Well all we know of it so far is that the PO had bought it about 1978-79 from someone in the Canberra (Australia) area, it was factory RHD. He drove it for several years as his family car, but when kids started coming the wife chucked a whoopie, and wanted a bigger car, so he parked it in the garage around 1982 and got a Holden family car. He always intended to put her back on the road but never got around to it. He purchased things along the way and put them in the shed, spare '57 motor, set of nice chromed wheels and tyres, set of brand new weber carbs , rubbers (but he hasn't found these yet) miscellaneous bits and pieces.
I asked about the papers for the car and he is still looking, he says he has the books and history but who knows, he is a bit vague, not getting any younger, if you know what I mean! He will find it eventually, or I will go looking myself.
He has several old cars in his backyard and thankfully the Porsche was in the garage, up on blocks. Anyway about 3 years ago, Nick, the guy in the photos (owner of Volksparts) a legend in VW parts here in Australia, his farm has around 400 VW/Kombis etc, he was called up by the PO to come and take a Kombi away, and Nick saw the 356. He offered 25K but the PO wanted 30. Nick didn't have that much to spend so he had to leave it. But he craftily didn't tell anyone about it. PO is not a big socialiser so nobody knew about the car.
We came back from France (defence posting) in 2009 and Nick told us about the car, but didn't tell us where it was. Last week Nick told a 356 Porsche guy about the car and the price and then proceeded to get heaps of phone calls about the car asking where it was. So he told me that we had better get onto it quick before someone else located it. He left a business card on the PO front door and we waited for the phone call. PO has been in Germany apparently for the last couple of years on and off, and only came home on Saturday for a couple of weeks. How lucky was that, he phoned, we did the deal and went to pick it up on Tuesday, took a couple of hours to get it out of the shed and move the cars that were in front of it, but all is good. It had a couple of jammed on brakes but easily unstuck, and winched onto the trailer.
Plan is to get the brakes redone, clean the fuel tank, probably needs resurfacing inside, get the engine going, check the mechanicals and drive her for a while to have fun. The interior is still quite okay, once I get rid of the spiders, Australia is pretty creepy when it comes to spiders!
From what I can tell from the vin it is a 1961, the engine in the car is not the original its a 57, bit sad about that but oh well can't have everything.
very happy