Oldest Registered Driving Porsche 356 in Oregon

Yesterday I posted about the Porsche Day at the Allure of the Automobile in Portland. While each week has brought some amazing cars to be viewed, there is always one or two extra special cars, usually early models with some serious history backing up their uniqueness. This week was no different with what is thought to be Oregon’s oldest registered driving Porsche 356 on display.

As a side note, I thought the silver Porsche 911 Turbo Look that you can see in the right hand side of this picture was worthy of Show Crown Jewel status, since I spent some seat time in it while it was for sale at Gran Prix Imports (check out the post here: I Think I’m In Love). Nobody seemed to think that I brought enough clout to elevate the car’s status though. Go figure.

Back to the Porsche 356.

The owner was no where to be found, so I didn’t have a chance to get any more details other than a cool little history lesson from a sign he had set up next to the car. Also, as you can imagine, pictures were tough to take given the constant stream of people that surrounded the car. Here are a few cool facts about this car:

• 1953 Porsche 356
• The first in the 356 series with the “bent windshield”
• Stock Color: Azure Blue
• Max Speed: 85 mph (can you imagine ripping down the road at 85 in this thing?!)
• Fuel Consumption: 35 mpg
• Thought to be the oldest registered driving Porsche 356 in the State of Oregon

Here are a few more things about the Porsche 356 series from the owner’s sign on display with the car:

The first fifty Porsche 356 cars were hand built with aluminum bodies hand formed over wooden “bucks” in Gmund, Austria. The style 356 on display (the 1953 car pictured in this post) was produced between 1950 – 1955 and is known as the Pre A. Originally known as a “356” it was later renamed “Pre-A” to differentiate it from the 356 A that began production in October 0f 1955.

Porsche has a history of continuous refinement dating back to the first days of automobile production and the Pre-A 356 was no exception. One of the changes to the body style was going from a “split windshield” that had two pieces of glass separated by a metal strip down the center to this model referred to as the “bent windshield”.

Total production of the 356 was 78,000 worldwide between 1948 and 1965.

Thanks to owner Doug Naef for bringing his car out on Saturday!