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Not “A Porsche” But “THE Porsche”

Rarest And Oldest Porsche: Yours For About $20 Million

The rarest and oldest Porsche of them all will go sale in August, expecting to fetch about $20 million at auction. The 1939 Porsche Type 64 was the personal vehicle of German car designer and manufacturer Ferdinand and Ferry Porsche.

It’s currently on display as part of a press preview at Sotheby’s auction house in London. This is the only surviving example of the Type 64 and was the genesis of the marque.

“Without the Type 64, there would be no Porsche 356, no 550, no 911,” says Marcus Gorig, Car Specialist, RM Sotheby’s. “This is Porsche’s origin story, the car that birthed the company’s legend, and it offers collectors what is likely an unrepeatable opportunity to sit in the seat of Ferdinand and Ferry Porsche.”

As Above, 1939…

Add 80 years of constant innovation and you get…

So Below, 2019.

As a friend of mine said once, “The Germans should make all the cars. The rest of the world should just sit down.”

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Terry May 28, 2019, 7:29 AM

    The beginning of the serious hot rods indeed.

    Didn’t want to divulge this trivia, but I have been making my living practicing the craft of being a Porsche mechanic/engine machinist since 1970. Still at it. The technology has evolved faster than my aging brain of course. So I only do machine work on Porsche engines for the past 20 years or so.

    There is another very interesting tid-bit I could add but I need my wife’s approval first. She is much better known in the “P-car” world than I am.

  • Vanderleun May 28, 2019, 7:43 AM

    Dear Terry,
    Both those items will be recorded in your “Permanent Conduct Record.”

  • Alex G May 28, 2019, 8:04 AM

    The Germans should make all the cars only if they will pay to fix them when they break.

  • Dr. Jay May 28, 2019, 9:46 AM

    What Alex G said!

  • ghostsniper May 28, 2019, 6:44 PM

    OK Terry, we’re waitin’….

  • Walter Sobchak May 28, 2019, 8:30 PM

    “As a friend of mine said once, “The Germans should make all the cars.”

    Only if you hate yourself.

    German cars are horrible. They very uncomfortable. Their seats are made for people who have bony asses, no sphincters, and stubby legs. The steering is stiff and twitchy. They gobble gas. The technology and controls are incomprehensible. And they are incredibly unreliable and expensive to maintain. Oh yes, and the cost off the lot is astronomical.

    Last year I made the mistake of driving around England. I rented a Mercedes type E for my sins. It was impossible to get in and out of. The 4 cyl diesel was noisy and rough. The car was actually worse than the miserable cow paths they call roads.

    Japanese cars are as much better than German cars as Ice Cream is better than raw kale as a food.

    My Honda Accord is easy to get in and out of, comfortable to sit in, easy to drive, fast, road hugging, smooth, and reliable. The only non routine maintenance it has needed in 5 years was caused by a small mishap last winter. Everything else has been routine — change the oil and rotate the tires. Oh yes, and easy on gas. We drove 750 mi last week to see our kids. The V6 car, driven well above the speed limit, got 35 mpg. The final smile is that it cost about $25,000 less than a comparably equipped BMW/Mercedes/Audi of the same size and carrying capacity.

    German cars? Never.

  • ghostsniper May 29, 2019, 4:43 AM

    You can’t compare german cars to american cars and if you try you do so from ignorance.
    I drove both for 3 years in germany.
    No 2 week dollar store rentals.
    German cars have no cup holders.
    Petrol is 8 dollars a gallon so there is very little recreational driving.
    Most german driving is done at well over 100 mph, for hours on end.
    German cars have a 1000 lumen headlight on the REAR of the car.
    It costs over $1000 per year to have a german drivers license.
    German cars are very expensive and last for decades.
    In the land of the autobahn driving is taken to a whole nuther level and much of the childishness seen on american roads is self eliminating on german roads. Driving is serious business over there. While driving a metro ambulance at 135 mph on the Wurzburg autobahn a volkswagen beetle passed me like I was going backwards. At the time, in the US, a volkswagen beetle would not go more than about 80 mph.

