What's in the issue

Regular readers will have noted our recent strong showing for air-cooled Porsches stationed Down Under. For the benefit of those new to Classic Porsche, I recently spent the best part of three months (across two visits, one soon after the other) in South Australia for the Adelaide Motorsport Festival and to participate in the Adelaide Rally (the world’s largest tarmac rally), which I did with support from Porsche Cars Australia and the city’s excellent Porsche Centre. Being in this part of the world during its summer season, and recognising the difficulty in dragging cars out from hibernation back home during the same period (when rain, short days and low temperatures are the norm), I seized the opportunity to commission a batch of photo shoots showcasing the outstanding Porsches in this part of the world. Indeed, as you’ll doubtless have realised, the standard of car I was lucky enough to experience was sky high, testament not only to South Australia’s Mediterranean-style weather, but also the meticulous attention to detail exercised by Adelaide’s Porsche owners on their classic, modern-classic and, not unusually, brand-new P-cars.

Historically significant 911s are a key feature of this corner of the motoring world. Last month, we featured one of the earliest surviving examples of the breed, ordered as a 901, but handed to its Adelaide-based owner as a 911 due to now-famous model nomenclature change during the build process. In this issue of Classic Porsche, we shine a light on a 1957 356 A Speedster originally owned by none other than former Porsche design chief, Anatole Lapine. Famous for developing the look of the G-series 911 and 928 (often referred to as the ‘German Corvette’ on account of how much influence Lapine’s earlier work at General Motors had over final design of the V8-powered Porsche ‘land shark’), he was also responsible for the body of the 917 Spyder and some of the most outlandish Porsche race car liveries to date, not least the ‘hippie’ 917 long-tail competing at the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans. A highly travelled Porsche, Lapine’s former Speedster now resides high in the Adelaide Hills. We’re sure he’d be delighted.