The seller “Dusty Cars” seems to have a lock on finding survivor-grade air-cooled Porsches with either incredibly desirable specs, a wonderful story, or in the case of this 1959 356, both. The car shown here is a 356A T2 coupe, ordered in Silver Metallic. Now, this color isn’t particularly rare – it seems throughout history, silver has been one of the most common color choices – but the fact that it still wears its original paint, along with myriad other original features, is what makes it a standout. The 356 also has an interesting ownership history, and you can find it here on eBay with a Buy-It-Now of $69,995 or best offer.
As a model, the 356 was in the spotlight recently at the Rudi Klein “The Junkyard” auction. There were some truly significant models that went under the hammer for huge numbers, with most of those cars featuring some combination of desirable engine specs or for being a rare coachbuilt model. This 356 isn’t a twin grille model or equipped with an exotic drivetrain, but the devil is in the details with this car: the seller reports that it retains all original body panels, along with a numbers-matching drivetrain. Combined with the remnants of the factory paint, this is an impressively honest car.
The interior continues the theme of originality, with nicely preserved buckets and painted dash. The seller reports that the transmission is also numbers-matching. Since I see no signs of major corrosion, and am under the assumption it has been in California since new, I’m going to hope that the next owner won’t be replacing large sections of body panels. The backstory on this 356 is that it belonged to Professor Jerome Malinowski, the designer of the original Ford Mustang. The seller notes that they purchased this car along with two other T2 coupes from the sale collection, so it stands to reason he really liked the 356.
Numbers-matching drivetrains are not as easy to find as one might expect with a classic sports car like the 356, but given how many years these spent as cheap, used cars (see Rudi Klein), it was not uncommon for engines to be tossed when a replacement was needed. When new, this 356 made about 60 horsepower and 81 lb-ft of torque. It doesn’t seem like much, but you need to recall the car’s humble beginnings, and also the expectations of the day for what an imported sporting car would deliver horsepower-wise. Overall, this is a unique opportunity to buy a nearly bone-stock 356 with an intriguing history and impressive originality.
You can see daylight in the interior floor views. The bane of old Porsches.
First off..it would be a crying shame to restore this. The underside looks very decent and about the same as my 56 sunroof A when I bought it. Beach Boys Racing in Venice Ca, went through the underside of mine just putting a few patches in the original floor where needed and strengthening plates under the torsion bar and replacing the battery box..and it’s been that way since the early 80’s with more than a couple of hundred thousand miles on the clock. This looks so solid that I would do the same thing, tune up the motor and go have fun..Someone will snap this up..quick.
Go to the eBay ad and look at the underside shots and you will change your mind about the decent underside.
The ’59s were good solid cars and the best of the A series 356s. This car used to be that way. The door bottoms have been replaced and the rocker boxes are gone. All parts are available but think lots of money and lots of time.
Interesting & intriguing history to this Porshe car, JL. Thanks!!
The article mentions that the car once belonged to “… Professor Jerome Malinowski, the designer of the original Ford Mustang.”
This is partially correct however. In all fairness to the history of the Mustang, this should read ” …one of the designers of the original Ford Mustang.” In fact, it was a team effort by engineers at Ford led by Gale Halderman, Lee Iacocca and:
“Other designers included Bob Maguire, Don DeLaRossa, Charlie Phaneuf, Damon Woods and John Najjar …and many other talented engineers as well”. (Robert Tate, Automotive Historian/Researcher, 5.13.2020). This last group included Professor Jerome Malinowski.
..looking more closely at the underside the rot is worse than I first noticed..far worse than mine was.Nonetheless a good shop could cut and weld and fix all of it..and along the way..make it a little stronger and the car will be good to go.
In most of the cars we did we left the tunnel in place and put the replacement pan under it. The boxed members, or rocker boxes, are the tricky parts because of their shape. The areas where they are welded in need to be prepared before welding in the pan. The 911s aren’t that much different.
In order to make this a feasible restoration project, the price would need to be no more than $40,000. Even if you do all the metal replacement, prepping, and painting yourself, along with all the mechanical restoration, you’re still going to have another $45,000 outlay of cash in addition to the purchase price, for a car that’s going to be worth about $100,000 when finished. I’d buy it $35,000, but not $70,000.
Silver paint looks like Rustoleum spray can attempt!
I’m no Porsche guy, but are those seams on the lower 1/3 of the door factory or some weled on patches? Also the front bumper looks like 2 pieces welded together in the middle. Another vertical seam on the front fender, and daylight showing through the floor.
Those are patch panels on the doors easily obtained from places like Stoddard in Ohio. I’ve done several bumper rescues by putting two halves together. Looks like what we have here.
The whole pan has to go, it would seem. I’ve never done that myself though.
I stand to be corrected but I am under the impression that the 356 didn’t have a “pan” as it was unit construction. I had a 356 from a customer to sell on consignment and one look at the underside deterred any buyer from being remotely interested in it unless the complete floors were replaced in total as no Porsche collector would ever buy it if there were patches in the floor.
The pan is just a flat piece of metal where the VW pans have suspensions etc. with a separate bolted on body.
Make it safe to drive and take it to every Porsche show you can.
Reading the intro I was expecting a good paint job on a car . Seeing the pictures of this car quickly changed my mind about that. It’s amazing to me the money people hope to get from cars like this one .
If you had followed the Rudi Klein auction last week you would have seen the exceedingly high prices that they were getting for junk 356’s in a lot worse condition than this one. Some people have far too much money or else they were buying the Vin plate for nefarious reasons and the scrap body just came with it!
Dealer. ’nuff said