Rosengart Museum at Bedburg Rath

Rosengart Museum

History of the Rosengart - Automobiles Lucien Rosengart (1881-1976) was one of the most highly respected businessmen in France. His career began as a mechanic in his father's business and, due to his inventive genius and organizing abilities, he became an immensely rich industrialist. By 1918 Rosengart already employed 4,500 employees in his own company, which manufactured accessory parts for the car manufactures and other metal working plants. In the following years he helped André Citroën and Robert Peugeot with the rationalization of the development and production of their car manufacturing.

He also showed a new way in product marketing. His aim was to get away from the elite class of formula cars: The owner should be using the car in every day life and therefore Rosengart was using long-distance and reliability runs as means of publicity. Therefore his cars kept to the image of everyday usefulness, comfort and economy. His own first productions of Type LR2, which were licensed constructions of the legendary Austin Seven and built in 1928, were test driven several times and made to suit the requirements and demands of the French customers in form and comfort. Rosengart went even further with the marketing of the LR4 1(1931-1941), which was built as 5 CV in numerous variations.

In the mid 30's M. Lecot drove with one of these cars on 111 days, twice each day, from Lyon - Bourges - Dijon and back. This permanent drive over 100,000 km - without any problems -impressively proved the efficiency of the Rosengart-Automobiles. The cars were driven by a 747cm³ motor, which was based on the Austin Seven. Even after the war this miniature-engine was the powertrain source of the newly constructed "Ariette" and "Saggaie" , before Rosengart stopped production in 1955. In between were several trials with a six-cylinder engine of 1097cm³ built in a lengthened LR4 chassis which was sold comparatively successfully. Less lucrative was the business with the automobiles which were based on the Adler Trumpf and Citroen 11 CV which Rosengart called "Supertraction".

At the end of the 1940s Rosengart even built an eight-cylinder-Mercury on the chassis of the Supertraction and called this excitingly-bodied automobile "Super Trahuit". Karl-Heinz Bonk has worked on the Rosengart history since 1982 and by now has gathered and collected over 30 Automobiles of this marque. In his museum you will find everything, including the first models of the Rosengart small cars (1922) to his last models which left the plants in 1953.

Rosengart-Museum, Lucien-Rosengart-Weg 1, D-50181 Bedburg-Rath
Saturday&Sunday 11am to 7 pm
or on inquiry +49 2183 7315 Fax 049 2183 81946

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