Factory rally cars without bumpers?

[Juha Vane]

Did factory run rally cars with or without bumpers?
Specially 356B 1961.

[Vic Skirmants]

Good question. It might depend on the rules. There is a photo of Helmut Polensky with his winning Gmuend coupe. The car is one of the cars that the factory modified with the no bumper nose; like the 1952 LeMans cars. But this car has a separate bumper added; I assume it was required by the rules.

[Juha Vane]

Reason for question is that a friend is try to get FIA pass for
his 356 to be able to participate in historic rallies.
Sometime during the years has the bumpers been removed
and bracket holes closed.
Porsche usually tried to make the race cars as light as possible
to compensate for the not so powerful engines. But as you say,
perhaps bumpers was required in the past.

[William Block]

In the new book Rally Automobile Monte-Carlo Porsche 1952-1967, not only as might be expected do the body bumper cars have bumpers, but ALL 60+ pictured different bent window cars as well as the around 100 A,B,Cs pictured. The 356B-T6 Carreras (including factory entrant #122401-- who knew in 1963?) ran bumpers but without bumperettes as did factory and private Carreras in 1964. Perhaps it was Monte-Carlo thing, but the book stresses that the Monte conformed to whatever rules the championship imposed. Rally Automobile Monte-Carlo Porsche 1952-1967 is available at BLOCKS-BOOKS.com.

[Erik Thomas]

Good question. As of 1959, production sports cars in the SCCA were allowed to remove bumpers. Before that, they had to run with them.