356: The Classic Porsche Revolution

For sports car enthusiasts all over the world, and in particular for Porsche fans all over the world the numbers 356 hold a special meaning. The reason for this lies in the chronicles of history, and a date that would forever live on in the memory of all Porsche fans. The year was 1948 and the date was the 8th of June. This was the birth year of the Porsche classic Type 356 sports car.

It weighed in at a modest 650kg, had a 1.1 liter capacity center engine and had an immodest (at the time) 40HP under its hood. Difficult to even find one of these original Porsche classic cars, if you do across them you will not be surprised to learn that they are considered priceless. With all good reason of course.

Besides being the first ever Porsche classic cars to come into existence there were only a total of 50 made and they were all without exception hand built, and thatís saying a lot. These penultimate Porsche classic cars were the harbingers of the 356 that we can still see today.

Unfortunately for all concerned the 356 Porsche classic car line was discontinued after 17 years in April of 1965. To that date just over 81,000 356 Porsche classic cars had left the assembly line. In the beginning no more than 500 were expected to sell.

This was a happy mistake on the part of the 'father' of the Porsche classic car, Ferry Porsche, because by March of 1954 ten times the initial estimated amount of 356 Porsche classic cars had been sold.

The discontinuation of the 365 line however was not the end of the Porsche name or the car. A new concept Porsche classic was in the makings and by 1963 ñ two years before the 356 was discontinued ñ the Porsche classic 911 had become a reality.

This Porsche classic was the foundation for many a sports car to come and indeed still lives on to this day. On June 15th of 1996, Porsche reached another milestone and the one millionth Porsche was delivered from the assembly line.

And when all is said and done, the Porsche classic still lives on in the classic Porsche design and logo, and if you own a Porsche classic, you can be sure that people will turn their heads to look you. Even in this day and age of sports super cars a classic lives on.