When Speedster body number 84215 rolled off the assembly line at Karosserie Reutter in Stuttgart, Germany, its ultimate destination was Denver, Colorado.
Back in December 1957, Al Citro walked into his local Porsche dealer–Vern Hagestad Motor Co. on West Colfax Avenue on Denver’s west side–and ordered one; it was as simple as that. In March of 1958, one month before his 24th birthday, Al took delivery of his car, and since then, man and machine have never been apart–yes, Al is this car’s original and only owner.
Unlike nearly all other Speedsters, this particular car was painted Porsche color code #5711, a color that was simply called “orange.” It was one of four “Special” factory colors offered during the 1957-’58 model years; the other three special colors were Stone Grey, Auratium Green and Glacier White. While no specific publicly accessible information exists as to just how many 356A Speedsters were finished in this bright hue, Al has been told by a Porsche official that only 19 Speedsters were painted orange.
When Al walked into that Porsche showroom, he told the salesman, “I don’t want a red, black or white Speedster–too many guys already have those.” So the salesman took out the color chip chart and said, “Here’s a new color they just came out with this year. It’s kind of a rusty orange and looks orange in the sun, but more red in the dark. It would be great with a beige interior and be different than anything you’ll see.” Al was sold on the unique combination, and immediately placed his order.
As odd as it may seem today, what with their being one of the most valuable of all production-based Porsches, Speedsters were actually the cheapest 356 models available when they were new. Speedsters were nothing more than stripped-down roadsters created to compete in the same price category as the Austin-Healey. When Al bought his Speedster, the list price was $3,215, which was about $450 less than a Coupe, and around $700 less than a Cabriolet. Once taxes and other charges were added, Al’s total invoice for the car came to $3,500.
While living in Colorado, Al attended his first Porsche Parade. It was the fifth meet put on by the Porsche Club of America, which was hosted by the Rocky Mountain Region in Aspen, Colorado, in July of 1960. He still has the metal license plate that was given to him at that meet 56 years ago, along with the metal cigarette lighter with same imprinted PCA meet logo. Although Al didn’t have the opportunity to attend every Porsche Parade meet through the years, he has taken part in several, and never once has he seen another Speedster painted orange.
How many original Speedsters are owned by the person who ordered them when new we simply don’t know, which makes this car extremely unusual, and very special. Factor in its rare orange color, and it becomes all the more exceptional. However, what’s even more amazing is the car’s mileage. According to Al’s son, Cary, “the odometer rolled over at least twice before my father did his first engine rebuild, which he performed himself. So it’s been driven well over 200,000 miles.”
The desire to own a Porsche stemmed from Al’s days of living in Maryland, where he and his friends would regularly attend the SCCA races at Marlboro Motor Raceway. Al would drive to these events in his MGA, and while leaning up against the fence watching all the different sports cars zoom on by, he was quickly smitten with the way the Speedsters handled the tight road courses. As Al remembered it, “At Marlboro, the Porsches outperformed many other cars with much larger engines. Drivers like Bruce Jennings, Roger Penske and Bob Holbert made driving Porsches look very easy. They always performed very well under racing conditions. It was because of them that I bought this car.”
On the track it was the Speedsters’ handling that made them so successful, not so much their engines, because they weren’t very powerful. Nearly all Speedsters were powered by Porsche’s flat-four, air-cooled engine that had just 1,582 cc of displacement. With its 3.25-inch bore and 2.91-inch stroke, and a compression ratio of just 7.5:1, it developed only 60 horsepower at 4,500 RPM, and 81-lb.ft. of torque at 2,800 RPM. Yet they were rugged and immensely reliable engines due to their four main bearings, solid valve lifters, Bosch distributor and coil, and pair of either Solex or Zenith carburetors. But because the Speedster’s weight was only 1,675 pounds, the engine’s performance contradicts its diminutive displacement.
