1954 Porsche 550 #39
Pilots: J. Claes, P. Stasse
Team: Porsche KG
Race: 12th overall (1st in S 1.5 class) at Le Mans in 1954
Spark - S9706 (resin)
Published 09/13/24
Very well documented, Porsche’s racing history began in 1951. Released in 1948, Porsche’s first production car was the 356 (aka “Gmünd 356”). In 1950, Porsche took a 356 to the Paris Auto Show. Liking what they saw, Le Mans organizers approached Ferdinand Porsche and invited him to race at Le Mans. Accepting the challenge, Porsche enrolled two 356 Gmünd in the 1951 24 Heures du Mans. One of them crashed out, however car #46 came in first place in the SS 1.1 class. And right there began Porsche’s racing history and the brand’s connection to Le Mans. Despite their success, Porsche knew that a production car was not cut out to be a Le Mans winner. Even heavily modified and with full factory support. With that in mind, Ferdinand Porsche instructed his engineering team to begin working on a true “race car”.
Work began in 1951, and the new 550 Spyder was ready in 1953. Despite being designed and produced as a race car, the 550 was totally street-legal. With that, a pilot could legally drive his 550 from his home to the racetrack. To power the car, Porsche engineer Ernst Fuhrmann designed a special and quite complicated engine for it, called Typ 547. Like Porsche’s F1 Typ 360 engine, it was a boxer-4 with four overhead camshafts (DOHC). This 4-cam architecture allowed domed pistons and a better combustion chamber shape, permitting a better fuel burn. Moreover, it also had a dual-plug ignition system using twin distributors. For Porsche’s manufacturing capabilities the engine was complicated and took a long time to produce. Nonetheless, the 1.5 version produced double the power of the SOHC unit used on pre-war Volkswagens.
Not differing very much from the 356 (or VW Beetle, for that matter), the 550’s chassis was also simple. It was a simple flat-welded steel tubular ladder frame, covered by an aluminum body, coming from Weidenhausen, a Frankfurt coach builder. All that effort produced a very light car, with the 550 only weighing 590 kg. Always with Le Mans in mind, the first two cars built would be coupes. However, the first car finished in 1953 competed as a roadster in the model’s inaugural race, at Nürburgring. And it won. Nonetheless, at Le Mans Porsche enrolled two coupes, and they came in first and second in the S 1.5 class. Throughout the race both cars were within a lap of each other, and finished on the same lap. Without a doubt Porsche had a race winner – later on, some referred to it as the “Giant Killer”.
For the following year, fueled by the two previous class wins, Stuttgart went to France with four (!) cars. Three used 1.5 engines (S 1.5 class) while one used a 1.1 engine, for the S 1.1 class. Of the three 1.5 cars, cars #40 (chassis #550-10) and #41 (#550-11) had engine troubles and DNF. However, 550 #39 (#550-12), piloted by Johnny Claes and Pierre Stasse finished 12th overall and first in S1.5. And to make things better, car #47 came in first in S1.1. With that, the 550 solidified its reputation of being a winning machine. And in scale, Spark made it look awesome. Not much to say about livery, since 550 #39 looks plain-Teutonic-silver, yet the detail level is terrific. Even so, because of the plain looks I think this one is only for the Porsche fanboy (me) or the Le Mans nut (me again).