  • FiftycalTX May 29, 2019, 3:00 PM

    Well, from what I understand, the “german engineering” may be great, but the Germans just replaced the slave labor that assembled the tanks and ME-109 with Turks. So the people putting the porches together are Turks.

  • Anonymous May 29, 2019, 7:03 PM

    “The Germans should make all the cars. The rest of the world should just sit down.”

    Last German car I had was falling apart by 80,000 miles. I expect better these days.

  • ghostsniper May 30, 2019, 4:52 AM

    After 6 years of wondering, about a month ago I found out where the battery is in my wifes car. But that’s not really true, cause I still have not seen it with my eyes. Pop the hood and you’ll see the fuse block with 2 large lugs for jump starting. Below that is a bunch of unidentifiable stuff, but no sign of a battery anywhere. I slid underneath and looked up, thinking I could find the starter and trace the wire back to the battery, but the engine goes sideways so the geometry is all wrong, plus the bottom looks much like the top – that is, nothing identifiable. Her battery was dead so we had to call a towtruck to haul it in and replace it. Cost? $500.

    I got out of the shadetree mechanic business back in the late 80’s and when I tried to re-enter in the 00’s too much time had passed. Mechanics no longer existed and were replaced by part changers otherwise known as Technicians. When a technician told me the starter needed to be replaced on my truck at a cost of over $300 I asked him if he can just clean up the old one by disassembling it, cleaning off the commutator and replacing the brushes he looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language. He said, “Sir, the starter is assembled in a factory in such a way that it cannot be taken apart successfully.” I asked to see the old starter and he was right. The case is open only on one end which means the guts are assembled by robots with 29 “fingers” that can hold all the important stuff down while another robot hand slides the guts into the case. Once the guts are all the way into the case all the fingers are released and all the springy parts pivot into place effectively locking the whole thing together. It is not possible to get it back apart without destroying it. There ya go, throw away starters at $300 a crack.

    Most all parts on vehicles these days are the same. They no longer have parts but rather assemblies. Take a look at a tail light. In the old days a couple phillips screws could be yanked and that 1157 bulb could be twisted out and replaced for a buck. Now, there are no visible screws on that gargantuan assembly but if you pop a piece of plastic trim off inside the cabin and use a real long ratchet extension with a 3 winged tip you can remove 11 fasteners that will allow the whole assembly to be pulled out. The wire sockets will twist loose but forget about replacing any bulbs as the case is sealed. No way to get it open without breaking it. You can’t replace the bulbs – you have to replace the assembly and it costs almost $400.

    Not only have vehicle prices went through the moon but the required maintenance and repair, er, replacement costs have become unbearable too. Eric Peters explains this stuff better than I, look him up.

    June Cleaver: “Ward, weren’t you a little hard on the beaver last night?”

  • Snakepit Kansas May 30, 2019, 7:47 PM

    Ghost,
    I cannot even work on my wife’s 2006 Mercedes. You need special tools even to replace the thermostat, FFS. I bought a replacement thermostat for $125 then got under the hood and realized it wasn’t a simple hose release and two bolts. Over engineered. The guy at the parts shop called it the Mercedes tax. Although, the car does have some horsepower. It will easily roast the tires from a dead stop. Acceleration from any speed is impressive with minimal lag. I haven’t had horsepower like that at my foot since I was 18 and driving a cammed up 1972 GTO.

  • Waepnedmann May 30, 2019, 8:14 PM

    My son-in-law just had to have a Mercedes.
    He bought it used from the company for whom he worked.
    It was one of their salesmen’s company cars.
    He started having problems with the brakes.
    He took it to his local Mercedes dealer.
    $2500 was the estimate for repairs.
    Shocked he took it a local one man garage.
    The mechanic fixed the problem at no charge.
    It seems one of the sensors that reads the speed on a brake disc had gotten covered with mud.
    He hosed it off and SIL was good to go.