The other engine option was the 1600S; with its higher 8.5 compression, it put out 75 horsepower and five additional pounds of torque. Then there was the high-performance Carrera Speedster, which was in a class by itself, and nearly twice the price.
How this Speedster accumulated so many miles is pretty amazing. You see, for many years, this was Al’s one and only car, so he drove it every day, all winter long, regardless of how much snow was on the ground. Al told us, “I never put snow tires on the car, but it never got stuck. In the snow it was squirrely and one time I ended up backwards into a snow drift, but got out with no problem. It’s all about throttle steering.”
When I was interviewing Al during my photo shoot, he said that back in the day there were a few years that he drove an average of 80,000 miles per year. As a civilian contractor working on missile guidance work for the Strategic Air Command, Al got transferred around the country. When he was transferred from Denver to Baltimore in 1960, he drove his Speedster across the country. Later that same year, he was sent to Orlando, then back to Baltimore, all the while relying on the Speedster’s reliability to get him to his new jobs. Then he drove back to Colorado before being sent to California. While living on the West Coast for a couple of years, every summer Al and his wife would load up the Speedster and use their two-week vacation time to visit her family in Pennsylvania, then his family in northern New Jersey. Additional relocations to Arkansas, Alabama and back to Maryland were all made in the tight confines of Al’s bright orange Speedster.
During one journey from California, Al placed their luggage on a rack atop the engine vent. When they hit the mountains of eastern California the temperature spiked, so Al took off the luggage and squeezed it inside the car and left the engine decklid in the open position. They completed the climb without overheating, and once in Flagstaff, Arizona, they put the luggage back on the decklid. All was well for the remainder of their trip.
In 1970 the Citros moved back to Al’s childhood home in northern New Jersey, where he drove his old Porsche for just a few years before parking it in his garage. Cary told us, “1975, when I was eight, was the last time he drove the car before its restoration in 2008. We had to bump start it by dropping the clutch down a hill, but it started and we went for a family drive that stuck with me for a lifetime. The car was awesome. After that trip, he put it back in the garage, deflated the tires, removed all the trim and emblems from the body, soaked the block and covered it up. The Speedster sat there from 1975 until the late 1980s, when we rented a trailer and I helped him haul it to Florida to his condo. He told me then that he was ‘going to work on it’ in the winters, but it never happened. I pushed him hard to restore the car, and I renewed his PCA membership, bought him a 356 Registry membership and posters, restoration guide books and manuals, etc. for years. In 2005, he finally decided to have the car restored.”
Heritage Motorcar in Saint Petersburg, Florida, was assigned the task of bringing the Speedster back to life. According to restorer Jason Hiler, who now runs Heritage Motorcar Restoration in Parrish, Florida, “The car had all the usual rust issues associated with 356 Porsches. I replaced the floor pans, longitudinals and the lower sections of the front fenders and quarter panels, but the rockers are original, as are both doors, hood and decklid. Using Glasurit single-stage urethane, we applied three to four coats, then polished the body to an ultra-smooth shine.”
In order to maintain the car’s authenticity, Al tracked down the factory in Germany that originally made the vinyl upholstery and carpeting. They were still in business, so he ordered the proper material and had it sent to his restoration shop in Florida. All the mechanicals, including the engine, were precisely built by Jason Lee, who now owns Heritage Motorcar Research in Saint Petersburg. Jason is a trained engineer and research scientist who specializes in production and competition Porsche engines (see sidebar on page 39).
Shortly after the Speedster’s restoration was completed in 2008, Al and Cary showed it at the Porsche Parade that was held in Charlotte, North Carolina, that year. Cary remembers, “The car won both the people’s choice and judges’ choice awards, which to my knowledge had never been achieved before in any Porsche Parade. One of the guys from the Porsche factory asked my dad if he would be willing to have his car displayed at the concours banquet that Saturday night; it was one of only two cars chosen to be on display. Dr. Porsche’s grandson, Peter Porsche, came to meet my father and learn more about the car, and that’s when Jason from HMR took the sole unrestored piece (the driver’s side inner door jamb, which contains the factory body plate and number) and asked Peter Porsche to sign it, which he did. It was then clearcoated and put back on the car. That panel is completely unrestored and still has the factory paint from 1958 on it; they just polished it up and matched the rest of the car’s paint around it.”
