5 replies to this topic

[HistoryBuff]

I found this car  mentioned in the great new book PORSCHE UNEXPECTED (the book pricey, but worth it!) the 1959 Ruby Red Porsche 356A SN 84953. According to a posting by Dean Watts it was delivered to Joe, then a U.S. GI stationed in Germany, in June '59 when he tried to order a Speedster, was told they were out of production, but then at the last minute they found a Speedster and built it for him. He raced it on the East Coast. He worked his way up through the 910 and later models. He stored the Speedster for 18 years and then sold it, Watts is the third owner I believe. I am curious what Buzzetta advertised the car for when he sold it, and also the second owner's name, and the most entertaining aspect is: does the car's SN lie outside the normal Speedster trange, so that when people saw it they suspected it was a Convertible D made into a Speedsster? Was it the last of the "made after production stopped" Speedsters? I ask because I also found a story on a Mercedes gullwing whose owner was rejected entrance into the gullwing club because the SN didn't match other gullwings, only to find out after he sold it that it was a factory race car! I am curious if this is the same scenerio....

[Brownfox]

I can add some details on the car.  I believe I was the third owner (and then the 5th, explained later).  Initially traded my 1960 Super 90 Coupe for it with Mike (Deluca?) through Al Alden, Upton, Massachusetts in approximately June 1964. The Speedster had been driven less than 7,500 miles and I, naively, thought it would make a great top-down, street driver replacement for the Super 90.  It ran well, strong, but couldn't smooth out idle.  More to the point, it had track gearing, so wasn't at all suitable for the street. I moved from Massachusetts to California in September 1964, flat towing the car behind a 1960 Studebaker Lark Wagon, thinking I'd find a more ready market for the car there - worth then about $3,500.  Advertised it for sale in the Bay Area in the fall or 1964, attracting two potential buyers:  Dean Watts replied too late after Mike Percy, then of Oakland, later Nicasio, CA, had agreed to buy it.  Mike's purchase began a long friendship, so I followed his ownership until about 1970, when I bought it back.  In the interim, he had stripped the body to bare metal and primed it.  In the process, he discovered what was likely track damage to the driver's side door and, If I recall correctly, sill panel. I kept the car, parked on the street in Berkeley, working on it when I could as a grad student with two kids, until I moved to Alaska in in 1974.  Sold it, as I recall, for $5,000 cash to a buyer from the midwest.  In the meantime, I had had the door reskinned - to perfection - at Gordon Vann's shop in Berkeley.  I'd also partially disassembled the engine, having been advised that the idle problem, still unsolved, was probably related to valves.  That turned out to be a loose valve seat;  Had the seat installed at a local machine shop and reassembled the engine prior to the sale.

 

At this point, fall 1974, I lost track of the car, but heard that the person who bought it from me had sold it back to California to active PCA people named Smith, and I believe it was from them that Dean Watts was finally able to buy it.  He would certainly be able to clarify that, and its adventures during his ownership, as well as its trajectory since.  I believe that he, like me, owned it twice, having sold it to a buyer from England, then purchasing it back. 

 

Steve Brown

Vashon Island, WA

 

So.  Not in storage by Buzzetta for 18 years and not a three owner car.  It's a very special car.  And the serial number is the only one that's in my immediately accessible memory bank of the 19 Porsches I've been fortunate to own.

[fbarrett]

Brownfox wrote: "sold it back to California to active PCA people named Smith"

 

Possibly Harvey & Linda Smith, who were very active in the 356 world and PCA then. I believe Linda is gone, but perhaps Harvey is still around, possibly no longer in California.

 

Frank

[Brownfox]

Frank - I think you're correct;  her name is familiar and I don't have another context.

 

Steve

[FrankCornell]

probably not your car, as this is identified as a Carrera...Buzzetta in 1961 at Marlboro.  http://www.racingspo...-04-16a-172.jpg

[Brownfox]

Most likely the same car.  84953 is a '59 Carrera GT; i understand it's the next to the last Speedster built.  As far as I know, it's the only Speedster Buzzetta would have been racing in 1961.