Jive-Bomber submitted a new blog post: Meeting the Maltese Masterpiece Continue reading the Original Blog Post
Built by one of the greats and a killer story for provenance.It doesn't get any better than that http://www.jalopyjournal.com/?p=3780
Beautiful as it is, to us, I am sure all the 356 snobs are falling on their swords. Isn't that what hot rodding is all about? Quoting the late Dick Dean,,, Anyone can restore a car, it take a real man to cut one up..........
I'll say it if no one else will: Very weird logic for a hot rod forum to get their panties in a wad about putting MII type IFS under a fat fendered car that had a beam axle as OEM, but actually do a feature article on a German sports car.
People seem to forget that Custom Sports Cars are in fact Traditional. There used to be plenty of them at shows from the late 40's to the late 60's. Hell, they even had their own Classes, they were so prevalent at the time! And guess what? Most of them were European cars because the US never really had a proper Sports Car, with the exception of the Corvette. The rest of them started out as American coupes and sedans that were built into Sports Customs. So people can whine and complain all they want about Jive-Bomber's post or the couple of times that Ryan has posted about Rod Emory (Grandson to Valley Custom's legendary Neil Emory) and the amazing Outlaw 356's he builds, because the fact of the matter is that all of the whiners have forgotten (or simply don't know jack shit about our Culture's history) that Sports Customs are a part of this thing that we all love so much. Jeffries' amazing Porsche is far more at home on this forum than a lot of the crap being built these days. Deal with it.
From bob-o's profile: date of birth-1983. I was 46 then, and you're gonna accuse me of "whining and complaining" and tell ME what's traditional? I don't think so. Tell you what bob-o you think your way and I'll think mine.
Hi JB: Thanks for bringing back Dean's 356 for us to view. One may not customize the little gem like that today. However they were not perceived to have the staying power they have shown. Like so many cars of the time they were all seen as candidates for "improvements". Nevertheless the 356 is a mechanical wonder, beautiful, rugged and fun to have on that back Country drive. Alloway had a wonderful black one at the GNRS. TEB
..... dude. That Jeffries Porsche won every show it was entered in NATIONWIDE fifty five years ago. That makes you twenty years old or so THEN. So now what ? Not traditional ? You, or it ? Present owner has had it 45 years or so .... haha , guess he isn't "with it" either ? Come on .... ... D E A N J E F F R I E S my man. Dig out your Hot Rod magazines and little books. Yeah, yeah .... maybe I wasn't born then .... you will win that one ! Then what happens ? That ride will be badas# regardless .... always .... and traditionally ! Better argument is : Is it a Custom or Hot Rod ?? Both !! ( Good to know I think ! )
Technically, those aren't 'quad' lights; the uppers are 'conventional' 7" round, the lowers are driving lights which were/are popular but usually hung on the bumper. I never cared for the early Porches, they look like a stepped-on VW but you have to give credit where it's due, Jefferies improved the design.
Dave - I was born in 1961 (and not a member of a car club that enjoys the company of men's hosiery) ... so I probably don't know much about what constitutes a "Traditional" Hot Rod or Custom ... but I do know that in the late '50s, even NHRA considered "Sports Cars" to be a part of the Hot Rodding tradition ... From my The 1958 NHRA Nationals thread: An excerpt from page 10 of the Event Program (Classes & National Records) ENTRY # 407 ENTRY Sherman Golub DRIVER Sherman Golub CITY Wappenger's Falls, N.Y. CAR '57 Porsche ENGINE '57 Porsche ENTRY # 52 ENTRY Don Simmons DRIVER Don Simmons CITY Tucson, Ariz. CAR '54 Healey ENGINE '57 Buick ENTRY # 133 ENTRY L.C. Kirby Jr. DRIVER L.C. Kirby Jr. CITY Dallas, Texas CAR JR Allard ENGINE '54 Cadillac ENTRY # 120 ENTRY The Roadrunner DRIVER H. L. Lawthon CITY Lamesa, Texas CAR '52 MG ENGINE '57 Olds ... and I could post literally hundreds of pics of "Sports Cars" that ran at Bonneville in the '50s ... here's just a couple I had on my hard-drive:
The Jalopy Journal was formed just a few years later to spread the gospel of traditional Hot Rods and Kustoms to hoodlums worldwide… I don't care who built it, I'd love to drive it and have it in my shop, but "traditional hot rod" ? Me thinks not. How many times have I seen post' shut down because it didn't fit the moderators Idea of "traditional". As much as we dwell on pre-war and 40's - 50's builds, I'm not sure how many of them may find a German built car welcome, either. Wrong forum, in my opinion. But it is just that, my opinion...............................
