Porsche 356/2 SL at Road America

By Pete Vack

I’ve had this photograph around for 63 years and it has always been a mystery. My father took the shot at the June Sprints at Road America in 1960; I was a bit of a Porsche fan so it was of special interest. Notes on the back of the photo, written at the time, say that this was a 10-year-old Porsche with an aluminum body. I don’t know how we knew the body was aluminum, but I daresay it was not mere speculation. It was driven by Carl Schmidt in the race. I never didn’t know any more about the car until just recently.

Last week we reviewed 46: The Birth of Porsche Motorsport from Dalton Watson. New information about the aluminum coupes caused us to take another look at the photo from 1960. Perhaps we could finally identify the Schmidt car. And, it made reading the book a personal quest, in search for the answer to an old question. As the authors laid out the history of number 46 they provided many details about the SL, or Super Light aluminum Gmünd coupes…presumably there were at least 10 such coupes, four of which were prepared for the first appearance of Porsche at Le Mans. (The authors do quote the book The Last Eleven about the 10 or 11 aluminum coupes but we could not find a copy of it anywhere). To add to the excitement, there appears to be a list of 50 aluminum coupes, assigned to customers by Porsche. We’ll let the hundreds of Porsche guys figure all that out; we want to know the serial number and history of the Schmidt Porsche.

We looked at the details provided in the book to help identify SL/063. The exact positioning of the signal light, the year, the lack of a third windshield wiper hole above the driver’s side windshield, and above all, the indentation for the door handle. The Schmidt car had the correct indentations for the door handle so we might conclude it was one of the 4 or 5 SL cars built earlier at Gmünd but transported and prepared in Stuttgart. But which one? Or was it the car that entered the Mexican Road Race in 1952, or one of the Le Mans cars that competed at Le Mans in 1952? Or was Schmidt’s car even a Super Light?

Perhaps finding out more about Carl Schmidt might prove helpful. Schmidt first began racing with an Allard at Janesville, Wisconsin in 1952 as a novice. He then was an active participant in the local SCCA events and always made Road America and the Milwaukee races held at the Fairgrounds. He raced an MGTD and a VW, but primarily several Porsches, one of which was our mystery car, and the other a Porsche Speedster, seen above in this rare photo by Glen Glendenning.

Schmidt also made trips to Hawaii, where he participated in a couple of local events. We found a short column about Schmidt in the Honolulu Star Bulletin, September 2, 1959, “Star Gazing” column by William Drury. Carl Schmidt invited the columnist to come with him for a few laps at a disused airport in Kahuku, Hawaii, where a local sports car race would be held the following weekend. Carl was driving his TR3 Special, with the name ‘Shiny Steiny’ emblazoned on the hood of the spartan body. “It looked like a beer can on wheels,” said Drury.

Schmidt was described as being an ‘advertising account executive.’ When Schmidt let Drury drive the modified Triumph, the writer mistook the brake pedal for the gas pedal in the middle of a corner, scaring the crap out of both the driver and passenger. “The pedals are too close together!” said Drury. Schmidt said that’s why he wears these, pointing to his ballet pumps.

The next year Schmidt appeared at Road America in June of 1960 with the ancient Porsche coupe. Why he should continue to race the coupe is a good question as the old Porsche could not have been too competitive in F production by 1960.

Bingo?

Now we knew a bit more about the driver of the aluminum Porsche, but still no information about the car itself. We went through all of our Porsche books and histories, and spent endless hours on Google. Nothing seemed to fit. Then we got a break. We finally got in touch with one of the authors of the elusive Last Eleven book, Jacques Mertens, who lives in Belgium. Since we didn’t have a copy of his book (Mertens told us that it was long out of print and when a copy does become available, it can sell for as high as 900 euros), perhaps he could assist. I sent a photo of the Schmidt coupe, begging for help.

He graciously answered, and provided a serial number, 356/2 SL 057. He had last seen it when it was in the Porsche collection of Jim Barrington many years ago. Mertens also included a photo of a plaque, taken at a Quail event in 2011. At that time 057 was owned by another famous Porsche collector, Ranson Webster. The description indicated that 057 was brought to the U.S. in the 1950s where it had a 1300 cc engine installed and competed in F production races for many years.

We thank Jacques for taking the time to help us out. He is also restoring a Porsche coupe and owns a very early VW.

As for 057? Not a slam dunk by any means, but for now we’ll assume that we have our man (or car). We don’t know where it is today, or the complete owner and race history. Readers?

Read the review of 46: The Birth of Porsche Motorsport

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