Raised area in center of tail panel

[Tom Kaiser]

Last call - need to take a decision : would appreciate fact based support

there are many conflicting informations on this subject or may be i was not capable to find the correct answer


1953 Modell Convertible , Reutter delivery date : Jan 1954 VIN : 60428

Was this car definitively produced with a raised area in the center of the tail panel to allow the round one pipe muffler ?

[James Davies]

Yes, from Aug 1953 through the end of pre-A production, all coupes, cabs and speedsters had this raised area.

The 356A body had the whole width of the rear valence raised (and the rear wheel wells were raised too).

[Jim Wayman]

I have owned 2 1955 model year Pre A cars (60900 and 52979) which had the original sheetmetal and did not have the raised area and am aware of several others that were the same. Creates a problem in sourcing a muffler. The tail on them is lower than later A model cars.

[Donald Zingg]

Creates a problem in sourcing a muffler. The tail on them is lower than later A model cars.

Which begs the question: Why would Reutter intentionally and randomly modify some P-356 tail panels to remove the raised area knowing it would cause headaches for Porsche during final assembly? Which scenario seems more likely - - the factory wittingly created chaos in its production routine - - or, a body repair/ paint shop straightened out the "wavy" tail panel to look like every 356A body they ever worked on? It would only take one visit to a body shop, perhaps decades ago, to make the raised area disappear on any original 356 tail panel. The original feature wasn't very prominent when new, and even less so after other parts of the rear valence suffered damage.

[Tom Kaiser]

Thanks Donald for stepping in.

Can you please let us know if you have evidence that the change to the raised area appeared in mid 54 with the change of the muffler to a round pipe as you described in a earlier post ( 11.21,14 & 11.22.14) on this matter ?

David and B. Johnson talk about mid 53 ?

Your answer would be very helpful to take a decision for my 1/54 produced car.

Tks Tom

[Martin Benade]

Donald, I thought that sounded very likely until I looked at the picture, the metal would be too short to hammer and dolly to an untwisted shape.

[Jim Wayman]

Not only is the metal too short, but on my 2 cars, the bottom edge of the rear valance is lower than on an A car, which would mean that metal would have to have been added. No evidence of that. Both cars are later than mid 1954 - 12/54 and later.

[Donald Zingg]

Sorry for not being clearer. I meant most body shops were not familiar with subtle details of the 1954-55 356 cars. Even today, that is generally the case. But they were (and are) very familiar with repairing 356A and later models. And so, if sometime in the past a late pre-A car has had major body work it is common to see the rear valence hammered out and finished straight across to resemble the look of a 356A rear valence. But as Jim points out, there is more sheet metal hanging down under the rear end of a 356 body, which creates issues with the exhaust tailpipes when the rear valence is treated that way. In the past, if a craftsman wasn't aware of any difference between the two, then commonly all the minor rear end damage was straightened out based on his knowledge of later cars.

In my experience playing around P-356 cars over the past 50 years, '54 and '55 cars that still had the raised area in back were those that had not seen a lot of body repairs. My '54 had been raced, abused and painted many times. The rear valence was pulled straight across with a cut-out for a header exhaust tailpipe on the left side. During my restoration of the car I discovered the sheet metal in the raised area had memory. While tapping and bending searching for the original impressions the sheet metal sprang back into shape at the corners, guiding the way.

[Donald Zingg]

Donald, I thought that sounded very likely until I looked at the picture, the metal would be too short to hammer and dolly to an untwisted shape.

FYI - Martin that is my car in the picture.
Have you ever performed body work on the rear end of a 1952 or '53 P-356 car?
You might recall the straight-across lower edge of the body. Now imagine that same sheet metal panel with the center 13" or so bent up and forward 90 degrees so the edge flange in that area is approx. 25mm higher than before. That' basically describes the raised area modification on the '54 and '55 P-356 bodies implemented to provide clearance for a muffler with round tailpipes used during that era.

[Martin Benade]

I did salvage front and rear clips from a 52 many years ago, it was probably straight across the bottom but it’s been many years. After that probably A T1 was the oldest I’ve worked on. So I know very little.

[Donald Zingg]

Tom,

The earliest P-356 with a raised rear tail panel I can recall being discussed on the Forum is chassis 51820.
James has talked about it. I'm not sure when it was manufactured, but if it predates your car, then hopefully that should answer your question.

[Victor Ingram]

Raised panel with dual exhaust 55 Cab 60890

[James Davies]

Thanks for the careful explanations Don. Agree 100%. Once Porsche switched to the round exhausts for the 546 engine and the raised center section in Aug 1953, they never looked back. The 528 mufflers still had a flattened pipes for a little while, but eventually those became round too. From that point forward, all engines had round exhausts and needed the raised center sections on the 356 body.

As for when that happened, my coupe 50960 from 27 July 1953 does not have a raised center section and has a pretty nice unmolested tail. 51015 from 10 Aug 1953 has the raised center tail section, and that car is unrestored and original. A lot of existing, unrestored (or photographed before restoration) cars provide the data. Cars with raised center tail sections:

------
51015
51101
51173
51179
51608
51764
51820
51857
51942
52033
52073
52140
52257
52544
52546
52619
52853
53061
53177
53456
53459 ?
53460
53462
53475
53662
53694
53772
53846
54104
54220

It is similar on the cabriolet side. 60238 from 17 Aug 1953 is the earliest I know of that has a raised tail section.

-------
60238
60240
60280
60370
60435
60439
60449
60456
60460
60499
60520
60540
60552
60631
60639
60650
60873
60874
60890

There are many, many more cars out there in these chassis number ranges, and with a lot of effort, one could probably fill in more data. But the above is sufficient I think.

These chassis numbers cover the whole period of pre-A body production for coupes and cabs from Aug 1953 through Sep 1955, the end of production. Pre-A chassis/bodies were used on Speedsters for another 3 months through the end of 1955. I don't have good data on those, so I'll defer to Don there, but I believe at least up to 81080 had the raised rear valence, and I believe that was a 1600.

[Tom Kaiser]

Thanks to all for supporting the decision to have the raised area in the tail panel recovered on 60428.
Very helpful also the listing of the VIN numbers with documented cars having the raised area.

[Donald Zingg]

These chassis numbers cover the whole period of pre-A body production for coupes and cabs from Aug 1953 through Sep 1955, the end of production. Pre-A chassis/bodies were used on Speedsters for another 3 months through the end of 1955. I don't have good data on those, so I'll defer to Don there, but I believe at least up to 81080 had the raised rear valence, and I believe that was a 1600.

Speedster 81229 still has that raised area in its well-preserved original tail panel. It is one of the last six Speedsters built in December 1955 using the type 356 chassis. In the chassis range 80002 - 81234 (July 1954 - Dec. 1955) there are many examples of the raised area in original tail panels.

Keep in mind, the lower margins of the 356 nose/tail and rocker panels are close to the ground. From the time they were new, those early cars typically suffered all sorts of minor collision damage from steep driveway aprons, street curbs, parking blocks, truck tire treads and rocks on the road, etc. After many thousand miles of driving, and one or more visits to the body shop for repairs, it is easy to imagine how the raised area under the back of some 356 cars might have disappeared. During the 1950s and 1960s owners of pre-A cars were mostly concerned with keeping their car running well or making improvements to performance or comfort. It's only decades later that the focus has shifted to details of originality.