 Although you won't find the famous crest anywhere on the coachwork, this tiny streamlined coupé can lay claim to being the first Porsche sports car. Designed to compete in the 1939 Berlin to Rome race, Porsche's team built a trio of high-speed sports cars using modified Beetle running gear. The 985cc engine had a raised compression ratio, larger valves and twin carburetters and was said to propel the car up to 108mph at 4000rpm, helped by the slippery Reutter coachwork which included a full undertray and fully enclosed wheels. The T64s, as the cars were known in Porsche's works, never had a chance to compete as the scheduled race in September, 1939, was cancelled as Germany entered a state of war. One of the cars was crashed and destroyed by a Volkswagen board member, a second was driven into the ground by American GIs after hostilities had ceased. Only one car survived untouched, owned and driven by the one-armed Austrian rally ace Otto Mathé, who converted it to right-hand drive to allow him to change gear... After Mathé's death in 1995 a number of rare parts came to light among his collection of VW and Porsche competition cars. The eagle-eyed owners of Hamburg's Prototyp Automuseum realised the very early VW chassis and engine were, in fact, salvage from one of the wrecked T64s. The black car in these photos is the product of their painstaking 10-year effort to recreate the missing car using these original parts. Delwyn Mallett, a lifelong Porsche aficionado, was there when the car was unveiled, and tells the full fascinating history – and what it is like to drive – in the latest issue of The Automobile, which is out now. (Photographs by Delwyn Mallett) |
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The first Porsche sports car, and the race that never was
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