The Sonderwunschen touch
In the second of his back-to-back features this month, Stephen Paul Hardy unboxes AutoCult’s capture of something that was far more than just a 'look'.
Stephen Paul Hardy details a pair of special Porsches.
One of the several reasons that endear AutoCult models to me is their attraction as inset display models - a concept that to some degree embraces the things I mentioned before. Let me explain - think of a coffee table book or glossy magazine. Quite often, a main, full page photograph will be supplemented by a much smaller inset photograph either within the same page or on the other facing page set in a mass of text.The purpose of that inset photograph is often to reinforce, or add extra understanding to, the main image. I find it particularly effective to use that same concept as a display technique.
With careful choice of models and the interrelation of how they are placed the enhancement of a display of 1/18 models with 1/43 'inset' ones can be can be both visually very powerful and informative. So in the context of my showcasing of GT Spirit 1/18 scale Porsche models, in both this and the January issue, three AutoCult produced 1/43 models come to mind as prime candidates for Porsche display insets. First up, as essential to supplement the Targa models, has to be the Karmann prototype Porsche 901 cabriolet (#90074) made by AutoCult in 2018 for the Ravensberger Handelskontor Masterpiece range.Then of particular relevance, as insets to the Porsche 964 Turbo-Look Cabriolet showcased on pages 18 and 19, come two models from the AutoCult's Avenue 43 catalogue.
Both of these models had a chapter dedicated to them in Issue #3 of Avenue 43 Magazine last year, which described (and illustrated) their history in some detail.This quarterly magazine is now well into its second year of publication, bringing with it a whole range of fascinating insights and anecdotal backstories behind the subjects modelled in the Avenue 43 range.
PORSCHE 964 TURBO CABRIO (#60031)
One of the Avenue 43 releases during 2019 was a black Porsche 964 Turbo Cabrio. It replicates, in significant detail, one of those six Carrera 2 Turbo-look Cabriolets produced by the Porsche Exclusive division in Weissach, formerly known as the Sonderwunsch (‘Special Wishes’) Department. If the wish involved a personalised Porsche in whatever paint and interior combination a customer required, it could be completed and fitted out with any conceivable factory option package - and potentially adaptations or combinations of equipment not on the normal factory options list - provided that a corresponding payment accompanied the order form.
It is worth highlighting here that those six cars dropped “look” out of the model name, to become Turbo Cabrios - 964s that not only looked like turbo-bodied models, but had the complete turbo engine set up installed.They were pure (very expensive) 964 Turbo Cabriolets. Fascinatingly, two of those six cars were right hand drive versions delivered to the UK.
Although I have made the comment before, it is worth repeating again in context - and that is because of the degree of their fine detail, photographs of AutoCult models can easily pass for a larger 1/18 scale model.Achieving a photoshoot for this issue underlined this to me once again as well as to just how much difference there is in size and weight between models in both scales.A surprising amount of adjustment in mental and manual handling dexterity was needed when working with the 1/43 models immediately after the 1/18 ones. But as some of the photos prove, the inset display concept works very well if both scales are of comparable relative quality and accuracy. Specifically, in this case, the impressive finish and detailing of the black Avenue 43 Porsche 964 Carrera 2 Turbo Cabrio emphatically underlines the full extent of the backstory when placed as a 'display insert' alongside the GT Spirit 964 Carrera 2 Turbo-look Cabrio.
PORSCHE 911SE (903) FLATNOSE CABRIO (#60045)
The 964 Turbo Cabriolet, however, was not the first example of the 'Sonderwunschen' touch when it came to special order 911 Cabriolets, as a series of 'Flachbau' ('flatnose' or 'slantnose') examples illustrates. Based on the 930, introduced in 1975 two years into the 911s second generation that spanned between 1975 and 1989, it was, most certainly, a far more extravagant modification that the 964 Turbo Cabriolet.
I find it curious that a modification that effectively stripped the 911 of one of its signature styling attributes - the idiosyncratic prominent headlights and front wing line - was so sought after.The inspiration and attraction of the replication lie in the fact that the Flachbau modification emulated the front of the racing 935.
Early conversions were offered by Kremer Racing, followed, in 1981, by customers seeking bespoke commissions through Porsche’s Sonderwunschprogramm, such that the modification became an official factory option in 1986.
Essentially, the 903S Flachbau - orderable under factory option M506 (M505 for the USA) involved the handbuilt remodelling of the front end of a contemporary standard 911 (930). Remodelling that basically comprised of the substitution of the flat bonnet with integral pop-up headlights - work adding upwards of a 60% premium over the price of a standard 911. Even so, customer demand was sufficient for Porsche to build 948 examples in the model’s lifetime.
Which brings us to the Avenue43 Flachbau Cabriolet, released last year. Representing cars that actually exist, it portrays the full extent of how many of the Sonderwunschprogramm orders were fulfilled to equipment and accessory specification way higher than the base M506 option starting point. Very pretty in metallic light blue and special whitethemed interior, the model is an outstanding record in miniature of a distinct era of Porsche production history and the prevailing fashions of the late 1980s that influenced company output of the time. DC