Porsche 550-01 Spyder, the prototype Giant Killer

In the very early 50s the Porsche Factory was turning out actual production Porsches and at the same time having success on the racetrack. Both Werks cars and private drivers were winning and placing in races in Europe and The Americas but Porsche had yet to build a purpose built racecar. Until now the race cars put forth had been production cars or the modified SL Aluminum Gmünd models. While Porsche was dragging its feet on building a real racecar a man named Walter Glöckler was not. He built the cars that would light the fire in the Porsche Factory to build a car that was to be named Type 550, later coined the 550 Spyder. In fact, when they looked for a shop to build the car they didn’t look far, they used the same builder that Glöckler used, Wilhelm Hild and Crew.





The 550 was modeled after the Glöckler specials and had some truly racing characteristics like a ladder steel tubed frame and an external oil cooler in the nose. The engine was a 1500 super pushrod motor that put out 98 hp while running on alcohol with a compression of 12.5:1, utilizing the Solex 40 PII downdraft carburetors. The aluminum bodies were built by Weidenhausen, again a true link to the Glöcklers. In the end 550-01 weighed in at only 1200 lbs, making it one very light race car, just what Porsche was hoping for.
550-01 was first driven by Helm Glöckler and Hans Herrman (who will be at the upcoming Porsche Race Car Classic on October 16th). The car was raced in Europe and than sold to Jaroslav Juhan in Guatemala. Before the car shipped, however, the Factory tuned it for the upcoming races that Juhan had planned, most important the Carrera Panamericana, a five day hell race. It ran in the now famous Carrera race on November 19, 1953 but failed to finish, though it made some fast waves in the first few stages. From there 550-01 bounced around South America popping up in races with different drivers and new owners until it eventually fell off the radar. It didn’t resurface until the late 1990s when the prototype Spyder showed up, of all places, at a Shoe Factory in Guadalajara, Mexico. There was to be a closed bid auction to buy what was left of 550-01. The car had been modified over the years and bore little resemblance to the aluminum racer that left Germany in 1953. What was now Spyder number one had a fiberglass body, later model 356 A brakes, no engine, and no gearbox. But it was rumored to be 550-01. One of the potential bidders named Manfred Lipmann wanted an expert to look at the car in person before he placed a bid, so he sent the best he could find, Factory trained 4-cam expert Gerry McCarthy. I sat down with Gerry a while back and he told me how he went to Mexico to see what there was to see of 550-01.
“I went to Guadalajara to bid on it for a client,” Gerry recalls. “It was up for auction, a sealed bid auction and a client had me go down and look at it.”

When asked if what he was looking at was really 550-01 Gerry said, “There is not much there, I told him, but what is there I believe is real.”
He described a couple of things that gave the car authenticity, even the fiberglass body told a story.
“You could see the rivets where the mold had been lifted off the original body,” remembers Gerry. “What happened was the body was cracking up and Mr. Lopez knew no one in Mexico who worked with aluminum, but he had a friend who built boats, fiberglass boats. They made a fiberglass duplicate of the aluminum body.”
Gerry’s client ended up not being the high bidder, he advised him that,
“I don’t think you are young enough to see this thing to fruition. The roof is gone completely, the frame looks right. There is no engine, no gearbox, no brakes, all A stuff on it.”
The initial buyer changed his mind about a year into the restoration and the restorer arranged to sell the car to Miles Collier, who saw it through to the end of the award winning restoration of the car.





















550-01 is still in the famed Collier Collection and will be on display at the Porsche Race Car Classic on October 16th in Carmel, California.
Like a lot of things in life, there is only one number one.

550-01 was the prototype of the great Giant Killers that would make the name Spyder and Porsche almost one word. The journey that this car took is a testament to the fact that just because a Porsche is lost, doesn’t mean it won’t be found.

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For more information on the 2011 Race Car Classic go to:

http://www.porscheracecarclassic.com/

—Adam Wright

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Gas prices, $3.56!

Who knew you could get excited about $3 gas? My friends at the store got a kick out of it.

