Page 28 - Sample pages "Forty Six: The Birth of Porsche Motorsport"

CHAPTER 9
THE FORENSIC JOURNEY
THE FINAL PUZZLE PIECE
In March 2012, Dave Seeland, owner of SL 059, visited us in California to check on our progress. We had promised to give him an update, but he wanted to see the car for himself. He came to our Lancaster workspace with Arthur Conner. As he looked at our data acquisition and analysis progress, he agreed with the direction of our research. But then, he recalled a conversation with Chuck Forge he had had some years prior. It went something like this: Forge recounted from “previous owners that Porsche had made some kind of chassis number change for some reason.” To say that I wrinkled my brow at that moment would be an understatement. We all just stood there for a second, contemplating the implications.
At this point in our research, we had been laser- focused on the aluminum body and its features and had not yet explored the steel uniframe. Only the paint on the exterior surfaces had been stripped. After a moment of stunned silence, I went straight to the chassis number location in the engine compartment and, using lacquer thinner, scrubbed over the chassis number, first removing the paint, then red-oxide primer until the numbers 5 and 6 were visible underneath a 6 and 3.
It was clear as day, and we all stared at one another for a moment. This was one of those “holy shit” moments during a restoration that nobody wants to encounter. Now this 10-ton elephant was sitting in our lap. When was this done and, more importantly, what did it mean? This was a serious puzzle piece.
KEY DOCUMENTATION
Around this time, Bob Devlin, who was hired to do additional research, connected with Steve Heinrichs, who had unearthed an interesting document in the Porsche Corporate Archive. The “Hausmitteilung” (Internal Memo) from May 2, 1951 identifies four cars to be delivered to Reutter and Dannenhauer. Our shorthand for this document is the “1951 Le Mans Conversion Order.” It identifies the SL chassis and aluminum
230 FORTY SIX The Birth of Porsche Motorsport
body numbers designated for the 1951 Le Mans 24 Hours (See Chapter 3). Porsche, it could be assumed, had intended to enter two or three cars for the 1,100cc class (citation from Porsche au Mans, Michel Bonté) and this work order shows that four cars were indeed prepared. Two of those cars were sent to Reutter coachworks (chassis 356/2 056 (SL 056) and 356/2 063 (SL 063)). Two went to Dannenhauer coachworks (356/2 054 (SL 054) and 356/2 055 (SL 055)), but Reutter would eventually touch all four cars during this process. The discovery of this document confirmed to our team that we were on the right track, and it would cement the place of Chuck Forge’s car in history and prove the rumors true.
The 1951 Le Mans Conversion Order states that SL 056 and SL 063 were to be prepared by Reutter coachworks. When we went back to the archival images, and the accounts of the Le Mans preparation in books like Karl Ludvigsen’s Excellence Was Expected, it appeared that the door pockets might be a signature design element of the two coachbuilders. The two Reutter-prepared cars had oval-shaped door pockets, whereas the Dannenhauer cars had teardrop-shaped door pockets. Was this by chance or by design? By chance, was the door pocket design just left to the coach builders’ whim or so that Porsche could identify the cars by sight out in the wild? The fact that there is a difference jump-started our search because this feature now made more sense in light of the 1951 Le Mans Conversion Order. However, the document added confusion to our chassis number conundrum.
At this point, Cameron and I agreed that the restoration should be aimed at SL 063’s formative
A curious discovery during the forensic research on SL 063; its chassis number is actually
356/2 – 056, over-stamped with a 6 and a 3. The team didn’t exactly know when or why
this was done or what it meant. Was this to be an insurmountable obstacle or a key piece of evidence that would help explain other mysteries encountered during the research?
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