Beschreibung:

This beautifully presented classic Porsche represents the rarest and most powerful ultimate factory development of the 356 model, featuring the competition version of the 2 litre, 4-cam engine to 180bhp, 904 specification, installed in the lightweight GT body. In 1955 Porsche introduced the complex and sophisticated 4-cam engine, initially produced in 100bhp 1500cc form. Reliability and performance improved with the introduction of the 1600cc plain bearing engine in 1958. Early in the production of the 4-cam cars, Porsche introduced the GT version, a lightweight variant with aluminium front and rear bonnet and doors, plexiglass windows and competition seats. The 1600 GT version produced 115bhp in a car weighing not much more than 850 kg. But the 1500 and 1600cc variants lacked torque and real power, achieving their many competition successes mainly as a result of light weight, streamlined shape and nimble handling. By 1962, the stage was set for the final development with the introduction of the 2 litre, 4-cam Carrera 2 with a greatly improved engine and all round specification, including disc brakes front and rear. The standard Carrera 2, good for more than 200 km/h, developed 130bhp and nearly 20% more torque than the 1600GT. Ever conscious of their competition record, Porsche also made a small number of GT versions of the Carrera 2 as special orders. The GT, fitted with 46 IDM Webers and the Sebring competition exhaust, produced nearly 160bhp and 50% more torque than the 1600 4-cam. In period the 2-litre Typ 356B-2000GS and GT Carrera 2 models were the ultimate development of this landmark Porsche design short of the Carlo Abarth-bodied GTL. They were widely used in all manner of international and national competition from club rallies to such great classic road races as the Le Mans 24-Hours and Sebring 12-Hours. The GT version had lightweight aluminium bodywork, plexiglass windows, competition seats, aluminium/steel wheels and various other optional features depending on customers’ wishes, including an external petrol filler cap and a roll-over bar. Factory records do not show how many 2 litre GTs were built but the total appears to have been less than 15 cars. With this very limited production, the specification of each car seems to have been very much a matter of individual customer choice. The car offered here was supplied new in December 1962 to D’Ieteren Frères of Brussels, the Porsche importer for Belgium, finished in its present silver colour with blue leatherette interior. The Kardex factory record confirms the original fitment of alloy doors and plexiglas windows and rear screen and shows that various work was carried out on the car by Porsche culminating with the fitment in April 1964 by the factory of the latest specification Typ 587/2 competition engine, number 98016, still fitted to the car today. Little is known of the car’s history in its early years but it seems to have been destined for competition use from its specification and features such as the roll-over bar and a light on the outside of the passenger door to illuminate the race number as the car passed the pits at night. The interior is completely original, apart from replacement of small sections of carpet, suggesting that the indicated mileage of less than 50’000 km may be correct. By the mid-1980s the car had found its way to Colorado, USA, where it was purchased by its last owner. The present owner acquired the car in May 2002, imported it to the UK and had a painstaking mechanical check over carried out by one of the foremost UK specialists. Work included new front discs, overhauled calipers front and rear, crack testing and replacement as necessary of any worn front and rear suspension and steering parts, crack testing and repair of the original aluminium/steel GT wheels, fitment of 5 new Avon tyres, and various electrical and other work. Already while the car was in the hands of its previous owner, noted specialist Bill Doyle of Jackson Hole,