—Adam

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Exclusive Interview with Steve Heinrichs, Porsche Historian

Exclusive Interview with Steve Heinrichs, Porsche Historian

Porsche is a marque that is admired and collected the world over. Ask almost any collector if he can see the beauty of this German sports car and most will agree it is and always has been an iconic design. One such admirer is Steve Heinrichs, who has quietly collected some of the most rare and interesting Porsches ever. His Speedster collection is the stuff of legend for Porsche-philes, Steve was able to find and meticulously restore 12223 (Speedster prototype), 80002, 80003, 80004, 80665 (1st Carrera Speedster), and 80820 (1st Carrera Speedster raced). But Steve does not stop at collecting the little bathtubs, he also writes books about them, and throws one of a kind events celebrating the cars.

In 2004, in honor of the 50th Anniversary of the Speedster, Steve held a once in a lifetime event bringing together Speedsters from all over the world. It was a memorable weekend with cars sharing the field that will never again be in the same place at the same time — a true collection, if only for a day. Mr. Heinrichs is now taking this idea on a grander scale with his upcoming event, The Porsche Race Car Classic. The event is being billed as
“The Greatest Porsche Show on Earth.” I guess when Steve dreams, he dreams big! Part of the inspiration for the PRCC is Steve’s need to make a difference in the history of Porsche by showcasing a field of cars like no other, but another part is closer to his heart. Literally, his lungs. One near death experience led to another close call and Steve started thinking of how he could combine his love for Porsches, his talent for showcasing them, and help fight Lung Cancer. The result was the Porsche Race Car Classic.

Steve explains, “I figured that the combination of nearly being a goner at the North Meets South 2007 gig, having that lead to discovery of lung cancer, having surgery by one of the best surgeons in the world (who is also a Porsche guy who, when we first met in his exam room said “I am going to fix you; you will be fine but first we will talk about Porsches”), surviving that surgery and not having to even have chemo — all coupled with my interest in Porsche early cars…….sent a message: do something; the lack of funding for lung cancer research.”

The event focuses not necessarily on the rarest Porsches but more important, the racecars. Every true sports car maker has a special breed of their car, the ones that drop hot oil and leave rubber on the track — the racers. The Porsche Race Car Classic is just that, all about the racecars, nothing more and nothing less. In terms of models, everything from 356s to 904s will be there, including a couple of Formula One cars, not to mention the one off built cars like the Elva, Abarth, Glöckler, and the Devins. These cars may be priceless collector’s items now, but in their day they were purpose built racecars that were driven for broke by the likes of Dan Gurney, Stirling Moss, and Denise McCluggage (who will be attending the event). Some of the cars displayed are still raced in vintage races like 1949 Gmund 356/2-050, or 1959 356A GT 108368, so expect to see some tape over glass. Most of the cars are coming from private collections but the Porsche Factory is bringing several cars from the museum.

Steve explains, “Porsche AG has been a supporter of the event for over two years, six cars that are coming from the Museum in Stuttgart will be with us on event day.”
Steve had a clear vision on the type of car he wanted to be showcased and it differed some from what you might imagine.

“The primary criteria has been cars that actually raced from 1950-1965”, says Steve. “How they look today is unimportant to us. We have added to the initial field some cars after 1965 through 1980 or so. They are ones that are very special but are not raced today, mostly. We also have some important examples of cars that could have been raced but were not. And, we have a few later Outlaws and Special bodied cars. All of the cars are Porsche powered.”

If all this is not Porsche sensory overload, Rennsport Reunion IV
is the same weekend. While sure to be an exciting event, the
exclusives offered by the Porsche Race Car Classic won’t be on display
together anywhere else, including Rennsport. The not to be missed,
once in a lifetime, never ever seen again collection that is the
Porsche Race Car Classic will be on Sunday October 16th. Make sure
you are on the field by 10AM for the grand un-veiling, here is a sneak
peek:

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For more info on this once in a lifetime event go to:

http://www.porscheracecarclassic.com/

—Adam Wright

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Ultimate Barn Find, one of 29 alloy bodied Mercedes-Benz Gullwing

Taken from Hemmings,
“In case you think all of the good barn finds are gone, here’s one that may literally be for the record books when all is said and done: an original-owner, alloy-bodied 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL gullwing coupe.

