Porsche speedster 356 and it’s relation with Apal

The Porsche 356 was the first car that the company produced, its success was critical to Porsche growing into the company that it is today. These days the 356 is considered to be a classic and it is not easy to get your hands on one. Fortunately for people who are interested in classic cars it is possible to get a replica from a small company by the name of Apal.

The Porsche 356 was the first production car that the company produced. They started working on it right after the Second World War came to an end and put it into production in 1948. The car was largely based on the Volkswagen Beetle which had also been designed by Ferdinand Porsche. It was a rear engined car and in order to save time and money getting it into production many of the parts were borrowed from Volkswagen.

Over the years Porsche would refine the 356 to greatly increase the performance that the car had. They also made an effort to make the car more refined so that it would stand out as being of a higher quality than the Volkswagen. In order to do this they reduced the number of common parts they used so that by the end of production the 356 and the Beetle shared few common parts.

The 356 would remain in production for seventeen years. This was despite the fact that sales of the car got off to a very slow start. It took them two years to sell the first fifty cars. Nevertheless the car slowly developed a reputation for performance which became obvious when people started racing them. The car remained in production until 1965 and by the end they were producing about ten thousand cars a year, which is not really that many. The result is that only about seventy six thousand cars were produced during the entire production.

Because of the combination of performance, refinement and the relatively small number of cars that were built the 356 has become a very popular collector car. Getting your hands one will cost you well over a hundred thousand dollars today. This is why the small Belgian car maker Apal started offering replicas in the early eighties.

Apal built their replica 356’s using Volkswagen engines and transmissions which made them quite similar to the original cars. They produced about 700 of them before production was shut down in 1994. In 1998 the company was sold and the new owners briefly put the 356 replicas back into production however they now only produce them as kits. Therefore if you want to get a replica Porsche 356 you are going to have to assemble it yourself. There are quite a few people who have proven willing to do just that.