Christmas, 1955: Couldn't find an OSCA so a Porsche would have to do...
By the Editor
The Santa jig had been up for a few years now but the Allied Powers still demanded a hand written ‘wish list’ for Christmas. This resulted in a kind of a game we’d play; I’d write an honest but unreasonable list and the Powers would search all over to try to fill the bill.
This was difficult, I know. The list, circa 1955 – scratched out on yucky brown pulpy school paper with blue lines to keep the sentences on a horizontal plane – was formidable, even for loving and knowledgeable parents. Where, for example, would they find a toy OSCA MT4 (I gave them a break, I’d take a Tipo 2000S if an MT4 couldn’t be found. I was very understanding). Next on the list was a Porsche 550 Spyder, a Ferrari 212, a Lancia like the one that won the Mille Miglia the year before, etc. Further down, primarily because it was a mere street car, I listed a Porsche 356 Speedster, Max Hoffman’s baby that was just making the scene. It’s amazing they even saw it, buried so far down on the list.
But I had done my duty, signed sealed and delivered the list per instructions, handily ignoring chemistry sets, crystal radio sets, planetariums, books, or other such toys which might enhance one’s education and broadened the learning curve. My parents had given on that about same time Santa went up in smoke.
The Distler Porsche's model, and the oldest documented sale in the U.S. was this rare 1952 356 Cabriolet owned by Dr. Robert Wilson of Oklahoma City, Okla. According to the company, Wilson's car was imported in November of 1952 by Austrian businessman, Max Hoffman, in New York, who brought the first Porsche cars to the U.S. beginning in 1950. Courtesy www.carscoops.com.
A Porsche for P.D.
By mid-December they had exhausted themselves in a vain and futile search for Pete’s Christmas presents and asked themselves over and over what the hell was wrong with our kid anyway? Why couldn’t he be like the others and get a hockey stick or baseball glove and be happy? They didn’t even know where to look; there weren’t any Toys ‘R Us, Hobby shops, F.A.O. Schwartz (not in our town, or even our state), no Macy’s, no large departments store, and forget the Sears Christmas catalog, which catered to real kids with real Norman Rockwell toys.
Eight-year old P.D. boy, in other words, was a royal pain in the ass.