You guys want NEW slotted Porsche rims?

As impressive as this work is, Gordon, I see they've yet to tackle the most daunting task of all - fabricating an original-quality headlight switch.

OK Spyder fans, here is a link to a whole bunch of photos of the Spyder Factory, some of them captioned.  There is a whole lot more than just a few reproduced wheels involved here.  These folks are faithfully reproducing EVERY PART of the 550 and 550-A models using the original Porsche Engineering drawings and using the same metals and production techniques used in the originals.  The body panels are made by forming metal over wooden bucks which were derived from a real, unmolested 550 which was laser scanned and that scan turned into instructions for a CNC sculpting machine to carve the shape out of the wooden buck structures.  That 550 was then completely deconstructed down to the last rivet and ALL parts are being documented against the original blueprints and then reproduced, using original production techniques.  The frame is a perfect reproduction of the frame in the original (either the reinforced 550-A frame, or the original non-reinforced 550 frame - customer's choice).  The current run of three prototypes has two already sold, and the remaining one is offered at around $625,000, complete with a NEW, reproduced, 2-distributor, Nicosil cylinder, 4-cam Carrera engine which uses a crank-fired ignition.  Delivery would be in 18 months because that is when production starts and prototypes end.

http://www.typ356ne.org/photos/index.php?/category/57

Enjoy!

oh, and Mitch - they've sourced the original headlight switches from Hella, too.

Rainer Cooney is the MAN. He's done an incredible job. Crazy money -- but for the fella that has to have it all -- down to the last rivet -- this is it. 

Thanks for sharing, Gordon!

Anand

Anand:  Some of us were surprised at the $625K proto price, given what's involved in these builds.  We thought it would be double that, as we had heard that an original 550, with a documented racing history, had recently sold for $4 mil ( I have no proof of that, just rumor).  Rainer is trying to source as much stuff as practical but, frankly, it's super hard to find people capable of reproducing some of these parts accurately and to the 550/Porsche drawings and quality levels.  For instance, they've found a laboratory glass maker to reproduce fuel filter glass bulbs, better than the originals! (And Rainer is casting the filter bodies in his shop.)   It is amazing to see what they're accomplishing with local machine shops and tool makers, way up in a touristy part of New Hampshire, but the most amazing talent is within the Spyder Factory, itself.

At least thetre is no sign of obsession in any of this.

Madness to a whole 'nother level.

Those fuel filters are incredibly expensive (originals) -- I saw one sell on ebay for $4000 not too long ago!

Or how about something simple like Shocks?  Original shocks, even if you could find them, are now 60 years old and useless.  None of the new shocks fit, so he gets the right sized Koni Gas-adjusts, takes them apart and swedges new cans on the upper and new, made-in-a-local-foundry cast bottom fittings  and then finishes them off with the proper engravings and paint to make them period correct.  Here is a photo of the sand cast for the bottom fittings, one of which is attached to the red cylinder nearby (the front sway bar connects to the other hole).  He's also "growing" a bunch of fuel filter castings (on the left) and have a bunch of filter parts over off on the right.  The glass bulbs are on the middle right - latest new version (better than original) to the left, original in the middle and first reproduction to the right, rejected for too many bubbles and swirls.

So if you wonder how in God's name a guy can sink thousands of dollers into dies, tooling and castings for what seem like diddly reproduction old-car parts, remember what Anand mentioned up above - if you can find one of the two original 550 fuel filters left in the world you can buy one for $4,000.    Or you can buy one of Rainer's off the shelf, with all brand new components with all of the original engravings and labels intact, for way less than half that, but that's still over a $Grand...for a fuel filter that looks like the one on my Dad's Ford tractor, just a little different.

And there are a few colectors out there for which these prices are insignificant as long as what they're buying is "right".

BTW:  Adding attachments with the new GUI is just like yesterday and no biggie.

Thanks for posting Gordon.  Love to at least be able to look at this stuff.

Pete

Pete, that is the nice thing today, it helps to be able to LOOK, it helps with the insanity. Ray

I'll be honest, Gordon. I've considered pulling the trigger on one of Rainer's cars. I've emailed him a bit. I love the details that much. But then I have flashes of common sense than preclude me from being totally mad...

