Only three of the Type 64 were ever built.
A DREAM DEFERRED
There can be no disputing that Porsche is among the most
important marques in post-war racing history, winning countless sports car and
endurance events while developing one of the most celebrated model lines ever
conceived. Even seasoned enthusiasts, however, have rarely considered the
existence of a genetic forebear of the fabled brand that predated the first
Porsche 356 by nearly a decade.
The heart and soul of the company’s fantastic history, of
course, can be traced to the founder, Prof. Dr. Ferdinand Porsche. The eldest
Porsche famously cut his teeth at Austro-Daimler and Mercedes-Benz before
engineering some of the interwar era’s greatest rear-engine creations,
including the dominant Auto Union race cars and, at the other end of the
spectrum, the Volkswagen Type 1 Beetle.
Prof. Dr. Ferdinand Porsche was a fiery and uncompromising
personality who regularly challenged corporate boards with difficult ideas, one
of the reasons his résumé consisted of so many different stops. In September
1938, during his successful consultancy with the early state-run Volkswagen,
Prof. Dr. Porsche proposed a sports car version of the Beetle, then known as
the KdF-Wagen. As evidenced by Porsche design drawings, the Type 114 was
imagined with three different displacements, highlighted by a mid/rear engine
placement just ahead of the rear axle. A far cry from the state’s vision of a
car for the common man, Porsche’s sports car was rejected by the Deutsche
Arbeitsfront board, and the idea was shelved.
The Type 114 obviously made an impression, though—two weeks
later Volkswagen itself commissioned Porsche to formulate a similar solution
that would address the Beetle’s poorly performing narrow tires. VW had built
several versions of the KdF already, including the military-grade Kübelwagen
and Schwimmwagen, and the proposed sports car was to be the tenth different
body design applied to the KdF’s Type 60 chassis. The concept was therefore
dubbed the Type 60K10, though Porsche internally classified the project as the
Type 64.
Under the supervision of Erwin Komenda, Karl Froelich
drafted formal plans that were then developed into a wooden scale model, which
was wind-tunnel tested at Stuttgart University by Josef Mickl. These same three
Austrians had contributed to Porsche’s Auto Union grand prix cars and the
KdF-Wagen. They would soon become major forces in the creation of the Cisitalia
grand prix race car and Porsche’s own 356 and 550 models.
BERLIN TO ROME
Very similar in profile, the Type 114 and the Type 64
exterior drawings are easily recognizable as the basis of the Gmünd 356 coupe
that was to follow, and therefore can be viewed as the earliest expression of
Porsche’s singular design evolution. Despite this flurry of activity, both
ideas seemed destined to remain in a draftsman’s file, were it not for the
announcement in the spring of 1939 of a 940-mile road race from Berlin to Rome
to be run that September. Several manufacturers lined up to compete in this
public-relations showcase of the Axis pact, and Dr. Porsche accordingly
received an order from the National Socialist Motor Corps (NSKK) to produce
three Sport KdF-Wagen examples, and the Type 64 was resuscitated.
Though unconfirmed, it is believed that Reutter Karosserie
was retained to build alloy coachwork for the Type 64, which featured a narrow
two-seat cockpit, wheel spats front and rear, and a dual spare-wheel
compartment under the front trunk lid (a contingency for the Beetle’s easily
damaged tires). A split windshield and sliding-door windows completed the
lightweight body, which was smoothly fastened to the outer skin in a series of
more than 2,000 rivets.
As the third owner was impressed to discover, the Type 64’s
build was more characteristic of contemporaneous aircraft specifications than
anything commonly found on a Volkswagen Beetle. Though the chassis began with
the KdF-Wagen’s basic layout of a steel-pressed backbone, it was modified in
shape and flanked by rectangular tubular frames made of aircraft-gauge
duralumin. To these frames were welded a floor pan and underbody made of
lightweight alloy.
The standard 985 cc VW engine was rebuilt with dual Solex
carburetors, larger valves, and higher compression, combining to develop 32–40
hp (substantially improving upon the standard factory output of 23.5 hp). A low
curb weight of just 1,346 pounds helped the torquey motor deliver fast starts,
as noted by several people who have driven the Type 64. With the first example
completed in August 1939, the advanced race car would have been well on its way
to a position on the Berlin-Rome starting grid had World War II not broken out
within the following month.
THE WAR YEARS
As the property of Volkswagen, the first completed Type 64,
chassis no. 38/41, was appropriated by Dr. Bodo Lafferentz, the head of the
German Labour Front, although he damaged the car in an accident in 1939. In a
board meeting in late September 1939, Ferry Porsche proposed that the company
continue building the second and third cars for testing and experimentation
purposes despite the race’s cancellation, and the second of the proposed three
examples was completed three months later. This car surely suffered the most
ignominious fate when, in the waning stages of the war, it was commandeered by
members of the U.S. Seventh Army’s “Rainbow” division, who cut off the roof and
drove the resulting “cabriolet” into the ground, leaving it as scrap after
blowing the engine.
