356 Replica

So, the sun has finally come out and the weathermen and women are predicting a long, hot summer ahead. You fancy the idea of a bit of topless, wind-in-the-hair motoring, but can’t quite see yourself behind the wheel of an old-fashioned perambulator of a Karmann Cabriolet. You feel you’re a bit more debonair and want something a bit more exotic looking, a bit lower to the passing traffic and, well, a bit more posey. Funnily enough, that was exactly what New York-based entrepreneur Max Hoffman thought, too. Hoffman was the man responsible for introducing both VWs and Porsches into America in the early ’50s. As well as being a very astute businessman, he was a man with a vision. Selling ostensibly Nazi cars into a city with a significant proportion of Jewish inhabitants was, unsurprisingly, a difficult task, but out on the West Coast of America, where peace, love and the scent of patchouli oil hung heavy in the hair, things were different and it didn’t take Hoffman long to work out that there was a bigger market than the standard model line-up catered for. He suggested to Porsche that a lower cost, stripped down, topless model would appeal to those Californians with an eye for the Porsche’s style, but not necessarily the wallet to follow their dreams through. The result was the fabled Speedster and, from its introduction in 1954 to its demise five years later, it sold like the proverbial hot cake. It was replaced in 1959 with a more upmarket and higher spec Convertible model and was then all but forgotten about by most people until relatively recently. Then, all of a sudden, they became fashionable again – seriously fashionable, with prices shooting up from around the £20,000 mark to around the £120,000 mark, and beyond.
Given the cars’ undoubted appeal and the fact that only around 4,100 Porsche Speedsters were ever made, it’s perhaps not surprising that there has long been a market for replicas of Porsche’s iconic design. Pioneering the form in the UK was Peter Bailey who, at the close of the 1980s, started Chesil in Burton Bradstock, Dorset – “a company dedicated to classic motoring and its enjoyment by people with the spirit to indulge”. And they did it very well, until 2007 when Chesil was bought out by a private consortium who re-branded it as the Tygan Motor Company Ltd – “a wholly new British manufacturer of very high quality classic replica sports cars.”

For the full story on this car make sure you pick up a copy of the August 2009 issue of VolksWorld

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