Once upon a time, a long time ago, I bought a 1963 Porsche 356B. At the time, all I knew was that it was a step up from the 1957 and 1962 VW bug I owned. I knew enough to know that it was a relatively high performance car. This was in 1970 and one would think by today’s standards that it would be a car that would be in fairly good condition being only 7 years old. However, this is England, the southern part…specifically Wiltshire, where you only know it is summertime because the rain that falls is warmer than other times of the year. So there is a “little” rust in the car and one or two other small problems.

Now let us digress a little and describe how I came by this excellent machine. At the time I was a Corporal in the RAF (Real Air Force) and in my spare time when not repairing C130 Hercules, I was responsible on a volunteer basis for running the base motor repair club.

One day a member came in with a Ford Anglia, which had the rear spring hangers protruding into the boot (trunk to you) due to the rusting through of the attachment points. Because of the incessant rain heretofore spoken of, many cars in the UK suffer from this type of problem. The British government in cahoots with the British car industry, cash in on this phenomenon by the institution of the British Ministry of Transport (MOT) annual roadworthiness vehicle test.

Many cars fail this test and either have to be repaired at great cost or replaced at greater cost – much to the delight of the motor industry. Anyway, said member did not have the requisite pennies to pay for repair of the Ford Anglia so offered it for sale and generous person as I was, I offered with great humor to give him the princely sum of 5 English pounds for the Ford Anglia. (Did I mention it was an Anglia super, obviously worth twice as much as the standard Anglia, as it had the big 1200cc engine) So, I became the owner of a Ford Anglia with the rear springs sticking into the trunk. Note that my weekly take home pay at this time was in the order of 50 pounds per week (about $125 at that time) and you will appreciate how much money we are comparatively talking about here.

This is where I rushed off to my local Ford dealer and bought two new spring hangers for about twice as much as I’d just paid for the car, and with my AC arc welder proceeded to repair spring hangers to point where I could get car to pass MOT test.

Now my thought on first purchasing the car was not for anything other than to resell it as fast as possible before my bank manager found out that he was still subsidizing my wheeling and dealing in cars, and before he pulled me in again for his little chat about how I was supposed to bank with them and not the other way around. So I took the Anglia down to my local MOT test station and while waiting for the mechanic to do his prodding and poking to ascertain the roadworthiness of the Anglia I looked at the used cars in the lot and there was this 1963 heron gray 356B. I had no choice. I went in to the office and negotiated the deal.

One hundred and fifteen pounds for the Anglia and two hundred seventy five for the 356. The difference to be paid off over the next year at 17 pounds a month. I drove away wondering how to explain to my bank manager why I just had to buy the 356 and if he would loan me the money for the Anglia. After all I had just made a real good profit on it. Those thoughts did not last long as I suddenly came to the realization that I was for the first time in my life driving a car that felt a part of me and the road. I had ridden in Porsches before but had never considered owning one so had never taken the time to appreciate them. Now I was driving my own and it really felt far removed from the VW Bugs I owned and all the other cars I’d driven.
Now to show how little I new about Porsches at this time, we will describe the foibles this car came with. The special exhaust system after careful examination consisted of 4 Austin Healey Sprite mufflers with the manifold flanges of the old Porsche muffler, welded and clamped on to allow them to be bolted on to the 1600 normal engine. Unfortunately, the pipe clamp on one of the pipes was a little weak and came loose on a number of occasions, which made a very unpleasant noise. This would happen on quite a few occasions until I eventually acquired a used muffler from a rich friend, Mac, with an S model, 2 chassis numbers removed from mine (another story sometime how Mac fell in love with the 356 but grew up on a mini and couldn’t drive a rear engined car).

I had no history at all on this car when I purchased it and it never crossed my mind that it was worthwhile trying to find the original owner in case it had anything unusual about it. (Maybe Jim Clark or Jackie Stewart drove it in their early days of club racing?) Anyway, I drove it daily to work and everywhere else including vacation with wife and three children. Suitcase on luggage rack and most everything else in plastic bags stuffed everywhere there was any space.

The car was pretty reliable considering it’s sad state of repair when I bought it and considering my impecunious state. It is amazing in retrospect, that I managed to run it for as long as I did, and do things I would never consider doing now.

Witness— I reringed it in 8 hours one evening. I could not afford a set of rings from AFN (the Porsche dealer in London) so I researched the Cord piston ring catalog at my local parts store and found a set of Ford rings that fit and bought them for about 20% of the price of the Porsche rings. They worked!!

While doing the ring change, I noticed that the rods in this motor were all polished and as I had no previous knowledge of Porsche motors I assumed that this was normal. Since then I have not seen rods quite as well finished, so I now have to presume that someone had been in there before me.

The car also had Koni shocks all round and I don’t think that they came as standard on the 63 B. Certainly the handling appeared to me to be excellent but then I was used to driving a 62 bug so what did I know?

The differential carrier bolts broke, I pulled the axles and the carrier and lo and behold, it had a little VW stamp on it. I had a 57 bug with a broken crank so I pulled the differential and it looked the same, so I put it in and it worked. It didn’t make any more noise than it did before.

Every year I took it in for it’s MOT test and eventually the day came when I was told that due to the rust holes in the chassis it was not getting it’s test certificate so I took it home and with help from 3 friends I did a rotisserieless invert in the backyard onto a couple of old tires then proceeded to weld it up. This exercise did produce a couple of small dents in the roof and a small crack in the windshield but otherwise the end result was acceptable and the MOT test was once again passed. My financial state soon after this began to improve as I left the Air Force and became a private citizen earning a reasonable wage. I acquired a company car and decided to take the 356 off the road and do some much-needed restoration on it. Three years later I got divorced moved to the US of A and my under restoration heron gray 1963 356B with the registration BMM 935A was sold by my ex-wife for 100 pounds sterling ($200 at that time) and I have no idea to who or where. She did send me half the money and she did throw in the official 2 volume set of Porsche manuals when she sold it, so now all I have are a couple of pictures to remind me of my first Porsche. Maybe it did get restored, maybe it is still out there. I’d love to know, call home BMM 935A!!!

David Jones
(Now in Ohio now with three 59 A’s. Very patriotic, a red, white and blue one. The most recent one, the white one, has been off the road since 1971, but is still in better shape than the 63 ever was)

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