The Panton chair is an important icon of modern design and has a fascinating history as Verner Panton experimented with a variety of materials to best realize the design. The most commonly seen versions are the chairs made of Luran-S, a colored thermoplastic polystyrene and the contemporary version in flexible polypropylene. However the chair was originally made by Vitra with Baydur HR cold-molded, fiberglass reinforced polyester resin foam which would then be primed and painted. The resulting chair was very time and labor intensive, yet yielded a chair which was much more substantial, with greater heft and a more elegant sculptural quality not needing any visible reinforcement. These chairs do not have a "plastic" feel.

In 1979 production of the Panton chair ceased. However,  in 1983, Horn GmbH & Co. KG in Rudersberg began making the chair using HR foam again, and sold it through the WK association. These chairs are marked with Panton's signature at the bottom of the back and were ma