Certain actions in our existences, you know they’re just the right thing to do. You know, like not driving around the railroad-crossing gates when they’re down and the red lights are blinking, remembering to put on your deodorant in the morning, resisting any urge to blast Led Zeppelin in your condo complex at 3 a.m. on a sleepless night. Restoring a Porsche from the pre-911 era, whether it’s a Gmund or a four-cam Carrera, falls into the same category. Done properly, the result is almost certainly going to be a winner. The exclamation gets punctuated when you’re discussing a Porsche like this one, a 1958 356A coupe with factory sunroof. You don’t see them often. According to the 356 Registry, Porsche produced a total of 3,369 copies of the 356A coupe in 1958, 2,495 of which came to the United States. How many were equipped with sunroofs? Without access to the records of the coachbuilder, Reutter Carosserie-Werke of Stuttgart, it’s impossible to say, but 10 percent is a reasonable speculation.
Here’s where it all got started, as a California-cute canyon racer by way of Texas. Yellow paint is uninspired and the body is showing clear signs of contact in various places. Mirrors are also slap-on incorrect.
This particular 356A is the property of Richard Yirikian, who owns an independent auto service shop in Winchester, Massachusetts. He wanted a first-class A coupe, and acquired this one as is in early 2012 through the Porsche Club of America membership. The gent who actually had the car restored was a prolific Porsche collector from Los Angeles named Jesse Rodriguez. We had to backtrack through the history of this particular coupe to get its restoration history and many of the relevant photos, once we caught up with Jesse.
His authenticity certificate for the car shows that it came into the United States via Max Hoffman’s distributorship in New York outfitted with the sunroof, Hella sealed-beam headlamps, and U.S.-spec bumpers with vertical guards and a chromed tubular overrider bar. Jesse bought the sunroof coupe in 2004 from a Porsche acquaintance in Texas. “I got into contact with Ibrahim Kuzu, who I knew for many years here, but he moved from California to Texas and he buys and sells cars. This was an original sunroof car, and I bought it in Texas, but it was originally sold in California. On the doorjamb, there was a Castrol service sticker from Vasek Polak [who ran a famed Porsche store in Manhattan Beach, California]. I tried to decipher the [owner’s name] on the service sticker, and the mileage is only 17,000 and some. I tried to pull a name together, and went to the Yellow Pages, and guess what? He’s still here. Guess what? Same address. Guess what? Five miles from my house.”
The near-neighbor was also the 356A’s second owner, having acquired the car from a dealership in Long Beach during the 1960s, the Porsche’s apparent original owner. Back then, as Jesse told us, the South Bay area of Los Angeles was dotted with smallish Porsche dealerships, bracketing Sepulveda Boulevard from LAX all the way down to Long Beach. So from a restoration standpoint, the car had undeniable issues, but it was a total numbers-matching car, though not totally devoid of rust. The broadest matter was that it hadn’t been stock-spec for a long time. “I had been informed that the floors hadn’t been done properly, the longitudinals had to be replaced, and the car had been hit in the front. The floor had to be replaced under the fuel tank, the inner sides under the front hood, at least one side if not both, all collision damage, not rust. You know how it goes, it’s worse to have to deal with bad repairs than to have to restore original stuff.”
Even cars from Southern California, where Pacific salt can fill your lungs, aren’t immune from the reddish-brown bug. The sunroof coupe was exhibiting rust on the bottoms and inside the doors, underneath the doors, and the pan under the mounting location for the battery. The underbody longitudinals that Jesse referenced were similarly corroded. Most of it was attributable to the Porsche having sat neglected for years. Jesse assigned the Porsche to a small, artisan-type metalworking shop in Los Angeles that isn’t even a restoration facility, per se. “They do excellent work, especially Porsche work,” Jesse said. “The people who work there became apprentices at the business when they were eight or nine years old.”
They worked from the front to the back, and then from back to the front. First up was repairing the crash-damaged metal components. The support panel underneath the original fuel tank (which still uses its original sending unit) was replaced. So was one of the interior panels of the front trunk, ahead of the fuel tank, which had been kinked and crunched by the long-age frontal impact. The shop crew made the replacement inner panel by hand in the metalworking shop. “It was incredible. They did it right on the floor, with hand hammers, no mechanical tools,” Jesse said. “One of the guys who works in the shop, the uncle, his name is Jesus, became an apprentice metalsmith when he was seven years old.” As an example of the team’s prowess, the lower edge of the 356A’s nose used to undulate like a meandering river, from being rapped against dips, curbs and who knows what else. The shop got the lower nose back to its factory curvature, again working by hand.
This view looks forward into the area of the front suspension during the reassembly process; you can see some of the Stone Gray paint has already been applied. The front trailing arms await finish.
