Ted Blake's 356 Restorations, Sacramento.

During my recent visit in the United States I've been lucky enough to stay few blocks away from Ted Blake's garage on 21st in Sacramento. I was a bit intimidated by the gorgeous array of cars always parked outside and the spotless look of the garage. I approached them asking if it was possible to take some pictures and found myself embraced by an incredibly warm welcome and endless competence. Ted Blake has been working on the brand for almost sixty years and focuses almost exclusively on 4 cylinder because "after 1965... we think they were not Porsche anymore". Six cylinders are complicated and not fun to tinker with.

I was welcomed by Carrera Panamericana veteran Paul Frame who literally dropped what he was doing and spent half an hour of his time going through each and every car and engine available in the garage. He also went to the extent of digging out two sets of photographs from his Panamericana's adventures in which, to my surprise, he was focussing mostly on how local people and kids were welcoming them rather than on racing stories. People like him are what classic car's enthusiasm is all about: passion for daring technology and history and other fellow enthusiasts alike. Him and Darrel Bailey compete regularly in the famous race with a 356A that they turned into a replica of the car driven by Salvador Lopez Chavez in 1953. The racer sports a livery of Chavez's notorious shoemaking company Canada based in Gadalajara. How appropriate is that?

Paul kindly showed me every corner of the workshop and uncovered all the "guests" describing all the little details and tiny differences between them. In the pictures you can see a couple of SC Coupe' and also a rare and beautiful Super 90 with sunroof. The cars were all in concourse condition, even those that were still being worked on.

The guys don't like funny upgrades too much and they seem all the more fascinated in preserving the incredible initial design. The only upgrade I could see in that moment in the shop was the cleverly concealed disc brakes instead of the original drums. Paul also showed me the ultimate treasure of the company: a cabinet stuffed with original switches, badges and all sorts of rare parts. "Ted has been savaging them since the fifties" says Paul, a consistency that sure saved a lot of restoration projects from frightening imperfection.

If you have a 356 in needs of attention you might try Ted's garage, but to put it in their own words... "we have 10 years worth of work to deal with" at the moment. If on the other hand, you're a young lad that wants to "go to 356 school" you might be lucky here. Young, talented and hard working mechanics are apparently more rare than old badges these days, and it sure will be a waste of incredible experience when Ted will decide to retire.

The L&M Porsche Can-Am Champion by Stephen Cox

It doesn't happen often that a beautiful book is being published for free. This is exactly what happened with Stephen Cox's monograph about the famous L&M Porsche Can-Am that represents the ultimate brutal racer of all times. It took over 1000 bhp for Porsche+Audi 917/10 of George Follmer and Penske to win the 1972 Can-Am Championship ahead of the McLaren team and the story behind it is beautifully told in this book. This very car is possibly the pinnacle of unlimited sport racer of all times and is nice to see such effort to present the car ahead of the auction at Mecum Monterey, August 16-18. It is indeed worth reading till the last page and the pictures are worth your best coffee table book.
Please click HERE to enjoy.

Piero Dusio and Ferdinand Porsche - Part II

In many ways the innovative genius of Ferdinand Porsche was similar to the one of the Italian and both had to deal with the darkest powers of Europe in the century. Born in Austria in 1827, he had a knick for engineering stuff from a very early age. Must have been a shock for his parents to see him going from setting up an electric system for the house to present a revolutionary electric car in Paris' Expo of 1900. If you consider putting electric motors in the wheels hubs a very ground breaking idea these days, think again. Because 23 years old Ferdinand already thought of it in this very car, the Lohner Porsche, and it was arguably also the first 4WD car.

After leaving Lohner and working in different other makes such as Daimler, he decided to flirt with power, agreeing to work for the Austrian Emperor in building the Etrich Taube plane. But his dream was to build a car for everybody and when he heard Germany's prime minister wanted to build a car for his people he promptly applied. The brief was for a car capable of 100km/h, 7km/l and the capacity to  carry the ideal german family: two adults and three kids. All this for two thirds of the price for the cheapest car on the market. The prime minister was obviously Adolf Hitler.
Porsche promptly applied and the deal was sealed in an exceptional quick time. He eventually obtained all the independence and funds for his project in 1938, Independence and funds that didn't have before, when working on it at Zundapp and NSU. 

We all are familiar with the history and revolutionary characteristics of this car, eventually named Volkswagen "Beetle" or Type-1, so there will be no need to repeat them in this blog. Porsche was also asked to work on the Auto Union racers that with a german driver at the wheel would make the führer proud and represent the so-called arian race all over the racing world. 

We are unfortunately also familiar with what Nazism created in Europe. Quite quickly Porsche's efforts had to be converted on all kind of war machinery, most notably the light all-purpose vehicle Kubelwagen and its variations. It's way too easy for us to be judgemental about Porsche's behaviour, but many times in history we had to see great innovators and geniuses dealing with all sorts of compromises in order to see their creatures coming to life. For sure we can never forget that in some of the factories slavery labour was employed and any affiliation with the Nazist cancer can be nothing but horrendous, but this is neither the place or the time for this kind of terrible considerations.

Fact is that at the end of the war Porsche tried to escape in Austria, where the allies went to pick him up to chain him to his responsibilities. He was forced to move the Type-1 project and machinery to France as war reparations, but he was almost immediately forbidden to get back to work. With no chance to pay the huge amount of money for the war reparations anymore, his dream seemed gone forever. Porsche was stuck in the french prison of Dijon with a sentence of 20 years, eventually converted to house arrests, without even a trial.

On the other side of the Alps economy was starting to live again and Dusio's businesses were booming. He was ready to pursue his ultimate desire: a Grand Prix winner. 

He found out about Ferdinand's situation and managed to organise a meeting with his son Ferry and daughter Louise. A deal was signed for the design of two cars, one GP racer, one turbine and even a tractor. All this was to be payed in three rates delivered every three months. He also managed to get 10 promising technicians to Turin for a little extra money and accommodation. Two of these technicians alone would have been more than worth the whole deal already: Rudolph Hruska and Carlo Abarth.

Dusio used to keep on repeating "I'll go bust, but damn it... I'll make the Grand Prix". He stuck to his word and spent almost all of his money on it.

Ferry Porsche started working immediately on the task, managing to get the money and free his dad as soon as possible. Time was paramount also for Dusio that needed the prototype on the track as soon as possible. The car was almost sci-fi for the time: rear engined, space frame chassis, oversquare engine, all-round independent suspensions, double overhead camshaft, 2 compressors and on/off integral traction. The compact 1,492.58cc flat 12 was capable of an excess of 380bhp at 10.000 but was preserved at a safer 350/8.000. This was the legendary Cisitalia 360, a car that would have certainly set the world of racing on different standards.

Dusio's money ran out and he decided to run (away from creditors?) to Argentina smuggling the 360 in spares. He there managed to sign a deal with the president/dictator Juan Perón (Evita's husband) to open a new Argentinian company, effectively paying for Dusio's debts. He would come back to Italy and race in 1952 but he finally gave up in 1953 and got back to Buenos Aires for good. 

His son Carlo tried and revamp Cisitalia's dream in the end of the fifties, converting its business to coachworks in Racconigi, Turin's outskirts, but eventually gave up in 1963.

As legend goes, after closing the gates for the last time, Carlo found himself in downtown Turin and with tears striping his face threw the 360's camshaft off one of the bridges of river Po.