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The story of the Puma in South Africa.

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Thanks a lot to the author of these two reports about the Pumas in South-Africa, Mr. Armand W. Botha 

1. report

The story of puma in South Africa started when a gentleman named Vic Du Buisson saw a Puma in Brasil when on business there. At the time the SA currency was one of the strongest and it was cheap to import a 1600 GT into South Africa. Vic then negotiated with Puma do Brasil the rights to the car.

As the Puma was manufactured firstly on a Karmann Ghia platform (later it used the Brazilia platform) which was not produced in south Africa the molds were modified in Brasil to use a beetle platform also the conversion to Right hand drive happened this time. Puma used some of these molds to produce a few RHD models One which was exported to Australia.

There were another snag for RSA production! VW refused to supply components forcing BROMER MOTOR ASSEMBLIES to buy new beetles and scrapping the bodies using only the running gear.

Our family car at that time was a beetle body rebuilt with a used chassis from another car.

The windows also had to be made in RSA (Luckily because you can still buy new windows). The cars were assembled in a town near the city of Durban called New Germany. But it was not really a car building area so a lot of skills were not available. The quality of the cars were not very good but not bad either.

The firm made about 275 cars before it was bankrupted. The main reason being indifference and not actively looking for dealers. Eventually all cars were delivered through one of South Africa’s biggest car dealers Lindsay Saker in Johannesburg. It seems that the last cars were built at Lindsay Sakers.

The Workshop manager at Lindsay Saker at the time was Jack Wiyker. He bought all the remaining cars and parts at the auction when Bromer motors went bankrupt.  In his own capacity he formed Puma Marketing which to this day still supplies parts for Puma in South Africa.

Jack imported quite a few of the later model Pumas and also built a few more in the eighties. Personal problems interfered with further production and no more cars were built.

He has now negotiated some financial backing and is currently assembling a demonstrator. The body shape is the same as the Pumas Built in 1969 – 75 with an added side window.

2. report (words underlind are linked with pictures / additional information)

South Africans have long been interested in sports cars and in particular a South African  built sports car. The Protea, GSM Flamingo, Dart, Puma, and lately the Cobra and other cars made that dream come true for many people. Few of these cars could however be seen as true production vehicles. The Flamingos and Darts were close but the only one Car met with all the requirements for a production vehicle, such as heating, ventilation, locking doors, etc: The Puma GT. Originally designed by an Italian, Rino Malzoni who lived and worked in Brazil. Based on VW running gear he designed a very pretty sports car. Volkswagen do Brazil had no qualms about selling parts and subassemblies to Puma whose factory produced about 30 units a month. The South African connection started when a businessman called Vic Borcherds became aware of the Brazilian Puma. As South Africa was already producing the Beetle with many local parts and assemblies. Vic reasoned that he could produce the cars in South Africa. He imported  a gold colored Puma to test the market. Unfortunately the quality of Brazilian tires was so bad that he lost control during a rainstorm and wrapped the car around an Armco barrier. It is not clear whether he imported other examples as well. As the Brazilian puma was based on the wider Karmann Ghia chassis the body was redesigned by Puma Brazil.

A brand new beetle chassis was purchased and sent to Brazil for the moulds. A few months later the car arrived at the docks in Durban. My Uncle Abel Pienaar was by that stage heavily involved in the negotiations and setting up of the South African assembly plant. He took Vic to the Docks to pick up the new car. On the way home He followed Vic, at an intersection He saw the Puma’s brake lights come on but no stopping of the car. At the next moment he saw Vic pull in at a Tire dealer where  the Puma’s tires were swapped for a set of Dunlop sports tires. Vic then told my Uncle that the car skidded over the intersection as he applied the brakes. This first Puma allegedly the first right hand drive Puma in the world was painted a bright blue metallic and looked really stunning. This car differed from later Pumas in that the Chassis was fitted higher into the body than later Puma’s thus restricting headroom by about 50mm. A second used Chassis was sent over and the moulds was modified. The factory ran into all sorts of problems with the government over local content regulations. They were only allowed to build a few cars from all imported parts, the rest had to use even more local content especially the window glass. A  total of 20 cars were built in this fashion before the regulations took effect. These cars all had 13’’magnesuim wheels sourced from brazil and even the upholstery materials was imported. The windows caused headaches as the company which was to manufacture them requested a large deposit before making the moulds. Volkswagen South Africa then threw a big spanner in the works by refusing to supply any parts to Bromer Motor Assemblies as the Puma Factory was called. As new car regulations demanded all new parts the Factory was in a bind. Puma Brazil could supply parts but under local regulations this was not allowed. 

As Abel Pienaar was an independent VW rebuilder a deal was struck whereby He would Purchase brand new 1600 Beetles and strip them. The body, carburetor, distributor, exhaust upholstery and wheels were then sold as parts. Our family car was a rebuilt beetle bought this way in 1974. The chassis was then sent to the Factory where it was shortened and fitted with a Puma body. The pumas was built in

batches of 5 with the most problems stemming from water sealing around the doors. It took 5 working days to get the doors to work properly. The factory also undertook special orders and some weird Pumas left the Factory. It was generally felt that the car was too slow especially when compared to the RX2 Mazda of the time.Grahame Lavreau the production manager at the time remembers the following Factory conversions: Disc brakes, RX2 engines Ford 5L engines and one Porsche six cylinder engine and gearbox. Two cars with Puma engines were also built.

Another information in English language you will find on Bill Jackameit's Home Page under folllowing Link: http://wj2d.100megsdns.com/africa.html

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