PORSCHE LEARNS TO RACE
Karl Ludvigsen turns the clock back to when Porsche first went racing
The mid-engined Porsche Type 356 roadster was granted road registration in Austria on 15 June 1948 with the awarding of licence number K 45 286. The authorities in Spittal recorded Porsche as the producer and the model as ‘Sport 356/1’. In that high summer of 1948 the Porsche engineers at Gmünd were entitled to pause in their efforts and congratulate themselves.
They had built and were driving not only the first car to bear the Porsche name but also the world’s first modern midengined sports car. Everyone on the team felt immense pride at its creation, which gave a welcome boost to their spirits four years into their ostracism in Austria in the remote and primitive quarters they were assigned in wartime.
Among the legends surrounding this historic car that have come down through the decades are two in particular. One is that its handling was treacherous thanks to the way that not only the Vw-sourced engine/transaxle but also the complete rear suspension was turned 180 degrees to effect the mid-engined placement. The other legend is that the roadster, in the hands of Ferdinand Porsche’s nephew Herbert Kaes, scored the first-ever competition success for the Porsche marque.
Starting with the first legend, many armchair experts have said that this realignment of the Volkswagen’s components possessed a fatal flaw. The effect, they pointed out, was to cause the wheels to toe outward when they rose, instead of inward as they did on the Beetle. The rear-wheel-steering effect thus generated would tend to make the car turn more sharply than the driver intended, producing unwanted oversteer. In the VW Beetle the effect was the opposite, combating the car’s inherent oversteering tendency.
But what did knowledgeable people make of the 356 roadster when it was freshly minted? It was driven to
Switzerland late in June 1948 so it could be tested by journalists who were on hand for the Swiss Grand Prix at Bern on 4 July. One of these was Robert Braunschweig, editor of Bern’s authoritative Automobil Revue.
Calling the 356 ‘the youngest offspring of a great name,’ the experienced Braunschweig wrote that he ‘became very confident with it in a short time’ on the difficult and fast GP circuit. ‘This is how we imagine modern road motoring to be,’ he continued, ‘where the advantages of modern springing and the resultant driving comfort are combined with the adhesion of an equally modern, low and handy sports car. In tight corners it is handy and stable while in longer, fast highway bends it precisely holds the desired course.’
Another reporter in Switzerland had the inside track with Porsche on the story of its new car. He was Max Troesch, an engineer who had been in charge of experimental work at Steyr in 1929 when Ferdinand Porsche was director of design there. Troesch later moved to Switzerland to advance his education and was still there when the first Type 356 arrived. He gave his impressions of it in The Motor of 21
July 1948.
Driving the 356 in both town and country, Max Troesch reported that ‘it is not only speedy but also very comfortable and above all almost unbelievably stable.’ Its suspension, he said, ‘in conjunction with the very small overhang and concentration of weight at the back, gives remarkably steady, straight running on bad roads. Due to the raised roll centre at the rear of the car, plus the low centre of gravity, the car has really remarkable road holding, combined with a pleasant softness of springing and very light, accurate steering.’
That summer a British visitor, David Scott-moncrieff, paid an impromptu visit to Gmünd and to Porsche, he and his wife driving ‘up a valley to a group of what looked like army huts and were very graciously received.’ A purveyor of fine
motorcars, Scott-moncrieff made himself known to Ferry Porsche, who showed him the works and the first 356.
‘I was allowed to take the prototype for a test run,’ Scottmoncrieff said. ‘I was absolutely shattered by its roadholding. We were emerging from the decades during which only vintage cars and a few sports cars sat on the road; the others wallowed and floated about. So to find this new prototype as taut and road-hugging as a Grand Prix Bugatti was an incredible experience.’
All these assessments of the 356’s handling were positive. None mentioned excessive oversteer. Respecting the standing of Ferdinand Porsche, who was well known to all who understood European motor engineering, those who drove and reported on the first ‘Porsche’ might have been inclined to see it in a positive light. Nevertheless their own reputations were such that they would have given their honest impressions of its attributes. That they didn’t even hint at oversteer is significant.
A further demonstration of the roadster’s agility came on 11 July 1948. The 356 was back in Austria at Innsbruck in the Tyrol, appearing at the Rund um den Hofgarten, a round-thehouses race meeting on a 1.9-mile circuit through city blocks alongside the Inn River that gave the town its name. Brightening that summer’s gloom in the still-deprived postwar years, the meeting was attended by 45,000 fans. The three local newspapers devoted considerable coverage to an event that was chiefly for motorcycles but featured one sports-car race of ten laps, 19.0 miles.
This contest had a handful of eclectic entries. Alceo Padovani entered a Stanguellini; Trento-based Italian Luigi Vilotti fielded a Fiat 1100 sports. Otto Mathé brought his 1934 Fiat Balilla 508S while a 3.0-litre Austro Daimler of circa 1929 vintage, whose engine could trace its origin to Ferdinand Porsche’s designs, was an entry by Robert Aschkenasi.
Because the Stanguellini didn’t start and the Austro Daimler failed almost immediately, the race became a duel