CALIFORNIA DREAM MACHINES

Tracing the lineage of Stuttgart's sun-seekers, from race-bred Porsche 356 through to the celebratory 911 and 964 run-out editions

- SIMON HUCKNALL

Less is more. It's a simple premise and one that over the years the car industry has increasingly ignored to sate our appetite for ever more convenience, luxury, and safety. But in the early 1950s, one inspired individual truly embraced the principle and gave what was then the fledgling Porsche brand a lasting foothold in a major market, as well as influencing a series of now rare and collectible models.

Max Hoffman was America's European-car import supremo, handling the likes of Jaguar, Volkswagen, and Mercedes-Benz through his Park Avenue showroom in New York City. In 1950, Hoffman met Ferdinand Porsche at the Paris motor show and agreed to sell Porsche's recently launched 356 models in the United States. Porsche stated that he'd be happy if five cars a year found American buyers, to which the ambitious Hoffman remarked: "If I can't sell five a week, I'm not interested."

By 1952, Hoffman's somewhat gushing claims that the 356 was 'One of the World's Most Exciting Cars' had started to bear fruit, and sales numbers had begun to grow. Porsche's first production car had originally been launched in Europe in 1948, its streamlined two-seater body penned by company designer Erwin Komenda. Borrowing the basic engine design - and some of its trailing-arm front and swing-axle rear suspension architecture from the humble Volkswagen, the 356 was built on a bespoke steel platform and initially powered by a 1.1-liter, horizontally opposed air-cooled 'four' mounted - behind the rear axle. However, by adding its own design of cylinder heads, cams, crankshaft, and intake/exhaust manifolds, as well as dual carburettors, Porsche liberated 35bhp from the engine, 40% up on the first Beetles.