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Though Ferdinand Porsche’s automotive engineering ability was prominent in Europe since the turn of the 20th century, a car bearing the Porsche name wasn’t manufactured until after WW II, in Gmund, Austria, by his son Ferry. Seeking to boost his newly resurrected company’s visibility, Ferry decided, as so many manufacturers before him, to build a racecar. A running prototype of the first Porsche was put together in 1948. It utilized a rigid, welded, space frame, covered in hand-hammered aluminum, with its tiny, air-cooled engine mounted just in front of the rear axle. This gave the car a near 50/50 weight distribution with a driver aboard. Ironically, many of this Porsche’s components were from Volkswagen. The little car, dubbed the 356 because of the number of its design sequence, got rave reviews from the press when it was shown at the Swiss Grand Prix. To make it viable for mass production, and a commercial success, this design was changed to a rear-engine configuration with a monocoque chassis. Later on, the body would be changed to sheet-steel. With a commercially successful 356 on his hands, Ferry moved the company back to its original home in Stuttgart, Germany and decided to build his full-on racecar there. The designers went back to the original layout for the prototype 356. Work started in 1952 and, in the spring of 1953, the Type 550 was born. The design was simple—a ladder frame comprised of six welded-tube cross members covered by a hand-formed aluminum body. A VW-based, 70-bhp, horizontally opposed, Super 1500 engine was mounted in front of the rear axle. Ferry then took his car racing. The Type 550-01 won its first race at Nurburgring. With its sister, the Type 550-02, it scored a 1-2 finish at the 24-hours of LeMans. The same two cars then went on to victory at the Carrera Panamericana in Mexico! The Type 550 debuted at the Paris Motor Show in October of 1953 and was put into production in 1954 as the 550 Spyder—a name attributed to American importer Johnny Van Neuman. Not willing to sit on their laurels, the Porsche engineers replaced the VW-derived engine with an Ernst Fuhrman-designed, complex, 4-cylinder, roller-bearing-equipped, quad-cam engine, making 110 horsepower at 7,800 rpm. The engine, designated the Type 547, proved reliable in spite of its complexity and would eventually be tweaked to make 135 bhp at 7,200 rpm. Porsche went on to redesign the 550 in 1956 by going back to the space frame design, thus reducing the car’s weight to a lean 1,170 pounds. It was designated the 550A. This proved to be a good move, for the car won a 1,000-kilometer endurance race at Nurburgring and finishing first at the Targa Florio! By the time the 550 series was retired from major racing events in 1958, the legend and mystique of the Porsche marque was firmly established. Today, Type 550’s compete regularly in commemorative events for historic racecars.
As it did with its sterling 1:18 scale rendition of the 1955 M-B 300 SLR, Maisto has done an equally fine job on the 1958 Porsche 550A Spyder. This image is a replica of the #48 car, driven by Stirling Moss and Jean Behra to a 3rd-place finish (behind 2 Ferrari TR 258s) at the 1,000 Km. Race Buenos Aires in 1958. Like the M-B image, the detailing is outstanding, considering the under-$25 price. When you lift the hood, you won’t find much under there but a gas tank and battery, but the detail is fine. When you lift the rear cowl, exposing the engine and spare, the detail is more than adequate. There are full suspensions at all four corners and both doors open. The steering on this image seems to work better than on the 300 SLR. The cockpit detail is well done, save for the intrusion of the dogleg-style hinging. The silver paint is flawless and the chrome parts are nicely rendered to scale. Numbering and badging are tampoed-on, but also done well. This image isn’t as flashy and elegant-looking as the 300 SLR but it’s not Maisto’s fault—the Porsche just wasn’t as pretty a car. Again, Maisto has done a bang-up job on another racing icon.
Today, you need but utter the name “Porsche” to conjure up images of legendary cars—cars like the 356, 550, 911 and 928. From its humble beginnings, rebuilding after the ravages of WW II, Ferry Porsche hammered out a company that proved its mettle—on the racetrack and on the boulevards of Europe and America.
(10/11/2005)
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