Private Investment Firm Chews Up Recaro Automotive And Spits Its 120-Year-Old Corpse Into Bankruptcy

Legendary German car seat manufacturer Recaro Automotive has filed for bankruptcy, been deemed insolvent, and was approved for self-administration by its local district court, Autocar reports. The automotive seat manufacturing arm of Recaro (the airplane seats, child safety seats, and gaming seats businesses remain unaffected) has been around since 1906. The company changed hands in 2020, now controlled by investment firm Raven Acquisitions, and has taken just four years to completely eat itself from the inside.

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Autocar also indicates that employees of the seating giant had not been informed that the company would be filing for bankruptcy. The trade union under which Recaro’s 215 employees operate, IG Metall, has indicated that the path forward is not clear, and has called for transparency from management, which has not been forthcoming.

Recaro is considered a Tier 1 supplier to the automotive industry, building seats for popular sporty cars from Porsche, Ford, Volkswagen, Subaru, Toyota, Aston Martin, and others. The company is synonymous with sporty seats in sporty cars, and “getting the Recaros” is a popular option box for many new car buyers. It isn’t clear where manufacturers will get their OEM-grade sport seats if Recaro ceases to exist.

Image: Porsche

In 1906 master saddler Wilhelm Reutter began development of car bodies and interiors for the fledgling German auto industry, kicking off the Stuttgarter Carosserie und Radfabrik body plant. The company later changed its name to Reutter Karosserie, making bodies for Porsche and Volkswagen, among others. Porsche later purchased the Karosserie to build its own bodies, spinning off the interior business to become Recaro (taking the re from Reutter and the caro from Karosserie) in the 1960s.

Even beyond OEM applications, Recaro is represented as the preferred motorsport seating supplier on practically every racing grid in the world. This company is a household name, even beyond the automotive and motorsport communities. It’s astonishing that such a storied brand could be driven into the ground so quickly. At least the landing will be safe, thanks to Recaro seats.