Which hood handle is original for an early 356a

[Jeroen van der Velden]

Hello,

I'm restoring a very early 356a t1.
I have two hood handles. Can anyone tell me which one is the original?
One is chromed without a central rib on the back, rough surface on the inside and stamped with the number "1" on the back
The other one is polished and has a central rib on the back.

Thanks Jeroen

[Vic Skirmants]

I don't think any originals were chromed. Experts?

[James Davies]

I believe your top handle without the rib is a reproduction, as the interior surface indicates it is cast, not forged. The bottom handle looks original and may very well be correct for your car.

The earliest handles on the '55 model year cars produced at the end of '54 had a blunt handle. These handles had no strengthening rib and had the numbers 17365 stamped on the inside. The same male mould was used to make the first pointed hood handles, which also have 17365 on the inner part, but are pointed. They merely reworked the female mould.

One often finds these early handles with a bit of twist or bend in them. To strengthen the handles, they designed a new one with a strengthening rib down the center, just like yours. I don't know when the transition from 17365 pointed handle to ribbed handle happened. Hopefully someone else can chime in.

See photo below for an original, pointed '55 handle. The back side is the same as the blunt handles, having 17365 on the back. Many of the reproductions made are modeled off this handle, but they don't have the numbers on the inside.

None of the original handles were chrome plated as far as I know. They were instead forged aluminum with a bright anodize. This original anodize looks very much like chrome, but is not as thick or hard. It's very shiny though. Most original hood handles have lost their original anodize brightness, like your ribbed one. Not sure of the best way to bring it back. You can see it undisturbed in a few places in the photos below.

[Jeroen van der Velden]

Hello James,

Thank you very much for this detailed information!

My coupe is build in januari 1956.
Is there is anyone who knows when they started using hoodhandles with the strenghtning rib on the back?

[Steve Harrison]

I agree with James about the brightness of the annodizing. The back of my blunt nosed (55) handle has some undisturbed areas and it's very very bright,...a chrome like brightness. The topside, alas, was too far gone to save,...so I polished it.
I was told by Dario Calandra a few years back that the original repro (strange term I know, haha) was pulled off an early pointed nose handle, so the repro's for a long long time had no back rib. (but on some of the earliest repro's you could actually see a faint ghost of the part numbers, but not enough to read) For a long time that's how you could quickly tell a repro without actually looking at it's underneath. From what I can tell, the rib showed up fairly quickly after the blunt end was abandoned in early 55. Most likely your 56 would have had the later pointed end and ribbed bottom side handle.

[Jeroen van der Velden]

Thanks for the additional information.
I am going to restore the hood handle with the rib on the back and use it for my 56 coupe.

[Spencer Harris]

Hello,
I'm restoring a very early 356a t1.
I have two hood handles. Can anyone tell me which one is the original?
One is chromed without a central rib on the back, rough surface on the inside and stamped with the number "1" on the back
The other one is polished and has a central rib on the back.
Thanks Jeroen

Kinda' late to the party on this blog but I can offer some data points for those who may be interested.
The '53 parts book lists fig. 33 as pn 356.58.039, grip for front deck. These are the early handles without the crest. I believe the earliest ones were solid and the later ones were open like on my '53 (#60238, 08/17/1953).

The '55 parts book lists fig. 35 as the same pn 356.58.039, handle for front hood for coupes 5001-52844 and convertibles 5015-60693. This would essentially be cars manufactured from 1950 through late 1954.

The '55 parts book also lists fig. 35 as pn 540.58.305, front hood handle for coupes 52845 onward and convertibles 60694 onward. These were both 1955 models built in late 1954 and were the blunt nose handles as James describes. Before and after polishing the original handle from my '55 coupe (#53449, 05/10/1955).

The Porsche PET catalog confirms the ranges of application for the earlier handles and lists pn 644.559.021.00 as the pointed nose handle for 356A models. I cannot copy the HTML or the PDF version of the PET catalog, but you can access it here:
http://www.porsche.com/all/media/pdf/or ... ATALOG.pdf
I too think the bottom handle in your photos is original and the correct one for your January '56 car.

[Gary Thies]

Spencer,
I see this older post that you have an early T1? I have one also, wondering what your serial number is, and what were your options? Did it have the blunt hood handle? I wonder when that hood handle was used.

Thanks,

G Thies

[Dick Roth]

If they were giving out PhD's on this subject, a couple of these guys would be wearing their Mortar Boards...Impressive!

[Bil Brown]

I`ve got one of the 1955 ribless pointed-nose handles listed on thesamba right now.

[Neville Sonner]

Just as a data point, I have a '56 model year A coupe ("european") delivered in early Nov 1955 (all very original) and it came with the pointed nose handle with no rib.