Gearing up for Cary’s first drive in the Speedster, he remembered what Al always told him: “In order to drive it smooth–and smooth is fast–you have to learn to make your foot a part of the gas pedal, and feel it. Once you learn how to throttle steer the car, you can go as fast as you really want to in a turn. Too much throttle and you’d spin, and too little throttle in a turn you’d go the other way. It was all about seat time, practice, and feel. Braking occurred, but throttle was how it was driven. My father also told me on some of those long trips, especially across the desert going east out of California, that you could put her in top gear, hold the throttle to the floor, pin the speedometer, and just let her run at 100-plus MPH for hours with the top down.”
Al, who is now 82 years old and relishes every moment behind the wheel of his beloved Porsche, said this about how it drives: “Shifting the four-speed gearbox is absolutely effortless and totally smooth. It’s never a problem to find gears that you want when you want them. Braking is also well-balanced and effortless, even at extreme temperatures. This car corners easily and precisely when you balance the throttle and gears correctly. Handling and steering is always tight and even.” That’s the Speedster experience.
OWNER’S STORY
Here’s how the Speedster feels from the driver’s seat, and what it’s like to own one car for nearly 59 years, from the man who’s driven it several hundred thousand miles. Al Citro told us, “I love this Speedster and its special body style, as well as the wonderful sound of the air-cooled boxer engine. There’s a special connection between the mind and the car, and once that is established, you feel you become a part of the car. It has great handling and it’s always been a pleasure to enjoy the Porsche’s driving experience across country roads.”
1958 PORSCHE 356
Engine Horizontally opposed, overhead-valve, air-cooled four-cylinder Displacement 1,582 cc (now 1,800.3 cc) Horsepower 60 at 4,500 RPM (now 93 @ 5,240 RPM) Torque 81-lb.ft. @ 2,800 RPM (now 113-lb.ft. @ 4,080 RPM Compression ratio 7.5:1 (now 9.8:1) Induction Pair of single-barrel Zenith Gearbox Four-speed Overall length 155.5 in. Overall width 65.7 in. Overall height 51.6 in. Wheelbase 82.7 in. Curb weight 1,675 lbs.
BUILDING IN MORE POWER
This beautifully restored 1958 Speedster was completed to exact factory specifications, at lease aesthetically. When it came time to rebuild its original, numbers-matching engine, a few undetectable tweaks were made to give the 1,675-pound roadster a bit more oomph. The car’s original 60 hp was barely sufficient when it was new, so why not make it more entertaining to drive!
The engine rebuild was performed by Heritage Motorcar Research in St. Petersburg (www.heritagemotorcar.com), where owner Jason Lee, an MS research scientist, quietly builds Porsche engines–along with BMW powertrains and others–to extremely high standards, for both road and track. In order to maintain the tightest tolerances, precision and absolute top performance and reliability, all machine work is performed in-house using the latest and best equipment, then tested on their own dyno. Jason is a stickler for accuracy, so he employs a vertical line-boring machine just like Formula 1 and some NASCAR teams use to ensure the tightest tolerances. And his special oven allows him to repair and straighten warped cylinder heads.
During the rebuild of this Speedster’s engine, larger cylinder barrels were installed that increased the engine’s displacement to 1,800.3 cc. The cylinder heads were given a multi-angle valve contouring, the valve springs were matched for equal pressure, the compression ratio bumped up to 9.8:1, and the intake runners ported and equalized on a SuperFlow flowbench. These modifications transformed the Speedster. “Now it’s very exciting to drive, and a whole lot more fun,” says owner Al Citro.
