amsterdam Motor Show, too, but I could not find any photographic evidence of this at the time. This picture, new to me, was only unearthed recently and what a lovely shot it is. As I reported in 2007, “Few people knew then who the owner was, and throughout the years his identity remained a mystery.” The Dutch plate it still wore in the USA (SX-17-58) didn’t provide any further information other than that it was issued in 1955 just after the earlier provincial plates had been dismissed. The plate seen here (HX-38492) is indeed an earlier provincial one.

Eventually, a long night rummaging through old motoring magazines revealed the answer I’d been hoping for. The car was seen in all its splendour on the starting line of the 1952 Tulip Rally (picture two). A starting number wasn’t easily visible, especially in the grain of the magazine printing, but a glance at the starting list of that year revealed that it was number 150 in the rally. With a Jaguar wearing number 149 and an Aston Martin wearing 151 and both of these clearly visible in the picture, too, there was no more doubt.

The owner turned out to be a certain Mr. Reichmann and I found out he was a carpet manufacturer from the province of Noord-Holland. I even remember visiting the place of his former factory but not finding a thing there. I wrote: “Reichmann was never heard of after his 1952 rally adventure. Some say he was sent to prison, but it is also rumoured that he, too, went to America.”

Fast forward 16 years and researching people has become quite a lot easier, and with the newly found photograph of Reichmann’s Lago, it’s fun to give it another go, isn’t it? Well, well… We find that Reichmann had previously taken part in the Monte Carlo Rallies of 1949, 1950 and 1951 in a Bentley. In the 1950 rally, his wife had been the co-driver. He also took that car to races at the Zandvoort track. In 1950, he entered the Tour des Alpes with a Talbot-Lago - possibly this car sans its Pennock body. We also find announcements of children being born in the Reichmann family and about Mijnheer Reichmann’s past graduations. Crikey.

After 1952, however, it seems that Reichmann lost interest in motor sports, with his name absent from later motoring magazines, but he reappears elsewhere in the national papers. In July 1952 he was sacked from his own carpet factory by his brother, who took over his position. The 300-strong staff, however, weren’t happy with the coup and organized a so-called sit-down strike. It was effective, too, as Reichmann made a comeback a month later, in August, with his brother now keeping a safe distance. The factory made headlines again in 1953 when it became the first in Europe to introduce nylon into carpet manufacturing. Reichmann must have been a happy man.

Here comes the twist: in 1956, the tide turned. The Amsterdam court sent the 51-year-old Reichmann to prison for a year. The reason: stealing carpets from his own factory to the total value of 170,000 guilders. The article also mentions that he had fled to Germany, his homeland, which makes it unclear if he spent time behind bars after all. Does it end there? No. It seems our man Reichmann returned to the Netherlands regardless, as he set up another carpet factory in the east of the country in the 1970s. That went bankrupt in 1975 and there the trail ends. For now, at least…

Words: Jeroen Booij; picture: archive
 

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