A parting gift, and one last plea for help, I know Oppo won't let me down

"mtdrift" (mtdrift) 11/11/2020 at 17:26 • Filed to: Farewells, Porsche, 2020 Sucks

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Ladies and gents, it’s been real. I appeal to the hivemind in its final hours - gaze upon this amazing Porsche 356A that my grandparents owned when they lived in Italy and Germany in the 1950s and 1960s. That’s my grandfather in that completely improbable lead photo. What a fucking badass.

Lore has it it’s a 1956 model, unfortunately now lost to time. But the 35mm slides survive, and I have been gifted a treasure trove of images from the car’s half- dozen or so years of adventures on the Continent with my late grandfather behind the wheel, my grandmother (95 and still kicking ass!) in the passenger seat , and my dad and his sister in the back. That’s my dad in this photo in Cortina, Italy , probably nine years old, what a baller :

I’m working on writing up a post, or an essay, or something, on this incredible automobile and the family that lived with it, but I’m struggling with one detail.

Is this color Meissen Blue?

Maybe it’s the quality of the exposures in the slides, but it just doesn’t seem to match up with the color cards I can find online. My grandmother can’t remember, they just called it “midnight blue”, which might be a clue.

There was !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , “Acquamarin ”, but that seems not quite right either. A custom color? It was delivered new to the port of Venice in 1956. My dad, stunting again, I think in Austria. That’s my grandmother in the ear-muffs in the background. This car got used .

I know Porsche folks take this stuff seriously so I want to get the color right. Any thoughts you might have would be great!

Also, what is that Chevy barge in this parting shot? Somewhere in Austria, I think, I just love the sentiment, the energy this photograph conveys . What a time to be alive.

Catch you on the flip side.

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > mtdrift 11/11/2020 at 18:06

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That’s pretty incredible.

mtdrift > Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies 11/11/2020 at 18:10

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Right? I had seen snapshots and tales of the lost Porsche for years, but this undiscovered trove of slides has me flipping the fuck out. They drove to Yugoslavia in this thing in 1957. Just bonkers.

vondon302 > mtdrift 11/11/2020 at 18:11

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That lead image needs to be on your wall.

S65 > mtdrift 11/11/2020 at 18:12

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Will you be joining us on the new site? 

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > mtdrift 11/11/2020 at 18:13

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That’s even more incredible. It’s so awesome that you have quite high quality for the time photos of family and their legendary car.

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > mtdrift 11/11/2020 at 18:16

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This shade of Aquamarine looks close-ish

mtdrift > S65 11/11/2020 at 18:18

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Oh, for sure, I’m a serial lurker, but this place has given me a lot of joy over the years. I’ll be on the Ark.

mtdrift > Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies 11/11/2020 at 18:19

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Yeah, I’ve been leaning that way today instead of Meissen.

Thomas Donohue > mtdrift 11/11/2020 at 18:22

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The film and processing (and time) could play with the colors a bit. Also all you pics are in daylight with very bright light/snow, so the color of the car may seem darker than it was based on the exposure settings .

It looks metallic.....so it p robably is Aquamarine Metallic if it’s a 56.

Check out RennBow.org for more

https://rennbow.org/colorwiki/AquamarineMetallic

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > mtdrift 11/11/2020 at 18:23

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My god, I’m not a die-hard Porsche nut, but I do (in stereotypical fashion) love air-cooled Porsche and there is just something about the 356 that I’ve always loved!

I don’t know the color, sadly, but good luck!

Make sure you join us one one of the Life Rafts (like our very active Discord server) or join up on the new Oppo Drivetribe, or our coming-along-really-nicely-and-hilariously-quickly new ‘home’, http://opposite-lock.com

TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. > mtdrift 11/11/2020 at 18:38

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To me it looks Aquamarine 

mtdrift > Thomas Donohue 11/11/2020 at 18:48

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Ah, this is the good stuff - those color-matched rims in your image I think are a pretty good clue. Thanks.

mtdrift > TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. 11/11/2020 at 18:49

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I’m leaning that way.

mtdrift > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars 11/11/2020 at 18:50

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Oh, for sure, I’m following the exodus.

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > mtdrift 11/11/2020 at 19:35

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Those are some seriously amazing photos! Someone must have been quite a photographer because the composition, exposure, and focus on all of the ones you’ve shown are incredible. Additionally, the use of color film in the 60s implies someone was a series photography nut with some money to spend on the latest technology. Are most of them color? Because it’s impressive if they are.

Do you mind if I share these to the photography Kinja?

I also love a Porsche that’s being used to its full potential.

bmil128 > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars 11/11/2020 at 20:36

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Meissen is a light non metallic blue. I’m pretty sure that is Aquamarine, a guy my dad knows had a ‘55 Speedster in th at color, he sold it to someone in Holland a few years ago  

bmil128 > mtdrift 11/11/2020 at 20:37

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Meissen is a light non metallic blue. I’m pretty sure that is Aquamarine, a guy my dad knows had a ‘55 Speedster in that color, he sold it to someone in Holland a few years ago

mtdrift > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available 11/11/2020 at 21:10

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There are hundreds of slides, stretching back to 1954 and going through the 1970s and they’re ALL in color. There is some speculation that as a former naval officer, he was on the CIA payroll while they traveled around east and central Europe - they even drove through Yugoslavia in 1957 . So, maybe that’s how the color camera was financed (?).

