Hans G. Lehmann

Since his retirement in 2008, he continued to run his photo syndication company.

Lehmann reportedly announced his retirement in April 2008, but continued to run his picture syndication company, Lehmann Photo Syndication.

He published a book in 1985 titled Testfahrer und Autospione: Abenteuer mit geheimen Automobilen (Test Drivers and Car Spies: Adventures with Secret Automobiles).

His biggest scoop of all was the Volkswagen Golf, on a public road in Spain in 1973, the Mark II in Arizona, and the Mark III in Austria. His other best known shots were of the Ford Sierra, and the Ford Mondeo at a gas station in Las Vegas, Nevada whilst staking out Death Valley.

Lehmann was born in the former East Germany. At a young age, his family moved to Wolfsburg where he developed his interest for cars. He later moved to Hamburg in the 1960s, where he worked as a photographer for a news agency and freelanced for daily newspapers. In his break, he frequently visited his parents, usually taking his camera along. Whilst there in 1963, at the nearby Volkswagen factory, he used a 300mm lens to take some photographs of an unusual looking car near the factory. His employer became uneasy about the photographs, and after declining them, Lehmann sold them to the tabloid newspaper Bild for a healthy sum of money. The prototype in question turned out to be a proposed replacement for the Volkswagen Beetle.

Hans Georg Lehmann (born 1939, in Dessau, Germany) is a retired German photographer who is noted for his spy shots of prototype automobiles whilst they undergo testing stages, frequenting in locations where test sessions are likely to occur. These photographs regularly appear in automobile magazines.