The Sunroof King

A German immigrant who arrived in the U.S. as a 22-year-old mechanical engineer ten years ago, Heinz Prechter has combined stamina with a knack for improvising to break into a lucrative phase of auto manufacturing.

His specialty: the installation of sliding sunroofs, long popular on European cars but until recently rejected by U.S. automakers, who felt that demand did not warrant adopting a special assembly-line procedure.

Prechter nonetheless went methodically from one auto company to another, in stalling demonstration roofs free of charge. After several years his persistence paid off: Dodge and Ford finally decided to offer the slide-back roofs as an option in 1968. Today, almost all of Detroit's models offer sunroofs as an extra, costing $400 to $600.

Automakers send their cars to Prechter's American Sunroof Corp. plants in Michigan, California and Georgia. This year American Sunroof, which is almost entirely owned by Prechter, will make and install about 38,000 roofs and have sales of more than $7,000,000. A millionaire at 32, Prechter owns two other companies that specialize in auto-customizing work. He counts among his clients Folk Singer Glen Campbell, for whom he transformed a Cadillac Eldorado into a station wagon, and many Saudi Arabians, to whom he has so far shipped 100 luxurious Prechterized Cadillacs.

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