1971 I had a RARE '52 Porsche cabrio, split windshield, skirts on all 4 fender wells! Bought it from a young guy in Carmel Valley. Its presence in my shop rattled rodders, "Whatzat???" Finally sold it to finance the flathead '27 Highboy. (1976) Peer pressure from old hot rod buds...
Considering it was on the cover of Rod & Custom in 1959 means it belongs here, add to that it was built by legendary customiser Dean Jeffries it is most certainly on topic.
My point was and is that "traditional" has always been to build the best, fastest, best looking and handling hot rod you could afford, and to me that has always been to get the latest, most advanced and best parts you could get your hands on. When the "A" came out in '28 the "T" rodders started watching for the "A"engines in salvage and wrecking yards, And when the potential of the flathead V8 became apparent, the same happened. Then in '39 hydraulic brakes appeared on Fords and from then on one of the first things you did to an old Ford with worn out mech brakes was find a set of juice brakes for it. Nobody called it "non traditional" because hoses and tubing had replaced rods and levers! 1949 rolled around and the Ford 8BA and the 4" crank Merc came out. Nobody shunned them for having taken the dist. off the timing cover and moving it up on the right head, plus OMG!!! they moved the water necks to the front of the heads! But hot rodders still followed wrecked cars on the wrecker's hook to the salvage yards to try and buy the engines! As the OHV V8s came out it was the same story! You could get adapter plates to put just about any engine in front of a Ford transmission. 4 and 5 speed transmissions have been installed in countless cars OEM with 3 speeds, but OMG, let somebody talk about putting an IFS in a fat fender Ford and all Hell breaks loose! I somewhat agree if it's an open wheeled car, but on a 35 up Ford or other fat fendered car, IMO it's owner/builder's choice, unless you want to buy it from him. 1961? That's 55 years ago, I was 24, married and had a son. I had already owned, driven and wrenched on 2 "A" coupes, 1 "A" roadster, a '34 3wdw Ford coupe, a '32 3wdw Ford coupe, East Coast style, channeled but not chopped. My DD was a '53 Ford Tudor sedan and I was building a Chevy powered '53 Studebaker coupe. So I didn't read in an old magazine about hot rodding in the 40s,50s, and 60s, I LIVED IT! Even here in small town GA we had MGs, Jags, etc. but nobody I know considered them hot rods. That's why I fail to understand how that Porsche, regardless of who did the beautiful customizing job, is any more traditional than a fat fender '40 Ford coupe with a MII IFS hidden under those big fat fenders. And as for the socks, I joined the club because of the true hot rodders who are members, not the club name.
You probably don't wanna' see any of this either then ..... the 1963/64 Manta Ray !!! Built on an old Maserati Formula 1 Grand Prix racing chassis, with a full house small block Ford Shelby spec' 289 ..... built just after he screwed together Carroll Shelby's very first Cobra prototype .... and a few more following .... by the way .... the Porsche from above is owned by a guy in Roswell Georgia since round abouts' 1970 or so .... and he is a HAMB'r on occasion. I get what you're saying yes siree' .... but this guy is one of the high watermarks of this era you speak so fondly of. It is what it is, I like you both.
Its a hotshot built in 1950s all in lead. A custom built by a guy who loved cars and worked with what he had. That Porsche is traditional, When us old farts die, it's dead.
Although the forum rules say something like; US built Traditional(read built in the style of the period) pre '64 Hot Rods and Customs, I think that a period foreign car with such provenance should be given a pass. Either way, I like it!
We can debate what is or isn't "traditional" all day long, but I still love this Porsche. It looks like something the factory would have turned out as a prototype race car. My first real automotive experiences were in sports cars (Sprite, TR3, Elva Courier....) and in those days the 356 Porsches were top notch. I loved hot rods and customs back in the day as I do today, but there are points where the boundaries become blurred. This beautiful Porsche may be caught up in that boundary, but I don't mind seeing it here at all.
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