Pebble Beach 2008: Behind the wheel of the very first Porsche

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I don’t get to make history very often. I think the last time was when I drove all across the country with my left blinker on.

However, during the Pebble Beach weekend, lightning strikes, stars align and good things happen. Example: I was able to talk my way behind the wheel of the very first Porsche, the Gmund Porsche 001, built by Ferry Porsche and his team in Gmund, Austria, in 1948. Not a replica, not 002.5, but the first real postwar Porsche, designed by Ferry Porsche, styled by Erwin Komenda and fettled by Friedrich Weber.

With ever-loving gratitude to Klaus Bischof, manager of the Porsche Museum (which is now being readied for its grand opening in December in Stuttgart, Germany), I was able to spend a couple of hours flogging the little silver car on 17-Mile Drive before its appearance at Sunday’s Concours d’Elegance. After which it will be installed in the centerpiece position at the new museum.

I will be writing a longer meditation on the car shortly, but here are a couple of quick observations:

The first car is not rear-engined, the configuration made famous by Porsche, but mid-engined. After this prototype was built, it was determined that the costs did not justify the dynamic advantages of a mid-engine layout. The next prototypes were for the more familiar, rear-engine 356/2 cars. The 001 car thus feels less like the precursor of 911 than an ancient Boxster.

The workmanship is astonishing. Porsche’s metal hammerer, Weber, was a master craftsman. This is all the more surprising because he was also a chronic alcoholic, going on benders after everybody was finished.

The 001 is light — 1,300 pounds — and effortless to drive. In 1948, this car must have looked and felt like a visitor from another galaxy. It is also the beginning of a long chain of causality that today finds Porsches still lighter and more fuel-efficient than competitors.

It’s a myth buster: All my professional life I’ve been told the reason the ignition switch in Porsches is on the left is that it was better for Le Mans-style racing starts. Not true. ‘It’s just to avoid the wire coming up through the center of the console,’ Bischof says. ‘Saves maybe 200 grams.’

Now that’s cool.

— Dan Neil

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