Albrecht von Goertz

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Albrecht Graf Goertz (en: Count Albrecht von Goertz) in German (born January 12, 1914 died October 27, 2006) designed cars for BMW including the BMW 503 and BMW 507, both of 1955. He also worked for Porsche, Nissan and Toyota.

He was the second son to an aristocratic family in Germany from Brunkensen in Lower Saxony. After attending school, Goertz was started an apprenticed to Deutsche Bank and then to a London-based private bank, but his prospects were not good, so in 1936 he emigrated to the United States of America. He eventually moved to Los Angeles and worked at a car wash and in a factory making aircraft engines. In 1938 Goertz rented a garage and showroom and modified Ford Model A and B models. On a Mercury chassis, he built a two-door coupe called the "Paragon". This was exhibited at the World Exhibition in San Francisco in 1939.

Goertz then served in the US Army for five years. After leaving the Army he drove the Paragon to New York and while driving it he accidentally encountered Raymond Loewy, the famous car designer. Loewy invited Goertz to his office, sent him to college to learn about design and later gave him a job in the Studebaker studio in Indiana.

Goertz in 1953 set up his own design business and got to know Max Hoffmann, BMW's main importer in America. Hoffmann knew of BMW's plans to build a sports car and suggested that Goertz should contact BMW in Munich. Goertz then designed both BMW 507 and also the BMW 503. He was also famously linked to both the Toyota 2000GT and the Datsun 240Z as he carried out consultation work for a two seater sports car project for both companies via Yamaha, initially for Nissan, then also known as Datsun. When Nissan abandoned the project, Toyota adopted the project and put the car into production and once they finalised production for the 2000GT, Datsun then brought the project back to life as the 240Z which involved more of Goertz as he helped the design team to establish design parameters related to the physical size and configuration of the Nissan Z-car which also led to people mistakenly believing Goertz was the man who designed both cars. Car and Driver magazine refers Dr. Goertz as the "Father of the Z Car".