Carrera Classic has been working during the winter 2022-2023 with a new fascinating project, a matching numbers 1955 model 356 Pre-A cabriolet. This car is original Finnish car imported in 1955 and its history is well known from 1955 – 1961 and 1972 to present. There were 2 Pre-A Porsches imported to Finland in 1955: One Coupe and one Cabrio. This car has gone trough a long, 17 year restoration project and it was re-registered in 2019. The car came to us late 2021 and in fall 2022 we finally decided to make a major update for the car. The original restoration work was done well, in particular the core body was very well done. But, the restoration was not completely ready, there were a lot of details which still need to be done and the long time spend in restoration process started to show already in the first signs of corrosion. Even the car looked nice and was in fully working condition we decided that the only way to bring the car to concours condition is to dismantle it completely and redo it largely again.
We have over 10 years of experience in Porsche restoration and this is not the first time we have faced with this same dilemma: Fixing many details afterwards is difficult and if you are not able to do it, what are your options: You accept the car as it is, or you do a part or full restoration again? Restoration is by default expensive business, but doing it twice is always even more expensive.
For us this 1955 model Azur Blue car is an exciting project. There were in total 200 356 Pre-A Cabrio made in 1955. We have worked a lot with 1960´s and 1970´s Porsche 911/912´s, and even 1960´s 356 models, but this Pre-A is different. There were quite limited numbers of car produced at that time and e.g the spare parts documentation is not complete for the early years. Availability of parts and knowledge for Pre-A is far more limited than for the later generations. But this is a nice learning experience. The first learning is that these Pre-A cars did not yet have sound isolation, but they had a thick layer of body schutz everywhere as it also was used as sound isolation. An other learning is that there are a lot of VW parts in Pre-A. In some cases Porsche used the VW parts even after Volkswagen had already stopped using the parts. We will keep you updated on the progress of this project during the year.
We would like to hear from you! We are always happy to discuss our cars with our fellow car enthusiasts. We can also help you to find the right car and to prepare it for the condition you would like it to be.
