Over the last few years, I have greatly enjoyed watching a boutique car dealership grow into a powerhouse in the vintage and collector automobile marketplace. LBI Limited has quickly earned a reputation for being ahead of the curve on next-generation collector vehicles, but they never take their eye off the ball of blue-chip vintage sports cars. I spotted on their social media feed recently that they had rescued a long-dormant 1956 Porsche Speedster from a hidden California garage, and the story is the kind we all dream about being a part of as car enthusiasts. Find all the details here on LBI Limited’s YouTube page.
For Adolfo Massari, founder of LBI Limited, extracting this hidden Speedster was not a stroke of luck; it actually represented years’ worth of relationship-building. Seven years ago, in town for Monterey Car Week, the LBI team was driving around looking for cars to potentially buy. Sitting on a lawn on flat tires was an Irish Green Porsche 912, which was a car that fit in well with the LBI portfolio. After speaking with the owner, who indicated they weren’t the first guys to ask about it, he decided to sell the 912 that day – and later mentioned that the nearby garage had his old Speedster inside. At the time, he had no interest in selling or even showing the car.
LBI made a point to visit with the owner each time they were in town for Monterey Car Week. They built a relationship with the owner, who recounted that it was a simple clutch cable failure that led to the Speedster being parked. He always meant to go back and fix it, like many of us often do, but eventually nearly 50 years rolled by and the Speedster hadn’t moved. Although the relationship continued to grow and the owner moved more and more of the boxes hiding the Speedster out of the way, he still wasn’t ready to sell. Fortunately for LBI, the annual Monterey Car Week always provided a way to check in.
Now, it’s 2022, and LBI decides to host a clever “pop-up” showroom in downtown Monterey, not too far from where the Speedster was hidden. Call it fate or just plain luck, but this is the year their friend was finally ready to part ways with the Speedster. Incredibly, the ancient Goodyear tires still held air, but the wheels were frozen solid. The flatbed was called in to extract the Speedster from its longtime hiding spot, finally seeing daylight after 47 years in the shed. LBI was obviously thrilled to have the chance to find a new home for the Speedster, which will hopefully love it as much as its longtime owner did.
We’ve been in this situation many times over the years and really enjoyed the Speedster find by LBI. Drove over half the country to buy this ’57 from long time friends who wound up having too many toys. They bought the car in 1969 and autocrossed it for 14 years. Only catch to picking it up was I had to bring our own suspension but two engines and the original factory close ratio transaxle came with it.
Nice find Bob! I thought you were going to say the only catch was to buy the mattresses with the Porsche.
No room on the 14″ open trailer with the car, parts, and two engines. Put one engine in the car and the other one in the passenger compartment.. Told the friends to go buy some more beds.
The princess and the pea? The pea being a Porsche in this case?
You pulled a loaded car trailer with a Vanagan?!
Water cooled engine had lot of torque and we traveled home at 75 mph with no problem. Other cars were 2K Porsche 914 and several other Porsche and British race cars.
I think a lot of people loose sight of what we had to work with prior to the Powerstroke and Cummins era. The first shop I worked at had a beetle with a flat bed conversion with the 36 Ford fiberglass hood. The shop owner mounted a 5th wheel hitch and had a custom aluminum car trailer make. The VW transaxle was swapped out for a bus transaxle and it was powered by a 1.8L GTI engine with Weber side drafts. My mom had a 81 Audi 5000 that broke down and I went to rescue in the beetle. Had no problem pulling 70mph. That was so fun to drive and the smiles you got were priceless.
Back in our crazier days, my brother and I flat towed a Datsun Roadster 2000 setup as an autocrosser from Manhattan Kansas to Kansas City. That was with his street Datsun Roadster 1600. Back roads obviously, not the turnpike. But we got up to speed, just took a while. I few years later, I towed a regular U-haul with my 69 510 with a buddy, from San Diego back to Manhattan. Hit an ice storm in Kansas and slide through a few intersections fortunately there was no one else on the road. That was 2 long days driving.
Amazing that the top appeared in one piece. There was a giant hole in the roof of the shed.
It got me to thinking about when its time to let go of objects that were central to our lives over time. Its a tough decision and ultimately will be made for us. Perhaps its better to do it ourselves before the hole in the roof appears.
I’d be interested in the outcome of the restoration……or are they gong to flip it.
Paul… In the late ’60s we used a ’59 356 coupe to flat tow a ’57 Cabriolet from Florida to Nevada. Never had any problems even though the Cabrio was loaded to the gills in our “important stuff”. Fun trip. Going through a little town in northern New Mexico we passed by two small Indian kids on a corner, one of which said “that’s a Porsche”. Pronounced it right too.
. . . a good ‘spit ‘n polish’ with mechanicals revived and you have an attractive little runabout. Personally, I’ve never understood the ‘fetish’ for these little ‘blobs of custard’ on wheels . . . but it is what it is!!
Fugly, but worth a few shekels.