1955 Porsche 356

Versatility is King

As useable and versatile classic cars go, there are few that trump Porsche’s cult-classic 356 Speedster. Its sleek and simple silhouette exudes Hollywood glamour, its air-cooled four-pot engine is best described as metronomic and its rarity all but guarantees entry to the world’s greatest classic road rallies. Think the Colorado Grand and the Modena Cento Ore. It’s as adept prowling Sunset Boulevard as it is bombing across an Alpine pass with the crisp winter air blowing through your hair.

The Speedster was famously the brainchild of Max Hoffman, the shrewd and charismatic East Coast importer of prestige European cars. Hoffman recognised that a sportier and more rakish version of Porsche’s drop-top 356 would prove popular in the United States, more specifically in the warmer climes of Southern California. And he was right: the resulting Speedster was a smash hit, selling by the boat load. If you were a someone in Los Angeles in the late 1950s, you were most likely cruising around in a Speedster.

“If you were a someone in Los Angeles in the late 1950s, you were most likely cruising around in a Speedster.”

Of the multiple iterations of the Porsche 356, it is the earliest ‘Pre-A’ – built between 1948 and 1955 – which is the most rare and therefore the most desirable. Beyond their rarity, Pre-A 356s are special for myriad reasons. Not least their numerous unique (and some might say purer) aesthetic features such as the oh-so-1950s split windscreen and the fact that, to Porsche disciples, they represent the very foundation of the marque.

As per the accompanying Porsche Certificate of Authenticity, this 356 Pre-A 1500 Speedster – chassis number 80208 – was built by Reutter in January of 1955, finished in Signal Red and equipped with a Speedometer in miles, sealed beam headlights and a tonneau cover. Hoffman’s New York concessionaire subsequently sold the car to its first US owner in July.

We have charted chassis number 80208’s story from 2001, when the car returned across the Atlantic and was imported into Italy. Later, in 2010, the Speedster underwent a ground-up restoration with a specialist near Como. The photo-documented ‘frame-off’ project was exhaustive, including comprehensive refurbishment of the drivetrain, a bare-metal refresh of the body and an interior retrim in stunning tan cloth with contrasting red piping.

A German enthusiast building a remarkable collection of high-quality Porsche’s spanning the marque’s entire history acquired chassis number 80208 in 2013. As the accompanying documentation attest, this 356 has since been fastidiously maintained regardless of cost, carefully stored in the aforementioned collection and enjoyed on several occasions, including on the Mille Miglia Storico. Crucially, the car’s FIVA ID card (required for entry to the Mille Miglia) is currently still valid and will be for this year’s edition of the historic Italian road rally.

Telling of its extraordinary condition and quality, chassis number 80208 was also awarded the ‘Eye-Catcher Award’ at the 2017 Masterpieces Concours d’Elegance at Schloss Dyck in Germany. In recent years, the maintenance of this 356 Speedster has been entrusted to a respected German marque specialist, most recently in March of 2024, when the overall mileage (since the restoration in 2010) was noted as 16,844km. The odometer currently reads 17,200km.