The photos I posted here are some of the best ones, there are a lot that aren’t that great, of course. But, still, it’s an amazing catalog of postwar Europe.   It’s really remarkable.

Feel free to cross post!

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > mtdrift 11/11/2020 at 21:50

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Wow, they were real early to the game. I’m just very confused as color film alone would have been an enormous expense over so many photos and would have been more difficult to obtain/get developed. It seems like it almost wouldn’t be worth it but then again imagine taking these slides back to show to the Johnsons next door.

Perhaps they took such thorough documentation via the same idea around the WPA photographing America in the 40s. It would be useful to have information about how people were actually living in those countries.

There’s such an energy in these photos. I love them! I think the choice of car really helps that but as does the background. Please post more of these.

mtdrift > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available 11/11/2020 at 22:17

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Crap, trying to post more photos, but Nibbles is really eating my images.

Yeah, that’s really fascinating, and I hadn’t really thought about that too hard. My grandfather was frugal, but willing to spend $$$ on things he was passionate about, cars and cameras among them.

Just for context: after my grandfather was discharged from the Navy in 1946, he got his masters in education on the GI Bill and became a teacher and high school administrator in tiny little towns in rural Oregon.

His buddy, Hans, was indeed a CIA operative (ex-Army, he was a multi-lingual savant, and had a decades long career in the agency), and he landed my grandfather a post as a principal at US military schools in Italy and Germany starting in 1954.

My dad was only 6 when they moved overseas, and the family lived in Europe, with a few short stints back in Oregon, all the way through the 1970s when my dad left for college back in the states.

My dad and I are still sorting through these, and uploading many of them to some Google albums. With the help of my grandmother and my aunt, we’re trying to identify locations and dates from the sparse notes we have. If you want to send me your email address, I’ll share those with you - it’d be fun to have an expert eye on these.

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > mtdrift 11/11/2020 at 22:37

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I don’ t know how much of an expert you think I am but I don’t exactly have the encyclopedic knowledge of cameras that I have of cars. I’ve never even operated a film camera and barely have used a DSLR. You can still send some to me at graytwalters (at) gmail.com.

It is interesting that you mention he was ordinarily frugal. Even for a camera enthusiast using exclusively color film in the 50s was some serious dough. I am of the opinion at least some expenses were subsidized through his connections in the government agencies.

Your dad must have had an exciting childhood. Me, not so much. I am not well traveled at all so I travel by looking at posts on Oppo. The westernmost point I’ve been is around the Florida panhandle (yes, really) and the only time I’ve been out of the southeastern US is one time when I spent 3 days in New York City (and New Jersey but it barely counts).

If you’re trying to fix dates by the newest cars in the photos I’m no good either I’m afraid. My knowledge really only dates back as far as I’ve been alive to see the cars on the road and follow along in car magazines. 

ttyymmnn > mtdrift 11/12/2020 at 14:20

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This is the best Oppo.

sonicgabe > mtdrift 11/12/2020 at 14:25

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Hey hey! I asked a 356 expert friend and he says it is Aquamarine Blue Metallic. If you have the chassis number he can probably tell you a lot more about it. Drop me an email SonicGabe at the gmail dot com. I can pass on his phone number to you. He run a shop in Sarasota, FL that does amazing work. This is his car.

mtdrift > sonicgabe 11/12/2020 at 15:06

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Whoa, cool! Thanks man, that’s super helpful. I don’t know if there’s a record of the chassis number or not, I’ll check with my dad.

sonicgabe > mtdrift 11/12/2020 at 15:58

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If you happen upon it , just shoot me an email.

Stef Schrader > mtdrift 11/13/2020 at 16:13

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Have you looked at rennbow.org ? PCA put together an exhaustive catalog of every Porsche paint color to-date.

mtdrift > Stef Schrader 11/13/2020 at 20:10

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Thanks! Yeah, I did - someone else sent me that link, too. The consensus seems to be that we’ve settled on A quamarin Blue Metallic. I’m just so stoked about this trove of slides. It really gives me a unique and warm, fuzzy connection to my late grandfather.

He was something of a hero to me, and to fill in some details of his life, and my grandmother’s life at this amazing time in history is just invaluable. I’m really hoping to write something significant about this - I’m collecting some oral history from my grandmother, and my aunt and my dad. It’s too bad I was so young when he died, he was a master story-teller, and while I remember a lot of the tales of the Porsche, I’m sure he could have told many, many more had I been in a position to ask about them.

The car met an ignominious end, unfortunately - a story for a later time, I think.

(PS: I’m the guy who sent you the VW 411 manual! :) Hope you can put it to good use.)  

Stef Schrader > mtdrift 11/14/2020 at 22:04

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Hell yeah! I need to find that again. We’re about to swap in a 914 engine that hooooopefully works. 

Those are wonderful photos. They’re so lovely. I’m glad you’re getting the oral history now.