'56 Carrera

[Charles H Jacobus]

This Carrera says it has a 2 Ltr Carrera engine. The video shows 50 at 6,000. Two questions:
1. Is the red line for that engine really only 6,000?
2. Is 50 at 6,000 correct?

Chuck
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1956- ... a-carrera/

[Martin Benade]

Maybe it is in 3rd gear?

[Charles H Jacobus]

Maybe it is in 3rd gear?

I'm thinking second but maybe it was 3rd. My real question was did they redline at 6000? I thought they redlined at 7,000. And maybe the top of the redline was at 7.

Chuck

[Jim Alton]

I checked Brett Johnson's The 356 Porsche, a Collector's Guide to Originality. It says a 356A 1500GS/GT has an 8000 rpm tach with red which starts at 6000 and stops at 7500.

A 356B 2000GS 8000 rpm tach would have red which starts at 6200 and stops at 7000.

I played with Excel some years ago and generated this:

I think the later transaxle in the car we're discussing probably should have BBAA gears if it's indeed a Carerra transaxle.

[Charles H Jacobus]

Thanks, Jim.

Chuck

[Jim Perrin]

My 64 356C Carrera 2 has a tach with a red zone from 6800 to 7000.

I have a tach dated 1957 which came out of an RSK - don't know whether or not it is original. The range is from 1000 to 10,000 rpm's. What's interesting is that no red zone is shown.

Art Stange had an independent Porsche repair shop in the Palo Alto/Mountain View area for many years. One day around 1966 a local guy came in with his Carrera GT Speedster (which I owned a couple of years later). He had made an engine swap, plus a lot of other work had been done on this ex-race car. He said "Art, come out and take a ride with me. I want you to hear my engine, it's cutting out badly at around 4000 or so. Art did go for that ride, but had to yell at the owner to "Back Off!" The owner did so, and asked why. Art said "Your car isn't cutting out when it's going over 4000, you're actually turning 8000! Some of the cars had a 2:1 reduction!

By the time I purchased the Carrera Speedster, the owner had been running an Elva Porsche 1700 flat fan engine in it. The Speedster had been extensively lightened. For example, the front and rear hoods and doors were each a fiberglass shell with no bracing, and held in place with small screws. To get in or out you just hopped over the door. Not only was the windshield wiper motor and linkage removed from the car, but the bracket it mounted on was cut away. It had a low plexiglas windshield and the fenders were flared. It had Spyder steel/alloy wheels on it ----- at the time I thought the price of the wheels was extremely high, but today you'd probably laugh at the price ($75 apiece, but less than 904 disc brake steel/alloy wheels which were just under $100 each). The car had two aluminum gas tanks. The two gallon one was used for autoxes, and the five gallon one for longer events. It had no bumpers, but in front it had a pair of brackets coming out of the front bumper holes in the body for flat towing the car to events. I kept it in the backyard of the Palo Alto house that Bruce Anderson and I rented. Bruce would occasionally demonstrate to a visitor how light the front was by lifting the front end off the ground by the two brackets! The car was painted orange with black stripes. Now you know that at least one Porsche 356 outlaw existed 50 years ago!

[Neil Bardsley]

Jim. Great stories. Thank you for sharing. Any photos of the 'Outlaw Speedster'?