Porsche’s first sports activities automobiles had aluminum physique panels, but it surely was nature’s personal light-weight materials that made their iconic form attainable.
The Porsche 356 had bodywork the place the panels had been hammered and hand-rolled into form, and a wooden frame mannequin was used to make sure all the things lined up.
That frame nonetheless exists, and is in comparatively good situation. It’s on the Porsche Automuseum in Gmünd, Austria, the place the first Porsche production cars had been accomplished earlier than manufacturing moved to Stuttgart, Germany.
The frame is usually known as Holzklopfmodell, which is German for “hammered wooden frame,” however the frame itself wasn’t hammered. Rather, it served as a mannequin the manufacturing unit staff used for shaping and becoming of the aluminum physique panels. It was a time-consuming course of that generally required a number of makes an attempt to get a door or fender to completely match the frame, which was the precise form of a 356 physique. The course of took no less than 90 hours, in response to Porsche.
Handmade bodywork was primarily a function of the earliest Austrian-built Porsches. Starting in 1948, Porsche constructed 52 automobiles in Gmünd, together with 44 coupes and eight convertibles, plus between eight and 10 super light (SL) bodies that had been accomplished by Porsche’s racing division in Stuttgart between 1951 and 1952.
When manufacturing shifted to Germany in 1949, Porsche switched to metal our bodies and mechanized manufacturing processes, leaving hand-formed aluminum for specials just like the 16 light-weight 356 America Roadsters. A brand new wooden frame ultimately changed the unique.
Because metal is way tougher than aluminum, Porsche began using presses to fabricate physique panels, which additionally allowed it to supply automobiles at a quicker fee. Today, the 356 wooden frame stays as a reminder of the automaker’s early days.
This article was originally revealed by Motor Authority, an editorial associate of ClassicCars.com
