Porsche made the very first recall?

[kach22i]

Okay history buffs, Porsche was making Hemi's before Chrysler, selling turbo's before anyone else (selling track cars to private racer's, verses turbo Corvairs for street) and is responsible for the very first recall.

WTF you say?

Recall?

Hey, what's in a name anyway?

Please place all history and debate here:

Continental vs. Porsche, 1955 battle over the name "Continental"

For those of you, who have avoided O.T.'s politics with a passion, I'll understand if you just comment here.

Porsche renamed the 901 the 911 because of the French, guess we owe Ford on this one.

[TRE Cup]

I remember a recall porsche issued in 1974 for the cis engines. They replaced the spark plug wire sets with the braided cover units. Don't know if this is the very first one

[tshih]

Recalls especially voluntary ones are not the signs of a bad manufacturer. At least Porsche has a reputation hard earned to maintain and no one can be perfect all the time. Porsche didn't become the world's most profitable car company by selling bad products.

[kach22i]

This recall - if you can call it that, was to change the name tags Max Hoffman bolted on the sides of 356's in 1955 or there abouts.


http://www.blueovalforums.com/index.php?showtopic=20683

I'm researching the interaction between the Continental Division of Ford Motor Company and Porsche in late 1955.

In 1954 the sole US importer of Porsche products was Max Hoffman of New York. Max was convinced that Americans don't buy cars with numbers, just names. For 1955 US export the Coupe and Cabrio were fixed with fender tags that read "Continental".

The story goes that Ford file a law suit claiming all rights to the "Continental" name due to their use of it for the Lincoln Continental of 1939-1948. Tiny little Porsche backed down and ceased using the name "Continental". The story continues that the remainder of the years production was tagged with "European" fender tags. Another publication shows that there was a recall of all Porsches badged "Continental". I've been told that this was the first automotive recall.

Another story flying around is that the 4-point Continental Star developed for the Mark II was an infringement on the Mercedes 3-point star. It is rumored that Mercedes actually persueded Porsche to use the name in spite of their battle.

This all makes for some interesting lore. I'd like to get to some of the meat.