Rudi Koniczek knows a thing or two about gullwings, having restored quite a few of them over the years at his Victoria, British Columbia-based shop, Rudi and Company. He also knows that of the 29 alloy-bodied competition specials built by Stuttgart, only 28 had been accounted for, with number 21 on the M.I.A. list for quite some time. With restorations of alloy body numbers one and six under his belt, he was hardly a stranger to those rare models either.

Rumors of the unaccounted-for 300 SL residing in a Santa Monica, California, garage had teased Koniczek and a California-based friend for years. But as the Vancouver Sun reported recently, after locating the owner – who knew what he had buried in his garage – Koniczek was eventually able to verify the car for a buyer.

Owner Tom Welmers’ parents had given him the car in 1955 as a gift for his college graduation. He drove it until the early 1970s when the transmission failed. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: After partially disassembling the car with the intention to fix it, Welmers let it sit… for four decades. And while it sat, he continued to accumulate stuff in his garage.

So even after reaching an agreement with the owner to examine it, Koniczek still couldn’t see the car, as it was parked in a garage jam-packed with old mainframe computers. Welmers had been an executive in the computer industry during its infancy and collected the machines as they were retired. According to Koniczek associate Robert Dening of Spirited Automobiles, it took Koniczek, “his friend and three hired laborers two 10-hour days just to clear enough space around the car to walk around it.”

But once he could get close to the car, Koniczek was able to confirm the alloy body with a simple sweep of a magnet that had no attraction at all to the Gullwing rarity. It took yet another day of heavy lifting to clear enough space to get at all of the removed parts stored on shelves in the back of the garage.

Although standard 300 SL steel-body coupes had alloy doors, hood and trunklid, the lightweight models had an all-alloy body, along with Plexiglas windows, for lighter weight. Mercedes-Benz also fitted them with revised and lowered suspension, a high-lift camshaft, knockoff Rudge wheels and bigger brakes.

Koniczek now has the car in his Victoria shop and Dening reports that the buyer, located ironically enough in Santa Monica, has contracted with Koniczek to return the car to its original condition, something Welmers wishes to see . While they reported no sale price, alloy-bodied gullwings are valued well into the seven figures. Considering the one-owner provenance, this car will surely break that barrier as well.

It’s good to know that even if it seems that all of the good ones are taken when it comes to barn finds, something as spectacular as this 300 SL shows up.”

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Ski Roundtop Swap Meet 2011

Great things build with time, such is the case with Roundtop. The show has steadily grown over the years bringing new shoppers and new vendors while retaining the regulars, both buyers and sellers. This year the turnout was tremendous, helped in part by the promise of a sunny day of 70 degree weather. There is nothing that will make or break a swap meet like the weather report.

Well, the weather this year was not quite as predicted, not much sun until around noon, so there was a crispness in the air with the temps in the low 60s, not chilly, but not quite warm either. While the weather was not exactly what was predicted neither the crowds and vendors, never before have I seen the whole parking lot full, this year it was. Deals were out there, and lots of money and parts changed hands. Big John worked the Unobtanium table and the gift bags went fast.
Ski Roundtop for 2011 was everything you want from a swapmeet. There was lots and lots of early Porsche parts, both 356 and early 911 and the prices were good. Also in abundance were cars to look at, several 356 Speedsters, coupes, and even an early cab were in the show area. We had a 62 Coupe we picked up on the way and Mike DeJonge from Restoration Design brought a barn find 52 Coupe that was marveled at by all. A couple of small things made this a better swap than previous years, a new food vendor had hot food and good coffee, John and I enjoyed our Philly Cheesesteaks, even though we were a few miles from Philly.
All in all, a GREAT Roundtop, the things swappers dream about!
Also, thanks to Eric Wahlberg for taking the great pic of Big John and me!
—Adam Wright

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