Polynorm

Alexandre Horowitz (1904-1982), the Philips engineer who patented the rotary shaving head of the Philishave, had foreseen the post-war housing shortage as early as 1942 and designed an industrial building system of cold-formed thin-walled steel columns and beams. Immediately after the war he founded NV Ontwikkelingsmaatschappij Polynorm at Bunschoten to put it into production, with government support for system building and a credit from the National Reconstruction Bank that grew from 4.5 million guilders in 1948 to 28 million by 1951, and a workforce drawn from several thousand former fishermen of Bunschoten-Spakenburg. Production of 212 houses for the Lievendaal district of Eindhoven began in 1950 and was completed in 1951, and about 80 more were built in Bunschoten itself, but the government withdrew its support in 1951 and in 1953 Polynorm shifted to industrial buildings and components, later becoming known for steel door frames, pressure vessels and motor parts.

After the Second World War Polynorm also began making trailers for the Dutch army, in several weight classes: the smallest, the 'jeeptrailer', was built under licence in large numbers, distinguished by its rounded mudguards, and a 1-ton trailer of 630-690 kg unladen weight and 1,000 kg payload was also produced. The ¼-ton two-wheeled trailer (Aanhangwagen ¼ ton 2W Polynorm) derives from the Bantam trailer of the Second World War, designed by the firm that designed the original jeep to be towed behind it and to float; the post-war Dutch builders Polynorm, Pennock, Roset and Paul & van Weelde each varied the details, some adding a tailgate or a spare wheel. It weighs 255 kg unladen, carries 250 kg and is 2.64 m long, and it remained in Dutch military service until 2009. Behind the Nekaf jeeps it passed to the Land Rovers that entered Dutch service from 1977, including the 109 ambulances built at Solihull under the 1978 contract, whose owners keep the Polynorm trailer manual with the vehicle.

From the end of 1954 to the end of 1955 Polynorm assembled the British Standard 8 at Bunschoten, and from 1955 the Volvo PV444, about ten cars a week with ten men and over 1,000 by 1957, when falling orders and the floor space required ended assembly; Volvo truck chassis and complete cabs for Dodge and Federal were also built. The firm later concentrated on sheet-metal and chassis parts for the motor industry, Daimler-Benz among its customers. In 2001 voestalpine motion gmbh acquired Polynorm N.V., the largest acquisition in the voestalpine Group's history to that date, and the Bunschoten plant continues as voestalpine Polynorm B.V., developing and producing aluminium and steel body parts for the European car and truck industry, from single spare parts to runs of 150,000 a year.