ROBERT COUCHER

The Driver

Amazingly, the first Porsche still exists and guess what: it’s a Volkswagen! Sorry, I can’t resist teasing my Porsche-owning friends. Some of them are rather sensitive to the fact that the great Porsche brand grew out of the humble Volkswagen componentry of the ‘people’s car’, the VW Beetle. In this issue we feature the Volkswagen Type 60 K10, now usually referred to as the Porsche T64, with its VW Type 1 drivetrain and all of 32bhp.

Of course, the T64 is not actually the first proper Porsche – that would be 356 No 1 – but it is the link between Professor Ferdinand Porsche’s car for the masses and the sports car to bear his name. As you will read in the feature, the T64 was born of the German racing and propaganda machine that also led to the dominating ‘Silver Arrows’ Grand Prix cars of Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union.

The streamlined Porsche design was created to compete in the Berlin to Rome endurance race, but the ‘look’ of this 80-year-old prototype is evident in all Porsches since, including the gorgeous 918 hybrid. What is that look? Smooth and simple streamliner bodywork, round headlamps (the ugly 996 dropped the ball here with its friedegg-style items), road-hugging snout, curvaceous hips… all are evident on most rear-engine Porsches.

Bizarrely, Adolf Hitler’s people’s car, launched in 1938 and designed to move the German population around the Third Reich on efficient autobahns, became the choice of the hippy counter-culture in the US after World War Two. The upshot was that the ubiquitous Bug became the most popular car in the world, with 21 million examples produced. It was taken up by alternative motorists in the States in the ’50s and ’60s at a time when the country was booming and conspicuous consumption was all the rage.

The simple, pared-back Bug appealed to an entirely different mindset, its austere mien greatly helped along by the brilliant ‘Think Small’ advertising campaign created by agency Doyle Dane Bernbach. considered it the best campaign of the last century. The Beetle was very popular in Europe, too, but for a different reason: it was cheap and reliable transport for many who had to deal with financial ruin created by the conflict.

So, the Beetle gained this alternative vibe and so did its

cousin, the Porsche 356. Prosperous Americans could choose flamboyant sports cars from Alfa, Chevrolet, Ferrari, Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz, but thoughtful types who appreciated low-key quality were drawn to the lessis-more 356 in its various guises. Its rubber-matted floor, painted dash, minimal chrome and lack of stylistic frippery appealed to this left-field type.

When I brought my 1963 Porsche 356C over to London in the early ’90s, I soon learnt about the 356 ‘chapter’ through specialists such as Tony Standen and Barry Curtis. Before 356s became concours boiled sweets never actually driven and bothered only by toothbrushwielding perfectionists, 356 owners and drivers were certainly alternative. At Porsche meetings where all the goody-two-shoes 911s and more modern models were lined up and polished, the 356 gang would gather at the back, their cars scruffy, well used and often swathed in a fug of smoke from cigarettes and other medicinal herbs.

No time was wasted worrying about oil leaks, rust along door bottoms or flat six-volt batteries. It was more important to open a bottle of something refreshing and discuss the next mod. Leave them totally original? Why? What’s the fun in that, when we could strip them, fit bigger carbs and generally mess about with Ferdinand’s clean design?

Which begs the question: which marque of car has been most modified worldwide? All Beetles were much the same in the ’50s so they were being tweaked, breathed-on and stripped for action by Californians ‘expressing their individuality’. Soon, secondhand 356s were lightened and tuned for club racing or general cars ’n’ coffee action. Similar things were happening in Europe, where elderly 356s were rusted through and worth nothing, but still offered huge fun to impecunious youngsters with access to chicken-wire, gaffer tape and a can of body filler. And as 911s became older and cheaper they, too, fell into the hands of individuals who wanted to modify them to go racing or roundabout-chasing.

So, the answer. I’d wager Beetles, followed by 356s and 911s. Look at all the ‘re-imagined’ 911s available today. You can rev up any sort of hot rod as long as it’s from the Volkswagen family. The good professor began it all by reimagining an unsuspecting VW Type 1 into the Porsche T64. Maybe he referred to it as his (outlaw)…

‘AT PORSCHE MEETS THE 356 GANG GATHERED AT THE BACK, THEIR CARS SCRUFFY, WELL USED, SWATHED IN SMOKE’