Later, when the body shell was stripped, rust-free and both dimensionally and structurally sound, they shifted to the rear. The 546/2 engine (from a nomenclature standpoint, that’s the Normal version of the then-new 1600 engine, with a three-piece crankcase, 7.5:1 compression ratio and 60hp), which needed no significant work, and the transaxle were both dropped. All of the suspension components were removed for cleaning and re-bushing. The underbody in the engine bay was hand-scraped and degreased. The trailing arms and related pieces were checked, cleaned and sent out to be powdercoated. “We rebuilt the transaxle, but other than that, there was nothing to be done at this end of the car,” Jesse explained. “Nothing had to be repaired; it was just restoration work. The wiring harness is original. I never take the wiring harness out of a car, any car, unless it’s burnt. Never.”
As it came from Stuttgart, the 356A was finished in Fjord Green with a green vinyl interior, which Jesse described as “a very unusual combination. Very fertile, I guess you’d say. I don’t recall ever seeing another 356A in that color combination.” When he bought the car, it had been resprayed in a somewhat tepid shade resembling Fly Yellow. Jesse specified a more subdued, but still glamorous shade of Stone Gray. Hung Luu Auto Body in Azusa, California, east of Los Angeles, reassembled the car, after the undercarriage and lower pans had earlier been treated with coatings of Wurth Aerosol High-Build Underseal.
Most of the wiring and cables were replaced. Some, but not all, of the underbody sound deadening had to be replaced; regardless, all of what remained was cleaned and repainted. The rear underbody, in the vicinity of the engine bay, was undercoated. All of the original Karro bolts used as fasteners in the rear suspension–they have the correct head stamp markings, obviously–were retained and powdercoated to attain a more durable finish. The fasteners are cap-plated for hardness and contrast.
Just about everything you see here is original to this 356A as shipped from Stuttgart. The backing plates, hubs, kingpins, steering arms and brake shoes will all be used in the car’s restoration.
Moving forward, the front outer wheel well on the passenger side was partially replaced on one side with a reproduction panel from Restoration Design of Canada, but at the time that restoration got under way in earnest, a replacement inner panel did not exist from the aftermarket. Jesse told us that his shop crew fabricated that component by hand–20-gauge sheetmetal provides the desired thickness–banging it into shape with hammers on the shop floor. Suspension pieces were mostly reused, but fully rebuilt. For example, take the brakes. The original backing plates were cleaned and powdercoated in glossy black. Replacement upper and lower wheel cylinders, made by PartsKlassik, were substituted for the originals. New drum-return springs were added, and the backing-plate bolts were painstakingly safety-wired. The original brake shoes went out to a Long Beach shop for new linings, and the drums were resurfaced.
Here’s an unusual happenstance, at least when a 356 is being resurrected: While disassembling the dash, everybody noticed that the opening for accommodating the radio had somehow gotten bigger. “We made a patch panel to the [opening’s] original dimensions so we could put a Blaupunkt in there,” Jesse told us. “In the Fifties and the Sixties, you know, [owners] put different radios in, because all this AM/FM was starting to become available, newer American or Japanese radios. They were a little bulkier, so they had to open up the hole. There was no Bondo used on the dash, it’s all original, but we just made a new panel to the factory specs. I buy a lot of parts for future restorations, and this Blaupunkt is a 1958 or 1959 model with a green face. The instruments are all original, too. The steering wheel isn’t. The factory wheel was 420mm in diameter, and I think there’s a 400mm in there now, so you can have a little more room up front if you’re a bigger guy.”
Jesse admits being a little wistful about sending the sunroof coupe to the East Coast. He called it the best-executed Porsche in his collection, with the possible exception of a Speedster. Richard, the new owner, might not agree so heartily. It won best A coupe at last year’s East Coast Holiday show organized by the 356 Registry. “The attraction of this car is the attention to detail,” Jesse beamed. “I left nothing to the imagination. Everything about this car fits like a glove. I don’t want to be corny about it, but it sometimes gives me goosebumps.”
For his part, Richard is giddy that Jesse let him get the 356A back to Massachusetts.
“I bought it because of the fact that it’s got outstanding curb appeal, really eye-catching, especially that interior and exterior color combination,” Richard explained. “In the Kardex, which is the certificate of authenticity, the interior color wasn’t specified, but it’s green leather. I appreciate the quality of the restoration, certainly, and I like the look of the early A coupe, it just flows. I like my C coupe, but with the A, the body curve is like one continuous pencil line. Plus the sunroof is the icing on the cake. I finally got to meet Jesse in California this year, and we’re honing a friendship.”
It’s technically a driver, but this is a show-level car, as the fine detailing under the front trunk lid makes abundantly plain.
