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Recaro

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Recaro is a German company based in Kirchheim unter Teck in the vicinity of Stuttgart, well known for their bucket seats and commonly contracted to produce upgraded racing style seats for many sporty cars built by various mainstream manufacturers.

History

Founding and beginnings

Founded in 1906 by Wilhelm Reutter Reutter Carosserie-Werke car body producer, the company made a name for itself producing Limousine bodies in the 1920s. In 1930 they started producing bodies for the Volkswagen Beetle, and in 1949 had a huge breakthrough when Porsche started using their bodies for their sports cars.

The move from car bodies to racing seats

New car manufacturing methods reduce the size of the car body market in the 1950s, and Reutter found itself on hard times. However they continued to build many cars for Porsche.

In 1963 Porsche took over the car building factory, merging it with its plant. The remaining company was renamed Recaro GmbH & Co, changing its focus to producing top quality seats for Porsche vehicles. The company began producing both production seats for Porsche and a separate line of seats for re-fits into any car.

In 1969, The Reutter family sold their ownership of Recaro to three companies, Keiper, Huber & Wagner, and Metzeler after facing economic problems.

In 1983, Keiper purchased all shares in Recaro and established Keiper Recaro GmbH & Co in Kirchheim (Teck) near Esslingen am Neckar.

Recaro today

The 1990s was a period of great change for Recaro. Their operations went world wide as they established Recaro North America, Recaro UK, Recaro South East Asia in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Recaro Japan, and Recaro France in Mont Saint Algnan.

Meanwhile, Recaro seats were seeing applications in a variety of cars from the Aston Martin V03 to the Audi S series and RS Series, to the Beetle RSI, as well as the addition of the side Airbag seat to the Recaro Product line.

Recaro seats are also used in the Leopard 2 MBT and these cars:

References

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