1948 Veritas BMW Rennsport

This is a front-running, potentially winning car at the Monaco Historic Grand Prix. Now the price all starts to make sense

by Thor Thorson

Veritas was formed in 1946 by BMW engineers Ernst Loof and Lorenz Dietrich to build BMW-engined sports cars. Because steel was virtually unavailable in post-war Germany, the bodies were all hand-finished in aluminum, with steel being confined to the main chassis members.

This, and a general shortage of all other components, explain why no two Veritas cars are really identical. Even so, as conditions allowed motor racing to return in one form or the other, the cars enjoyed a certain measure of success.

Their first was an outright win by Karl Kling at the 1948 Nurburgring sports car race at an average speed of 161 kph—almost 100 mph. The small company finally closed in 1953 when Loof returned to BMW. Estimates of the number of cars built, including renn-spyders, coupes, and single-seaters, vary, but the number is usually thought to be around 78.

The example on offer here has been restored to the original renn-spyder configuration. Although...