This 1958 Porsche 356 A Coupé turned out to be a forgotten factory one-off with a weird and wonderful backstory.
Added to the excitement of buying a new car are the unique stories about its existence on the road, be it a special model with rare options or a race-ready classic with motorsport significance. And while one would assume that most of these stories would be uncovered and promoted to increase value, it is rare that untold stories come to light for the better by the new owner. When Dutch collector Henk Spin picked up a weathered Porsche 356 A Coupé, he assumed it would be a straightforward restoration.
But he realized this Porsche had a story when he started digging through the car’s odd details, such as painted trim, non-standard levers and some unusual handwritten notes. A deep dive into the Porsche archives confirmed that this example was one of just eight “Schmidt cars” built for a quirky German engineer in the late 1950s. The discovery sparked a decade-long search for unrecognized parts, paint and even documentation to restore this one-of-a-kind piece to its original form, right down to the porcelain white paint and an in-car phone system that somehow existed in 1958.
Reinhard Schmidt, the original owner, was no ordinary Porsche collector. While working for ATE, he had enough pull to ask the factory for a long list of strange features, most of which wouldn’t be seen on production vehicles for years. Things like rally headlights, Carrera gauges, a Junghans clock on the tachometer, electric windshield washers, and a working car phone (which at the time required a separate driver’s license and cost as much as a second car). The result is a dashboard that looks more like a fighter jet than a sports car. The car was even introduced in Christophorus at the time, showing how strange and forward-thinking it was for its time.
Today, Spin’s 356 sits tucked away in his Porsche-filled garage, surrounded by a Macan, a Cayman S and a soon-to-be-restored 911 T. But the “Schmidt car” stands out from the rest. It’s the kind of build that came about with the help of Porsche Classic and lots of conversations with other obsessive owners and historians. Even the yellow “test car” signs had to be recreated from old photos. This was a slow-moving research project that brought a very strange Porsche back to light. And now, 65 years after it left the factory, it is finally telling its story again.
Source: Porsche
