GENERATION GAME
A family-friendly 356 Outlaw.
Of all the life experiences that shape your view of the world, time spent with family is where the deepest-rooted love of motoring tends to form. After all, most young petrolheads can name a relative with a standout car, while many of us can recall road trips or weekends passing spanners to a parent doubling up as an enthusiastic home mechanic. It’s this strong link between family and four-wheelers that Jon Hancock knows only too well.
“My Dad bought his first Porsche in 1981,” he reveals. “It was a 924 Lux. That car had a big influence on me. I attended boarding school and, when I travelled home at weekends, the whole family would hop into the Porsche and head for the nearest fast-food joint. The car’s stereo was always playing loud. We wouldn’t necessarily have anywhere to go — we’d simply enjoy driving around in this front-engined, water-cooled Porsche. Looking back, I can see this being the catalyst for my desire to own a Stuttgart-crested sports car to call my own.”
The then nine-year-old Jon would likely have been overwhelmed if he’d known what lay ahead — in the present, Porsche ownership is as much a lifestyle for him as it is a hobby, not only because every sub-family of the marque has passed through his hands in recent years, but also because in 2010, he dropped a stressful marketing career to open his own one-man Porsche specialist workshop in Wiltshire.
The 924 can’t take all of the credit here. Fond memories of family take-away runs got a shot of diverse inspiration during the 1980s, fuelled by Jon’s teenage years leafing through issues of Custom Car and Street Machine, alongside Colin Burnham’s Volkswagen tuning books, donated by an uncle obsessed with air-cooled hot rods. First car finances, of course, didn’t stretch far, but they were able to see Jon become the owner of a Beetle. The progression to an air-cooled Porsche was almost inevitable, but 356 ownership took a while to come around. “I’d always wanted a Porsche, but I wasn’t looking to buy when I saw this particular car,” he says, referencing the gorgeous yellow-lensed restomod before us. “A classic car dealer I know fitted trade plates and brought the Porsche along to a local vehicle meet. Once we’d had the obligatory conversation about whether it was a real 356, he told me the car was for sale, but advised me of the price he was going to pitch when required remedial work was complete. I asked if he’d have a word with the owner and let me know how much the car would cost me if I were to buy it in exactly the condition I was looking at.”
A few days later, the trader advised Jon of the price. “I think I had about £800 to spend,” he laughs. “I immediately set about selling a few valuable items I wasn’t really making use of and, within a couple of months, I’d managed to raise enough money to see my name on the car’s logbook.” This was a well-travelled
coupe. A 1963 left-hooker, it had rolled off the assembly line in a fetching lick of blue and was sold to a first owner in Munich, eventually ending up being exported to Japan, where a subsequent owner progressed part-way through a series of upgrades inspired by the Outlaw movement. The car was running and driving, just about, and despite unusual history, it remained a ‘matching numbers’ example. In other words, the air-cooled Porsche Jon saw at that local car meet was the ideal blank canvas for him to personalise and, after many years coveting a 356, he knew exactly what he wanted to do with the car.
BADGE ENGINEERING
“Ordinarily,” he continues, “before I purchase a vehicle, I’ve got a good idea of what I want to achieve when modifying,” he explains. “As far as this 356 is concerned, I had a desire to update it as if the car was owned by a Monaco resident who used it as daily drive, but raced with the same Porsche at weekends. The motorsport link to Monte Carlo is fairly obvious, but I’d collected a fair number of vintage Monaco Automobile Club enamel badges and, largely because this Porsche is left-hand drive, no other car I was ever likely to own would ever suit the badges so well.”
With plans to use the new arrival week in, week out, drivability was key. Previous owners had made a mess of configuring the chassis, necessitating a full suspension rebuild and new brakes. In turn, there was space to extend the cut-out in the front adjusters to allow a lower ride height. Meanwhile, tweaking of the rear splines worked to present a perfectly level Porsche.
Authentically still wear daily their driven, original the anodised donor Fuchs finish, fifteeninchers are wrapped in 195/65 Pirellis (complete with distinctive yellow lettering) and proudly display age-appropriate signs of a life on the road. Of course, when it comes to a ‘matching numbers’ Porsche, any restomod has to conducted sympathetically. With this in mind, the engine is the car’s original 1.6-litre flat-four, untouched save for a Sebring-style exhaust, the introduction of Pertronix electronic ignition and an electric fuel pump offering a little more day-to-day reliability than the original hardware. With customer projects and various other automotive projects from his own stable to focus on, there was no room for the 356 to become a needy addition to the fleet.