Anand, c'est ta femme? Oui?   Juste pour rire. Raymond   

Raymond, il est toujours, non? Pas de blague. 

La volonté de la femme c'est souvent la volonté de Dieu  

Where are they sourcing the 1950's German air to put in the tires?

I guess it had to happen eventually. Someone is actually building a replica Porsche that's too valuable to drive.

This certainly raises the question..........

When is a replica not a replica?  By every sense of the word this car will be built EXACTLY as an original down to the last reproduced rivet and includes a Porsche motor. But alas, always a bridesmaid never a bride this car will be.

Shelby found some old chassis and put on NEW Bodies and called tham Original Cobras so? If it looks like a Duck, and quacks like a Duck, and walks like a Duck.....if you build a replica Speedster to FUNCTION like an Original Speedster and it does, is it more a Speedster than a renamed 89, 94 or 2011 Porsche Speedster with air conditioning, power windows, Radio and cup holders? The Original was produced to be a BARE Bones, Spartan, bearly "Daily Driver" you could take to the track and WIN with on the Weekends, can a later so called Speedster do that? But a replica Speedster built to be like the Original could do that and Autocross with the best of them! So what is a "Real" anything if it can't function as the car it was meant to replicate? 

That brings up an interesting point.  The Spyder Factory makes no bones about making "Reproductions", not replicas.  They have done a TON of research on the 550 and 550-A and found that the frame was made in a frame shop in Germany, the body/interior made elsewhere, the two were brought together in a third shop and THEN the assembled body/frame was delivered to the Porsche shops where the suspension - the transaxle, front and rear suspension and maybe (not always) brakes were installed - and then the engine was added.   The Spyder factory will start their (unique) serial numbering at 0091 - well above the last 550 Spyder produced and noting, immeditately, that this is a Spyder Factory Reproduction.  

Based on that, what part, exactly, is genuine Porsche?  Would a "reproduced" car, made the same way, to the exact same specifications and engineering drawings, with the same (engineering specified) materials be any more or less than an original that happened to be built in a different shop?  Note that this would definitely NOT be a 'replica', which would kind-of/sort-of look and/or act like the original....no.  This would be identical to the original, right down to the proper piece part engraving and labels, only with recently produced parts, not 60 year old parts (which, most likely, would be worn or otherwise unusable).  Hence, the semi-astronomical asking price for the reproduced model.   And from what I gathered from the buyers of 0091 and 0092 (the first two prototypes), who were both there at the tech session, BOTH of them will be racing them in vintage races, and one owner will be taking his car to Germany to participate in Historic Hill climbs, if not next season, then in 2017.

The builder fully expects them to be driven and driven hard and NOT to be garage queens.  If you've been to Vintage or Historic races at Monteray, Laguna-Seca, Elkheart Lake, Watkins Glen or Lime Rock, you know that those deep-pocketed people have always been part of this hobby, are more numerous than ever and are still competing there in force.

So far with new spyder I have noticed...everyone expects the spyder to be a replica.  No one questions it.  I haven't even switched the badging from beck to,Porsche and not sure I will.  With the speedster first thing out of people's mouths...it's a replica.  Like is smelled of crap or something.  They will never be part of the original 90 but I am glad these guys are doing this.

Lets not forget Porsche in the 1950's and even now was primarily an IDEA company! They put together parts they DESIGNED but were produced by others. Their bodies until 1964 were produced by several outside coach builders, their engines, transmissions, breaks and EVERYTHING else were created outside of the Factory. Porsche then as now ASSEMBLED their cars from outside vendors!  One day I was fooling around in my then 1997 Boxster and in the rear trunk I found parts stamped "BMW"! So what IS a "Real Porsche"? 

And now they are all shared audi parts.  Hell even my Porsche has a subaru motor lol

Two things.

1. That buck! That is furniture. Never seen anything like it and I have been looking hard at metal-forming stuff for several years. That has got to be the buckiest high-buck mother-bucking buck ever made by computer-aided design.

