This is Porsche’s first race car, returned to its prime

[Suarez™]

Porsche would go on to take the overall win at Le Mans 18 times, with many more class victories as the years went on, truly one of the greatest dynasties in motorsports history. But it all started with little car No. 46, a Gmund Porsche with ungainly wheel spats, three windshield wipers and about 46 hp. It wasn’t a particularly attractive car, at least not compared to the powerfully beautiful 550s, 911s, 906s, 910s, 908s, 917s, 956s and 962s that would come later. But it was the first, and therefore it's historically significant.

The question for many years was, where did it go?

“The history had been unknown as to which car was the winning car at Le Mans,” said Porsche restoration specialist Rod Emory. “And so after the cars came to the States … this particular car ... I’ll just start from the beginning.”

Yes, back in 1948-49, Porsche was building the earliest of 356s, called Gmund Porsches after the town in Austria where they were being hammered together. They might have made 50 of those cars and things were looking good for the tiny sports-car maker. They had just moved the operation back to Stuttgart when …

 “… in 1950 Porsche was at the Paris auto show and they were asked by the organizers of the 24 hours of Le Mans to show up at the 1951 race with an entry in the 1,100cc class,” said Emory, who, 66 years later, would find himself centrally involved in that venture.

Engineers took four of the Gmund SL bodies left over from the Austrian werks and started testing them to see what parts and tweaks might work as a race car. They put louvered quarter windows in the cars, fender skirts on the fenders and flat bottoms underneath to increase the aerodynamic efficiency; they added a special 1,100cc engine and lightened them up as much as possible, installing special fuel tanks with the gas filler poking through the hood. One of those four test-race cars crashed during that development period. Of the three remaining, they brought the two best cars to Le Mans with Nos. 46 and 47 painted on them. No. 47 crashed in practice, which left them with just one car for the 24-hour race, No. 46.