This is my first 356 and first Porsche.  In 1996 I purchased my 1964 Porsche 356C coupe from Stephen D. of Route30 Classics in Mosier, OR.  The previous owner was in Eastern, WA but I have yet to be able to track him down.  The car was basically complete but pretty much in need of a total restoration.  Anecdotally I heard the car was owned by the Morse family (of Morse Code fame) but I have yet to find anything to back up the claim.

 I started the restoration but pretty soon found myself faced with some welding and body work that I had no idea how to tackle.  So it sat in my garage for the next 10 years… 

Fast forward to 2006 when I decided to enlist some help and took my car to Tom Black in Portland.  He pretty much took the car down to bare metal and worked out a few kinks.  I had it painted back to the original color (light ivory) and had the interior redone.  

The motor is the original 1600 normal motor which was rebuilt as well.   

I have had my car back on the road since April 2007.  Since then I have put roughly 5K miles on it while I enjoyed attending various club and other 356 events.  The Emory “Campouts” in McMinnville, a couple Heckmann Theimann rallies in the Gorge, up to Seattle for the Bull Session, the Portland Historics the LeMay auto collection/show in Tacoma, various weekend breakfast meetings and drives and occasionally PIR on Wednesday evenings during the summer, are a few of my favorites… 

I have met a few friends in the 356 community while attending these events and look forward to meeting more at the upcoming events this year. 

I included some before shots and a few from during the restoration so you can see the progress that was made to bring this one back. 

Happy motoring,

Pete Crabb

1964 Porsche 356 C