2. Vintage racing. That is why these cars are made. When you show up at a VSCCA tech your car has to pass muster, which means it has to be old--or of old design. Lots and lots (and lots) of newer and better parts pass muster, as they must, because racing breaks parts. But the rules require that upgrades be made judiciously, and with a certain spirit. These cars will pass no problem.

Just as the aluminium Jag C's and D's do. And a few Ferraris.

Ed, you're right.  Those bucks are works of art that should be in Boston's Museum of Fine Art, just like the Ralph Lauren car collection.  They are stunning in the photos, and even more stunning when you touch them and realize that they are perfectly smooth.  

The bucks were sculpted from huge blocks of wood and machined with a CNC router driven by a laser scan of the original (unmolested) 550 body.  The scan was 'adjusted' such that the router took off an extra few thousandths from the wood to accomodate the eventual thickness of the skin metal (different thicknesses in different parts of the body, just like the original).  That means that once the metal is hammered onto the buck, the eventual shape will be precisely the same as the original 550 body.  

How friggin cool is THAT?!?!?

I'm seriously thinking about an end-to-end video of what we all learned at this tech session.  I just have to think of a decent way to present it all and make it entertaining for those who are only mildly interested.  We'll see if I can make it work, but this shop is doing some absolutely AMAZING stuff in the wilds of New Hampshire.

People should know about this stufff.

I think it's all wordplay.

'Reproduction', 'replica', 'copy' - even 'fake' - are different ways of saying the same thing, albeit each carries its own connotations. The originals, for better or worse, were made sixty years ago by Porsche. There's no getting around the fact that these cars were not.

Which in no way demeans the current project.

It makes me happy knowing that someone, somewhere is still hammering out stuff like this, and using real hammers to do it. And this recent hammering is probably being done with more care and precision than was ever lavished on the originals, which were built to just go fast and win races.

Maybe if Dr. Porsche had realized he was building one of history's most iconic cars, he would have fussed a bit more over details like the type of glass in the fuel filter. But I don't think that mattered to him, so I think it a little silly to worry much about it in these cars.

I think the new Spyders will be better than the originals in almost every way that really matters. They should be appreciated for what they are - modern works of art.

What they are called and what people are willing to pay for them are unimportant to me, as my financial staff informs me we won't be placing an order any time in the forseeable future.

Well, I am flabbergasted (PS to Theron: where is the spell checker??) at all of this.  In anoither post some little while back I observed out loud that it would be entirely possible to make a 356 (or a 550), Speedster, Cabriolet, Coupe, you name it, with the original Porsche drawings (and tools, if available), in the same way as was done by those diefied Germans so many years ago.  Its just stamping out sheet metal, welding, leading and pounding and sanding, etc.  It would not be so mysterious a technique.  But the deal would be: at what cost?  and so now we know: over half a mil.  YIKES!!!!  SO far out of my realm, I can't see it with the Hubble.  But it is so cool that somebody has taken this up.  And you have to have a very special design to have enough support for the project. The old Porsche designs were the work of genius, and so this effort attests to the timeless nature of that genius, and the cars that emerged therefrom.  Astonishing.  I really would have enjoyed being on that tour.  If such comes around again, I hope I hear about it.

Very cool if you ask me. I can't vintage race my car. But Carey and Co. got the blessing on their 904, as it's construction is similar, steel frame and glass body, as the original. These Spyders are eligible for vintage racing.

It is becoming rare to see a real Spyder any more except in a museum. I love the fact that these repros will be tracked/raced as intended. 

And I also like the level of detail they've gone to. It's the same madness we have here, just to a whole different level!

Can't wait to see one live, in person. Maybe I should drive up there and check them out someday.

Danny: when you go, can I come too?

So I guess this Spyder is actually just a REALLY EXPENSIVE 'kit car'! 

Well, no, it's much more than that.  It is a really expensive reproduction.  and yes it is a lot of word-play, but the words do have meaning.  Ed summarized best: the vintage racing guys allow for new parts (the whole car, even?) if done properly and with the right "spirit"  That is spot-on, as they say across the pond.  This Spyder reproduction is channeling the 60 year old Porsche "spirit" in every way possible.

