In the Presence of History
Imagine that on a regular basis you see a car, and while historical and meaningful, it becomes part of the background. It's a regular fixture, almost mundane among the automotive clique (if you can consider a Porsche Gmünd coupe unremarkable). A recent episode of Jay Leno’s Garage (video at the bottom of this post) left us dumbfounded, feeling like fools, revealing that we had failed to spot a vehicle so historic that is was literally the start of a racing dynasty (luckily, we weren't alone).
Unknowingly, for years, at the Monterey Historic Automobile Races (now called the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion) and other Northern CA vintage racing events, we'd been standing next to automotive royalty. It was the 1951 Porsche 356 SL Gmünd Coupe, the first Porsche built for racing, and the first, in what would be a long line of Porsche’s victories at at the 24 Hours of Le Mans (and everywhere else).
Chuck Forge's fully skirted 356 SL in the early 90's at Sears Point, flanked by two other red racing classics....(taken, of course, with a film camera)
In 1950, Ferdinand Porsche met with organizers of the 24 Hours of Le Mans at the Paris Auto Show, and Mr. Porsche was invited to enter the race the following year. Rather than use the steel 356 being built at the time in Stuttgart, Germany he went with an older spare aluminum version built in Gmünd, Austria. Four of these early P-cars were converted to race cars. Of the two that were entered in to the 1951 French classic, one piloted by Auguste Veuillet and Edmond Mouche, finished in 19th place overall, which happened to be first place in its class (1.1 litre)! Porsche racing, more or less, had begun.
Chuck Forge in his trademark hat, monitoring the competition from the roof of a motorhome.
The 1951 Le Mans winner made its way to America in the hands of John von Neumann, who cut off the roof to make it lighter. It was later purchased by Chuck Forge in 1957, and was raced until he passed away in 2009. After Forge’s passing it was sold to the Emory family, known as master restorers of Porsches.
After its restoration, it would place second in its class at the 2016 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and was featured at the 2015 Rennsport Reunion at Laguna Seca Raceway.
It's not that this car wasn't all that special to us when we used to watch it race in all of its bright red, fender skirted glory...you know, back in the day. Sure, it was unique because of its vintage, the von Neumann link, its appearance and it's affable driver. It was, for us, just another example of what makes vintage racing great. Cars like this were accessible and "real"...in the paddock, right next to us all weekend...strangely unremarkable only because it was surrounded by scores and scores of equally amazing cars. But this particular one...this one was (and is), in reality, primus inter pares (look that up, it's Latin). It was the one that started it all for Porsche as a player in world motorsport. Between June 23rd 1951 and today, that once fledgling startup company has won Le Mans 18 times overall and competed in and mastered just about every racing discipline under the sun. We think that's some pretty amazing stuff.
The 1951 Porsche 356 SL Gmund Coupe featured at the 2015 Rennsport Reunion in bare aluminum.
Jay Leno's Garage