Engine Compartment Material

[Bob Miller]

Hi All,
I'm very very new to this forum, but wanted to ask a question. It was previously mentioned that from 52-53 Reutter stopped installing engine compartment sound proofing material and it was just the spray undercoating. I just purchased a 1953 Pre A built on 4/20/1953 that notes "Engine sound proofing" as one of the options for my car. Is this correct?

[Joris Koning]

Reviving this thread. Has anybody been able to find some sort of a correlation for the color of the padding used to the exterior and/or interior color? Might this be something that was captured in the Reutter records?

[Jim Wayman]

Joris

It seems that the color choice was haphazard. I have had 2 1955 Turkish Red cars. One had gray engine compartment padding and the other had brown. Both original. Incidentally, the color of the faux carpet material on the sides of the front compartment differed also. One was maroon and the other was tan.

[Joris Koning]

Thanks Jim,

Working on getting in contact with Guido of Reutter to see if he can potentially shed some light on this. Aside from colors there also appear to be differences in material e.g., vinyl versus the oil cloth mentioned by you

[James Davies]

I just purchased a 1953 Pre A built on 4/20/1953 that notes "Engine sound proofing" as one of the options for my car. Is this correct?

Hi Bob, yes it's possible that it was an option. "Motorraumverkleidung" was an available option during the 1953 model year and a small number of cars had it listed on the Kardex. But none that I know of from 20 Apr 1953. What chassis number is your car?

I'm always interested in verifying options reported in English, because 1 out of 3 times, they're mistranslated from the German Kardex document. The combination of sloppy entries on the Kardex, inconsistent abbreviations, and the sometimes Swabian dialect of those filling out the document make it sometimes impossible to figure out what the option listed is actually describing.

James

[James Davies]

Grey or brown vinyl seems to be most common colors for engine compartment padding. Here's some photos from 1954 and 1955, one per car.

And they don't seem to correlate with interior or exterior color at all.

[Vincent Gillespie]

Hello all, the engine compartment quilts in our '55 match the colour of the internal upholstery but, interestingly, those on the sides of the 'boot/front trunk', which, from the 'archaeology' of the dismantling, I am sure are original are red.
V&S

[Bob Miller]

Hi James,
Thanks for the response... My vin is 50451. Bob

[Todd Williams]

My 12/53’ #51576 coupe appears to have its original quilt still. All seems look similar to those posted and has the same circle hole on lower one around rear “crank” tin. It is BLACK!

[James Davies]

Todd, no that's not original to the car. They were never black and it looks much too new. Customized, like many things on that car.

Bob, your car had optional Schlafsitz (reclining seats), but I don't believe it ever had Motorraumverkleidung (Engine compartment sound insulation). It wasn't a Hoffman delivery I suspect? I have some old photos of that car after its first restoration, as pictured in Brett Johnson's "Porsche 356 Defined". It was already restored in the 1980s or early 90s, right?

James

[George Kehler]

Here is my engine material. Car sympathetically restored in 1980 by Mr Zim and Mr Mayo.

[George Kehler]

And my front trunk. Very different material.