#1955 porsche 550 spyder full

The suspension is stiff and you feel the road imperfections, but it’s not the bone-jarring beating I expected as our speed increases on a broken stretch of road. As a motorcycle rider, I feel right at home.

The low windscreen only minimally deflects the air rushing over the car’s nose. As we accelerate, the long shifts need to be deliberate, but the car responds immediately to throttle inputs. With a feathering of the clutch, we’re off. I release the handbrake and blip the throttle to hear the raspy exhaust note. With a turn of the key and a push of the starter button, the engine roars to life and Jeff instructs me to give a solid shove on the shift lever to engage first. You see the attention to detail everywhere you look in the car. Ben and Rob called upon their broad network of suppliers across America to produce transmission mounts, trailing arms, shock mounts, engine mounts, shift levers, door handles & escutcheons, door locks, seats, parking brake handles, shifter rods, etc. The car uses original parts where available or exact recreations. The material covering the seats has been recreated to the exact specifications of the original vinyl right down to the color and texture. However, with only a lap belt and no head restraints, this is not a car Ralph Nader would endorse. The large, thin-rimmed steering wheel is accurate – coming out of a 356 – and the low back bucket seats are firm and supportive. Getting in is fairly easy, but knowing the value of the car (will get to that shortly) I am extremely careful not to step on or scratch anything. The next one will get one of Ben’s four-cam engines, which Jeff has been painstakingly rebuilding.Īpproaching the Spyder you are taken in by its stunning beauty and diminutive size. This particular engine is a 1.6 with a big bore kit, bringing displacement up to 1.7 liters. This first car has a pushrod engine from a 912, essentially the same power plant as the first 500 Spyders built. And since I’ve driven a few early Porsches (356, 912, 911) but have zero experience driving a real 550, I took Jeff Adams along for the ride and encouragement. To find out if they’ve been able to recreate a piece of history, I recently took Spyder Creations first completed car for a drive on the windy, hilly roads near SpeedSport Tuning’s Danbury shop. Using original drive-trains – either push rods or the legendary Fuhrman four-cam engines – the recreations have not just the look, but the heart and sole of the originals. Jeff is known nationally for his knowledge and skill with air-cooled and four-cam Porsches.

#1955 porsche 550 spyder full

There, Jeff Adams and his team bring the full car to life. After weeks of meticulous paintwork, the cars are brought to longtime Porsche expert Spencer Cox’s SpeedSport Tuning in Danbury, CT. The bodies and chassis are then shipped to Connecticut for final preparations and assembly. Lauderdale, FL based Allo圜ars hand-hammers aluminum into the stunning 550 body, with the same detail used by the original craftsmen including double-walled panels. Using a wooden buck, just as Porsche’s craftsmen did 60 years ago, Ingo’s Ft. They commissioned an aluminum craftsman extraordinaire by the name of Ingo Poth to build the chassis and bodies. Rob and Ben brought together an impressive group of individuals to bring their dream to life. Using more than 600 highly-detailed CAD drawings taken from the last Spyder produced (chassis number 550-090) Spyder Creations is selling a vehicle that is imperceptible from the original. Their company, Spyder Creations, is marketing an incredibly accurate reproduction of the 550 Spyder. So, Ben and Rob decided to make their own.Īfter four years, countless hours and considerable financial resources, Ben and Rob created what most dismissed as impossible. With prices escalating, and availability extremely scarce, acquiring an original 550 isn’t in the cards for them. Not a day goes by that he doesn’t regret selling it. Ben owned an original 550 and sold it 15 years ago. Ben and Rob Edwards are longtime Porsche enthusiasts and run a very successful national company catering to small manufacturers, engineers and buyers. What if you could replicate the original 550 with the same materials and construction? A father-son duo from Prospect, CT has done just that. Most of these cars are powered by anemic VW Beetle engines, use low-cost (aka cheap) materials and suffer from inconsistent and off-times shoddy build quality. While these vehicles capture much of the look of the Spyder, this is were the similarity ends. Since the chances of owning one of the few originals is so slim for all but the most well-heeled and well-connected enthusiasts, there have been a number of companies over the years making inexpensive fiberglass “kit-car” copies of the 550. This Porsche 550 sold during the Mecum auction at Pebble Beach this past weekend for $3.75 MM