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In last week’s post about the Porsche 356 I wrote about the way these cars have always struck me for their beauty and graceful, simple, designs. At this point in their history the 356 is less about performance and more about history and elegance. There are some, though, for whom the beauty of the car is not enough. Enter the Outlaw. At its root, the Outlaw philosophy is a tried and true method: take a vintage car, make minor exterior modifications to suit one’s taste and combine those with more modern modifications to the drivetrain. Add in some interior modifications to suit the car’s personality and you have an Outlaw. These were souped-up variants of a classic car. The degree of modification can vary significantly, both for the exterior and drivetrain, with some Outlaw models producing more than 200 hp to go along with modern suspension and braking. The example here is much more subtle featuring minor exterior changes, a bored 1.7 liter engine along with the requisite suspension and interior modifications. The base car here was a 1964 356C so it provides a nice comparison with the original model we featured last week.
There is something about the 356 that has me hooked. I’m not sure I can even put my finger on it, but almost without fail I come across examples that make me stare and spend enormous amounts of time taking in the details. The 356 isn’t aggressive. It isn’t even, in some ways, particularly striking, though we should preface that with a comparison with modern examples. In its day I imagine it possessed quite a striking presence. These are history pieces, full of detail and curves, that offer us a glimpse at the precursors to Porsche’s modern successes. The 356C was the last model produced so it is about as advanced as a 356 can get and most resembles the 911 that replaced it. Relative to a 911 though, these remain fairly simple and lightweight cars. The example here is a restored 1964 Porsche 356C Coupe, located in Las Vegas, with a reported 38,756 miles on it.
I have been thinking a bit about vintage cars lately. In part because of watching auctions over the weekend, but more so after spending some time with my in-laws who own some older cars. Vintage cars derive their beauty from a unique marriage of simplicity and (arguably) greater variation amongst their designs. So this is a nice time to come across another Porsche 356, the car that began Porsche’s long love affair with rear-engine rear-drive automobiles and even many years later it’s easy to see the roots of a modern 911 in a 50-year-old 356. This 1964 Porsche 356C Coupe comes from near the end of the model’s run and with it’s eye-catching yellow paint, which we don’t come across often with these cars, it’s sure to attract plenty of attention.
The Porsche 356 entered its final year of production just as the Porsche 911 was becoming known to the world and in their respective designs we can see the ways in which Porsche evolved one car so as to transition to the other. Today, many of the rarer 356 variants fetch prices at auction well into six-figure territory, but even a standard Coupe is prized amongst Porsche and vintage-automobile enthusiasts alike. The car we have featured here comes from the final year of 356 production: a Black on Black 1965 Porsche 356C Coupe that has spent its entire life in the easy climate of California.
I wrote last week about the price of nostalgia and while that post was concerned primarily with the cost of a 911 from the 1980s, we can begin to appreciate our nostalgic yearnings quite a bit more if we rewind further. The 356 takes us back to Porsche’s roots and that very fact imbues these cars with a spirit that no other model could replicate. Vintage cars such as these are, in a way, history lessons; displays of an ideal that, especially in the case of the 356, have lead to years of development and continued success. The specific example featured here is a restored, numbers matching, 1964 Porsche 356C Sunroof Coupe. By modern standards, the lines of the 356 seem almost pudgy, but underneath those curves lies a light and graceful machine.