In June 1940 the third body was completed but apparently not
mounted on any chassis until after Lafferentz’s accident in the first car. At
this point 38/41 was repaired at Porsche. Corroborating this account is
correspondence from Mathé to Porsche of numerous concerns with the Type 64
after he purchased it. These complaints accurately refer to the damage
sustained in the accident and the subsequent repairs made by Porsche.
Regardless, 38/41 would become the sole surviving example of the three planned
cars, and it lives on today as proudly offered here.
For much of the remainder of the war, this Type 64 was used
by Prof. Dr. Ferdinand Porsche in his travels around Germany as one of the
regime’s most important engineers. He was regularly chauffeured by his driver,
Josef Goldinger, from his home in Zell am See and once made a trip from Berlin
to the Volkswagen headquarters in Wolfsburg, during which the car averaged an
impressive 83 mph. By 1944 Germany was relocating most of its war production
infrastructure to escape the wrath of the Allied bombing campaign, and Dr.
Porsche’s eponymous workshop was famously moved to Gmünd, Austria, and his Type
64 along with it.
In the power grab that immediately followed World War II,
Prof. Dr. Ferdinand Porsche was imprisoned by French authorities who sought to
exploit war criminal charges in the name of underlying political agendas. The
professor’s son, Ferry Porsche, assumed control of the company and use of the
Type 64 as his own personal car. Ferry Porsche continued to drive it regularly
after the war, especially for bouts between Zell am See, Gmünd, and Stuttgart.
Legend has it that he once drove his mother from Zell am See to Gmünd over the
highest Austrian mountain pass, Grossglockner, after which she praised the
excellent seating in the car.
The now one-of-a-kind race car was entwined in the company’s
nascent history, as the younger Porsche sought capital to post bail for his
father’s release. This was accomplished by assuming a lucrative contract to
build a grand prix car for Cisitalia. Porsche’s resulting bond with the local
Austrian racing scene was to lead to the Type 64’s impressive post-war life,
which included 46 years of single ownership.
P O R S C H E
In 1947, with the Type 64 in need of some attention as Ferry’s
personal transportation and the face of the young company, it was decided to
refresh the car’s body, a task that was entrusted to none other than Pinin
Farina. After the engine was rebuilt at Gmünd headquarters, it is believed that
Ferry Porsche himself applied a new wide-font scripted badge of the Porsche
name to the car’s nose, creating the blueprint for the iconic marque script
that exists to this day.
In July 1948, just prior to a local race at Innsbruck, Ferry
Porsche made a public demonstration of his 356 roadster—the famous Porsche
Number 1—to help promote the company’s new sports car model. The Type 64 was
used as a chase car and was seen closely following the 356. One of the
contestants of the race, a well-known Austrian private racing driver and
lubricant producer named Otto Mathé, took notice. Mathé had enjoyed racing
motorcycles in the 1920s and early ’30s until a bad accident in 1934 left him
without the use of his right arm. The fierce competitor refused to quit racing,
however, and switched to motor cars, driving hand-tuned specials to numerous
class wins across Austria during the 1950s. His exploits behind the wheel would
go on to inspire a younger generation of Austria’s drivers, as later noted by
Jochen Rindt and Niki Lauda, who considered Mathé a childhood hero.
Mathé was smitten with the Type 64 during his encounter with
it, and in 1949 Porsche agreed to sell him the car. To accommodate shifting
with his left hand, the privateer converted the Porsche to right-hand drive and
initially modified the engine’s displacement so that he could race in the 1,100
cc class. He also replaced the Volkswagen-based cable-braking components with a
hydraulic system sourced from a Fiat. After retiring early at the Austrian
Alpenfahrt (a two-day rally of 800 miles through Tyrolean Alpine roads) in
1949, the Type 64 returned to the event in 1950 and emerged with a roaring
class win.
Less successful attempts at the 1951 Austrian Alpenfahrt
prompted Mathé to install a 1.3-liter engine in 1952, and in this guise the car
performed admirably at various rallies during the 1952 season, including the
Strassenrennen and the Gmündner-Berg-Rennen. In combination with the
performance of his other race cars, Mathé racked up an impressive 22 victories
during the 1952 season.
From 1953 onward the Austrian driver increasingly preferred
a Carrera-powered special called the Fetzenflieger, and the Type 64
received a mild restoration before becoming the centerpiece of Mathé’s personal
museum at Innsbruck. Despite several attempts by the increasingly successful
Porsche company to buy the Type 64 back for heritage purposes, Mathé could
never be tempted to sell the car. Both Ferry Porsche and his legendary PR man
Fritz “Huschke” von Hanstein negotiated between 1957 and 1964 with Otto Mathé
to get the car for the newly built Porsche Museum. More than 40 original
letters on file provide evidence of their attempts to buy or even exchange the
car for a 356 or 904 Porsche. As later reported in the April 1989 issue of Excellence
magazine, he even began referring to the important Porsche as der Ahnherr,
or “the ancestor.”