Query:  are they going to be able to put the "PORSCHE" logo on the thing?  Have the lawyers got involved?  What sort of licensing fee do you suppose they paid?

Some cars being produced these days are called 'tribute' or 'continuation' cars, such as the six special E types that are or were being built.  I suppose it depends on a number of factors what the 'new' car can be called, but these Spyders are going to be very special. 

El Frazoo (the most guapo Frazoo in all of Maryland) asked:

"Query:  are they going to be able to put the "PORSCHE" logo on the thing?  Have the lawyers got involved?  What sort of licensing fee do you suppose they paid?"

All good questions.  Rainer Cooney is a Porsche Factory trained individual who is very well known to the Porsche design and restoration community, internationally.  He doesn't cut corners, nor does he take many risks.  No one in our group asked these questions, but the fact that he has obtained a complete set of design and production drawings (those two can sometimes be different) for the 550, the 550-A (reinforced frame and some body differences) and the variations of 356 says a lot about his relationship with Porsche.  I'll see him over the holidays and ask about the logo - good question.

A comment on the drawing differences;  Even in my personal experience, sometimes a designer can make a drawing of a part that is simply un-buildable.  The manufacturing guys get that drawing, look at it, tell the designer he's an a-hole (they always love that part) and then build something as close to the design as possible (and the good manufacturing guys make it better).  That was sometimes the case with Porsche stuff, too (some 550 frame parts are good examples), so Rainer said that when they were dissecting their original car they would compare every part to the engineering drawings and, if it was somehow different they would make another drawing of what the part really was and THAT is what they build to.  He just shook his head and said that was a fact of life in manufacturing just about anything - I tend to agree.

Rainer also has a vast network of people for whom he has restored a car or provided impossible to find parts in the past, so when he needs something that he simply cannot find to buy he puts the word out to select members of his community who might have what he needs and asks for one to reproduce.  His comment on this was that "the part usually shows up the next day, specially delivered from where-ever, we use that to make tooling to reproduce it and return it, often with a reproduced piece as a spare for the owner as a thanks.  We've got a lot of really good friends out there."  Then he has the tooling to make as many as he needs, both for his own restorations and to sell as parts to others.  That part business is pretty lucretive, too.

Kelly, heck yeah!

Gordon, the 550a was a whole lot more than a strengthened 550 frame. It was more akin to a birdcage Maserati. Lots of smaller tubes but both torsionally and longitudinally more rigid and lighter. The aluminum skin was also thinner as there were many more attachment points. Plus they changed the suspension. I have some books that clearly show the frame differences.

My pick would be a modern day re-creation 550a with a 2 liter 4 cam crankfired and injected Fuhrmann type547 in it. Replica of course, and a 5 speed, which the originals had. 

So, they made 90 odd Spyders and about 30 550a Spyders, then moved on to the RSK. 

So New Hampshire. Early summer outing, anyone?

Well, OK then.  You guys in the know set it up, and I'll figure a way to get there.  This would be some cool pilgrimage.  I might even be able to arrange a side trip to a certain NH lake front property I know about.

And so I learn yet more undeniably cool, and useless, stuff:

Spyders had aluminum skins -- I did not know that.

There were only 90 built?? Can't believe it.  How many survive?

There was the 550, and the 550a, which sounds like two really different cars, almost.

They had five speed trannies.

I did not know they got 5 speeds in 550 Spyders.

I DID know they were aluminum. Except the number 1 car, which ended up fiberglass before the last (maybe ongoing) restoration. Goddamn kit cars!

90 odd 550, about 1200-1300 pounds

30 odd 550a, about 1100 pounds.

Less than 30 each RSK, RS-60, and RS-61. I can look that last one up, but it's all from memory.

On the trans, can't remember the number, but yes, late 550 and all 550a were 5 speed.

A lot are accounted for by a man named Andrew Hosking, down under: type550.com

He owns a RHD replica, white with blue darts. I got a little inspiration from his car!

Those early 5-speeds must be total unobtanium.