The Original Porsche in Action: Flashback Friday
Last existing Porsche Type 64 cruises around a test track, sounding a whole lot like a classic Beetle.
The 1939 Porsche Type 64 has been a hot topic over the past few weeks, with the last remaining copy of the first car built by Ferdinand Porsche heading to auction only to be involved in a bizarre technical error by the auction company. Articles talking about how the final Type 64 could bring record-breaking money one week turned to coverage of the auction blunder, but many people don’t know much about this historic automobile.
With that in mind, we went searching for a video of the 1939 Porsche Type 64 in action. As you might imagine, the Internet isn’t packed with footage of people driving a car that is 80 years old and has a value of more than $20 million, but we did find a clip from the ottocars YouTube channel of the original Porsche being driven back in 2007.
Porsche Type 64
If you are not familiar with the Porsche Type 64, also called the 64K10, it was the first vehicle designed and built by Ferdinand Porsche, with three examples being built for racing in 1939. Prior to building the Type 64, Porsche’s company had only built vehicles for other companies, with the Volkswagen Beetle being the most notable model produced. With the company being involved with the production of the Beetle, it should come as little surprise that the Type 64 was basically built with leftover Volkswagen parts.
The three Type 64s built in 1939 had handcrafted aluminum bodies with the flat-four engine from the Beetle, measuring just one liter and delivering around 40 horsepower. In the 1,300-pound Porsche, that made for a fairly quick car, being able to reach speeds around 90 miles per hour. The goal was for these cars to run the Berlin-to-Rome endurance race, but when World War II broke out, the race was cancelled.
Early in the war, one of the Type 64 race cars was destroyed and a second was placed into storage for safekeeping while the Porsche family continued to drive the third car. That third car is the one shown in the video above and it is the only example in existence today. That is because after World War II came to an end, American soldiers found the car that had been placed in storage and played with it until the engine failed, at which point it was essentially junked.
That left only the car in the video above, which is the same car that failed to sell at the RM Soethby’s auction this past weekend.
Type 64 in Action
In the video above, the final Porsche Type 64 is being driven around some sort of closed circuit facility. We cannot tell where this footage was captured and we do not know the identities of the two men in the car, but the video was posted to YouTube back in 2007 and based on the quality of the footage, it could have been recorded ever earlier.
As the video begins, the two men are climbing into the Type 64 as it idles on the tarmac. This gives us a great chance to hear the modified Volkswagen engine running at rest and when the car drives away from the camera, it definitely sounds like a modified Beetle.
The next footage shows the car cruising down a long straightaway, and while this part is blurry, the Type 64 comes back into focus as it rounds a sweeping turn near the cameraman. The video ends with the car heading into the “infield” portion of the small track, followed by one of the men climbing out to celebrate his time in the final example of the first Porsche car ever built. We would celebrate, too.
Join the Rennlist forums now!
