Porsche 356 'Continental' | 3. Interior
Open cars have always been present in Porsche line-up since the first days in Austria. They appeared listed in catalog and are as genuinely Porsche as the closed models. The interior in these variants becomes vital, because of the simple fact that can be seen from the outside completely, and care must be taken to the maximum. This was one of the reasons why the 356 convertible was luxury-oriented by the Stuttgart managers. In fact, in its home country, it was called the Porsche 'Dame' (literally 'Lady' in german).
When the first three Porsche arrived to the United States in 1950, this decision made even more sense: after exchange rate being applied, the car was quite costly and finishings had to be on level with its performance. Except for the Speedster and America Roadster, every 356 that crossed the Atlantic were full equipped, just as the unit seen in these pages.
Motorgrafico #002
As may be seen, the cabin is totally unpholstered and the seats are specific (more comfortable than the standard ones). The dashboard offers all the accesories available and in the middle the optional Telefunken car radio is featured. However, the most cracking element of its interior is the Petri 'Superb' steering wheel. It was expensive period-correct aftermarket accessory for Volkswagen and Porsche cars. You can control high/low headlamp beams and direction signals with it (has built-in indicator lamps in the center of the hub) and is operated thanks to the concentric inside ring and its horizontal thumb paddles.
Once finished, our unit left the Zuffenhausen factory on December 22, 1954 and disembarked in the United States a few months later. It's one of the first examples of a custom finished Porsche car: the beautiful orange shade, so appropiated in the California of the Fifties where it was destined to, was proved to be original during the restoration although the color didn't appear in the catalogs. In fact, it was corroborated by a factory record from Lechler, the company that mixed this particular orange (code 916) for Porsche back in the day. The tone was officially available from 1957 onwards and, until then, this car was probably the only orange Porsche in existence.
Just after leaving the Porsche factory, the warm winter of Los Angeles welcomed this cabriolet at the beginning of the '55.
Motorgrafico #002
