We have done it: virtually nobody, except ourselves, has believed that a small enterprise will be able to leave behind the "tinkering" stage and build up its own vehicle production. At the end of 1988, after the death of the great role model Enzo Ferrari, an euphoria swept across Germany: many enterprises in the automobile industry wanted to create a niche sports car and copy the great Ferrari. We too, Martin and Friedhelm Wiesmann, were enthusiastic about this idea and set out to turn it into something tangible. Almost nobody has survived this courageous step financially. They were either defeated by the hurdles set up by the German Technical Inspection Agency TÜV, by the financing aspect or by the large companies’ veto, who only in exceptional cases allow small vehicle manufacturers to make use of their technology. Often, the awareness for market requirements was that much blinded by one’s own dreams, that his products were simply not marketable. We at Wiesmann have recognised the dangers in good time and have also developed other marketable products (e.g. hardtops), which on the one hand ensured the economic survival of our company and on the other hand earned us the necessary respect of big industry, which in the end lead to a supply contract for drive technology between BMW AG and Wiesmann:

The Wiesmann roadster using BMW technology was born.