“I ran the car for a couple of years with the same nondescript silver paint I bought it with,” he recalls. “I was quite happy to use the car in that guise because I couldn’t justify taking care of the work at the expense of client jobs. Then, in 2018, my sister asked if the car could ferry her on her wedding day! After a planned outing to the Stratford Festival of Motoring in May, I went through the car from front to back, redoing everything I came across in readiness for the big day, which took place after the revitalised 356 debuted at the Luftgekühlt gathering at Bicester Heritage at the end of July.”
Factoring in a colour change was a turning point. Smitten with the coupe’s curves, Jon systematically marked out and deleted unwelcome details that break
THE CAR REMAINS A FOURSEATER, THE REAR TUBS RE-TRIMMED TO MATCH THE FRONT SEATS
up the bodywork. Recesses in the rear wings and holes for the bumpers are gone, as are the cut-outs for the exhaust and any trace of factory brightwork deemed unnecessary. It’s as delicate a balancing act as any changes to the chassis, with little more than bonnet trim and chrome horn grilles reintroduced. “The paint is Nissan Pewter Grey,” he confirms. “The 356 is one of the most beautiful automotive shapes, and this timeless metallic paint, which is a kind of silvery grey with a bit of bronze thrown in, emphasises the curves. As is often said, if you don’t take a look over your shoulder when you’re walking away from your Porsche, you’ve bought the wrong car. I can’t help but stare and smile!”
PLASTIC PASSION
The rally-inspired styling Jon inherited with his purchase has been dialled up a notch or two; Marchal driving lights sit beneath matching tinted Bosch headlights, while new leather bonnet straps have been fitted in place of cheap-looking rubber parts. The side windows are manufactured from polycarbonate and feature integrated sliding panels, while period Mobil Pegasus and Heuer decals have been added to each door as a way of interrupting the side view.
“Those door windows were a lot of work,” Jon remembers. “There’s no winder assembly, meaning I needed to fit little hand pulls. Additionally, the main door pulls are made from recycled horse tack. I think the donor bridle cost me a fiver, as opposed to the £400 asked for by retailers offering something similar,” he says, pulling the door closed with a smile. “I like to change things every so often, just to make the car feel like it’s always evolving. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I’ve been offered stupid money to part with it, but it’s not for sale. This means I need to maintain high interest in the project. I don’t want to be that guy who has a Porsche growing roots in his garage. I want to be excited to see the car, excited to sit in it and, most importantly, excited when I turn the key.”
Cabin modifications are comfort oriented — the carpets and Spyder-style fibreglass seats (equipped with Simpson safety belts) were trimmed in Jon’s living room over the Christmas break a couple of years ago. The car remains a four-seater, the rear tubs re-trimmed to match the front seats, while the switchgear is a mix of Volkswagen and Porsche parts, augmented by a classic map light and Heuer stopwatches. “I wanted this to be a 356 I could just get in and drive, which is why I was adamant there had to be satisfying levels of comfort. The ride quality is superb, not least due to such big, balloony tyres, but also because the cockpit is such a lovely place to be. I feel more refreshed getting out of this near sixty-year-old Porsche than I do leaving most newer cars,” he says.
Forty years and a generation forward, Jon is still making memories behind the Porsche crest and, for all its visual and mechanical differences, the 356 he’s modified feels cut from a similar cloth to his father’s 924 all those years ago. By this, we mean it’s an all-season family mover, rather than a quietly appreciating museum piece. “Nobody builds cars to put them a box,” says Hancock the Younger, laughing. “Me, my wife and my two kids use this 356 all the time, in all weather, often with our dog on board. My Porsche isn’t a showpiece and I’m not precious about it. Besides, you don’t often get an opportunity to express yourself in vehicles, unless they’re your own. Who knows, I might not get the opportunity to do so again, which is all the more reason to ensure my family enjoys every moment spent with this wonderful air-cooled classic.”