VINTAGE PORSCHE PRIMED FOR SHOW
Meticulously restored German sports car to be part of European Classic Car Meet
For those who appreciate vintage automobiles that weren’t made in America, Calgary’s European Classic Car Meet is the most important show in the city. Held on the lawn of Stanley Park, the meet is hosted by the Vintage Sports Car Club of Calgary and vehicles are set to roll out on Saturday. Local European-auto enthusiast Craig Frew is working hard to have his project 1965 Porsche 356C Cabriolet all finished and ready to display.
“I got into working on cars because my dad did a lot of work on cars,” Frew explains. “He was a machinist, a mechanic and a body man. He did a lot of different cars, from Studebakers to Simcas, and I picked it up from him.
After graduating from riding small-bore motorcycles, Frew’s first car was a 1938 MG TA. He picked it up in 1968 after reading a classified ad in the Calgary Herald. It was a running, driving car at the time, but Frew always intended to fully restore it.
However, it wasn’t until 2007 — when Frew retired — that the car finally got the attention it deserved with a complete restoration.
Plenty of other “unique and quirky” European cars have passed through Frew’s garage. The 1965 Porsche he’s preparing to show is a vehicle he picked up while working in Virginia. He brought the Porsche back to Alberta with him in 1989, and by 2013 it had 125,000 miles on the odometer.
Frew says he wanted to refresh the engine and give the car a new coat of paint.
“That turned into a full rotisserie, bare-metal rebuild,” Frew says with a laugh. “It’s a totally original car, and every piece on it is numbered and is correct, so it had to be done right.”
Frew enjoys doing much of the work himself, from welding to wrenching. He built a jig to hold the Porsche straight while it was hanging in the rotisserie and proceeded to replace the floors and any other areas where rust was found.
I could hardly detect any wear on many of the parts — even the crank was near flawless. It’s a testament to the quality of these German machines.
“These Porsches are very complex in terms of how the body panels are put together,” he says.
Many of the replacement panels were purchased from Stoddard in Highland Heights, Ohio. While Frew has done bodywork and paint jobs, he sent the Porsche to Cosmos Collision in Calgary for the final treatment. Meanwhile, he took apart the running gear, with its 1,600-cc flat four-cylinder engine.
“I could hardly detect any wear
on many of the parts — even the crank was near flawless,” Frew says. “It’s a testament to the quality of these German machines.”
To increase the engine’s power, Frew bought a big-bore kit to take the capacity to 1,720 cc. The cylinder heads were ported and polished and fitted with new valves, guides and springs. A different camshaft with a slightly taller profile and increased duration allows the engine, which was reassembled with new gaskets and bearings, to rev a little faster.
“It’s pretty punchy for a little guy,” Frew says of the completed engine package.
The only remaining jobs to be done were to glue in some of the interior carpeting and finish upholstering the passenger seat.
“It’ll be ready for the European Classic Car Meet,” Frew says.
“It’s a great venue to see all of these old European cars, and every year there’s something different that shows up.”
As a retired mechanical engineer, Frew says he enjoys looking at the design details of each vehicle.
“You can see the character of each car, and almost read the personality of the country where they were originally built by the way they were designed.”