Reader Kyle K seems to always be sending in good stuff. His most recent online find is this 1961 Porsche 356B Notchback. If you missed the one we featured last year, then this may be your chance to pick up one of these unique cars. Someone already started what looks to be an amateur restoration here, so you could either redo the job right, or just finish it and drive the car as is. This project is for sale through the dealer Beverly Hills Car Club and they are asking $19,950.
As we mentioned, someone has already started the restoration. At first glance, the exterior looks great, but on closer inspection you will notice a few dings and areas underneath that the painter may have missed. It doesn’t look like a top notch job, but it could work if you just want to be able to use the car on the street.
The interior is long gone, but at least that makes it easy to inspect the floors. It looks like someone has already done some rust repairs and again the work doesn’t look to be of the highest workmanship. Still we would rather have floors with some rough welds than no floors at all. The photos show a few of the interior pieces, but we have not heard back from the seller so we do not know how much of the interior is included with the sale.
The engine is in place out back. We are not sure if it is running, but at this price we would hope so. The engine compartment is going to need some cleaning and sorting to look decent. We would have rather started with the engine if we were doing this restoration, but the previous owner was obviously more concerned with the cosmetics. Lets just hope that all that shiny paint is not hiding any nasty surprises.
Since this car is not complete, we would be sorely tempted to finish it in more of an Outlaw look. Leave the bumpers off, stick some red Speedster seats inside, and drive the heck out of it. That would probably be considered blasphemy to most Porsche enthusiasts though since there are only about 100 of these cars accounted for today (According to the Unofficial Notchback Registry). You could always just restore it back to stock form and let it sit in your garage for a few years before selling at a nice profit. Which route would you take?
UPDATE: Sean at Beverly Hills CC just let us know that the engine is running, but that it is not numbers matching. It was originally from a 1959 Porsche 356A 1600S. He also mentioned that the car will need a full interior restoration.
I don’t claim to be remotely expert on Porsches, but I’ve always understood these notchbacks are quite rare and desirable. Even in its incomplete state this seems like a deal to me.
Saw one on “Chasing Classic Cars” yesterday.
there was a lot up on Signal hill, ca – where some old man used to rent … he had all kinds of old VW and Porsche’s part’s in it. I remember seeing three bath tub Porsche body’s back in the corner… I asked about them. An was told not to go look at them.. mainly cause the lot wasn’t part of my friends lot…but about a year later I came by to fine they were cleaning out every thing that was left in it cause the guy who was renting it didn’t pay the rent for two years.. so the owner was having every thing taken to the dump…I asked about the Porsche’s I had seen … the person who was cleaning every thing out.. told me he took them and had them destroyed – mashed up.. for junk… what a true shame I told him we could of sold them. you could not believe the parts that were in there and it all went to the dump.. this was back in the 80’s…
Outlaw!
Another issue is that these are easily converted to cabriolets. So many have been cut over the years. Technically simple and the end result, especially in the case of a non-matching numbers car like this, one could have themselves a very very inexpensive drop top be it speedster or cabrio.
i own a ’62 T-6 hardtop 62 aka “notchback” – this 356 seems like a very expensive proposition – even if you got this 356 for free, after putting in the $ to get this right, you could have started out with a pretty nice 356 – but that’s the case for many collector cars – this is a T-5 notchback, and is easier to convert to a cab – they made a bunch of the T-5’s and about 700 T-6’s – many have been converted to cab’s or no longer exist – too bad the old porsche guys and car mags from back in the day really disfavored this body style – today, hardtops are much more appreciated, and have their advantages over the coupe – this notchback is still available!