St Louis Porsche Article
Porsche 64
Many consider the Porsche 64 (also known as the VW Aerocoupe, Type 64 and
Type 64K10) as being the first automobile by Porsche. It was built mainly from
parts from the Model 64 VW Beetle and there comes the model number. Its
flat-four engine produced 50 bhp and gave a top speed of 160 km/h.
Porsche Burro designed the body after wind tunnel tests made for the Type 114, a
V10 sports car that was never produced. Dr. Porsche wanted to enter the
car in the 1939 Berlin-Rome race. The bodywork company Reutter built three cars
in shaped aluminum. Out of the three, one was crashed in the early World War II
by a Kraft durch Freude (Volkswagen) bureaucrat. The two remaining were used by
the Porsche family. Later on, they put one of them in the storage and used only
one. In May 1945 American troops discovered the one put in storage, cut the roof
off and used it for joyriding for a few weeks until the engine gave up and it
was scrapped. Pinin Farina restored the remaining Porsche 64 in 1947, as it was
owned and driven by Ferry Porsche. In 1949, the Austrian racer Otto Matte bought
it and won the Alpine Rally in 1950 in it.
