1959 Rometsch Lawrence

The company began by building taxis using Opel or Ley Chassis. Post WWII, Rometsch made a stretched, 4-door Volkswagen Beetle taxi, and also constructed wood framed, aluminum-bodied, Volkswagen sports cabriolets cars called Beeskows, after the designer. Because of its shape, the Beeskow was sometimes called a banana. It looked like an ancestor to the Audi TT. In 1957, Rometsch switched from the banana to the Lawrence design, which was characterized as being 'more American.'

Each vehicle took about 1000 man-hours to complete, with an aluminum body formed over a frame of steel and wood. The chassis was Volkswagen, but typically, Okrasa or Porsche engines were installed. The Lawrence was initially offered as a convertible, but by the late 1950s, a coupe was also constructed. This is a 1959 coupe, of which, only a handful were made. The two-tone interior is mostly original. When the Berlin wall went up in August of 1962, Rometsch lost most of its workers who lived on the East side and closed.