Want a lightweight, agile, rear-wheel-drive sports coupe with a Porsche crest but don’t have six figures to blow on pleasurecraft? Perhaps this 1964 Porsche 356C is the one for you. It was bought new in Switzerland and reportedly shipped to California roughly half a century ago, and it’s now on auction via Bring a Trailer. With one day left to bid, the highest offer is just $46,500 at the time of writing – that’s lower than the price of the average new car in America. Ask yourself, which do you really want? A Hyundai Tucson or the last generation of Porsche’s first production car, a rear-engine coupe?
The Floor of This Porsche Won’t Fall Out, But It’s Not Fast
For that price, nobody should expect a perfect example, but this one isn’t badly looked after either, with rust repairs that included the replacement of the floor pans being conducted since 2021. However, the blue Karmann-built body (which was originally Slate Grey) isn’t perfect. Repairs to the driver-side front fender, replacement of the passenger closing panels, the driver’s fender-to-door edge, and the passenger rear fender rail aren’t obvious, but they are visibly evident, and some exposed primer remains.
Still, that arguably adds to the character of something this slow; the 356C is powered by an air-cooled 1.6-liter flat-four with dual carburetors, and when new, this delivered no more than 75 ponies to the four-speed transaxle and 165-wide 15-inch wheels. The odometer shows just 55,000 kilometers (roughly 34,000 miles), and the engine was removed and resealed in 2021. As a later “C” variant of the 356, you get disc brakes on all four corners. And once you step inside, things really get special.
Stunning Interior with Tasteful Modification
Open the steel door, and you are greeted by a cabin reupholstered in tan vinyl with a matching dashboard top, door panels, and beige square-weave carpets. Rubber-lined floors and Coco Mats sit beneath your feet, while ahead of you is a thin wood-rimmed Carrera 2-spec steering wheel, and ahead of the passenger seat, a pair of timers has been fitted to the body-color metal glovebox door, referencing the motorsport heritage of the Porsche 911 predecessor. Of course, if you want something really special and with more power, you could splash out on a 356 Speedster, but there’s one on auction on Bring a Trailer at the moment, and with a week of bids still to come, it’s already at $200,000. This 356C is way cheaper and, with pop-out rear windows, perhaps even more charming. Just keep it away from water, or you’ll be repeating the rust repairs before long.
About the author
Sebastian Cenizo
Senior Editor, Autoblog