{"id":17472,"date":"2024-09-13T07:55:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-13T10:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.w-143.com\/?page_id=17472"},"modified":"2024-12-30T12:36:29","modified_gmt":"2024-12-30T15:36:29","slug":"porsche-550-39-spark","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.w-143.com\/index.php\/porsche-550-39-spark\/","title":{"rendered":"Porsche 550 #39 – Spark"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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1954 Porsche 550 #39<\/strong>
Pilots: J. Claes, P. Stasse
Team: Porsche KG<\/em>
Race: 12th overall (1st in S 1.5 class) at Le Mans in 1954<\/strong>
Spark - S9706 (resin)<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Published 09\/13\/24<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Very well documented, Porsche\u2019s racing history began in 1951. Released in 1948, Porsche\u2019s first production car was the 356 (aka \u201cGm\u00fcnd 356\u201d). 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 Gm\u00fcnd in the 1951 24 Heures du Mans<\/em>. One of them crashed out, however car #46<\/a> \u00a0came in first place in the SS 1.1 class. And right there began Porsche\u2019s racing history and the brand\u2019s connection to Le Mans. Despite their success, Porsche knew that a production car was \u00adnot\u00ad <\/em>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 \u201crace car\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Though the 550 had a “race” engine, the 550’s owner could legally drive it around town.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Work began in 1951, and the new 550 Spyder<\/strong> 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 <\/em>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<\/em><\/a>. Like Porsche\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The tonneau cover aided aerodynamics, and when not in use allowed a passenger.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Not differing very much from the 356 (or VW Beetle, for that matter), the 550\u2019s chassis was also simple. It was a simple flat-welded steel tubular ladder frame<\/a>, 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\u2019s inaugural race, at N\u00fcrburgring. 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 \u201cGiant Killer\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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As a model the 550 #39 is kind of plain-looking, yet Spark nailed it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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<\/strong> (#550-12<\/a>), piloted by Johnny Claes and Pierre Stasse finished 12th<\/sup> overall and first in S1.5. And to make things better, car #47<\/a> 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).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1954 Porsche 550 #39Pilots: J. Claes, P. StasseTeam: Porsche KGRace: 12th overall (1st in S 1.5 class) at Le Mans in 1954Spark – S9706 (resin) Published 09\/13\/24 Very well documented, Porsche\u2019s racing history began in 1951. Released in 1948, Porsche\u2019s first production car was the 356 (aka \u201cGm\u00fcnd 356\u201d). In 1950, Porsche took a 356 … Continue reading “Porsche 550 #39 – Spark”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-17472","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.w-143.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.w-143.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.w-143.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.w-143.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.w-143.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17472"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.w-143.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18073,"href":"https:\/\/www.w-143.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17472\/revisions\/18073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.w-143.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}