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Porsche 64

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The Porsche 64 was an all-aluminium hand-built coupe built by Porsche in Gmund, Austria. Also known as the 'Berlin-Rome' car, this was Porsche's first marketing campaign - designed to get potential customers interested in the competition possibility of such a high performance vehicle. The Berlin-Rome race was planned to take place in 1939, with the first 375 miles covering the newly built Autobahns. The streamlined body was built to be advantageous for this competition. Although the car was not powerful (around 35BHP), it was supremely light, and as such was one of the quickest cars of the period, capable of 80mph.

Porsche successfully completed three vehicles before war broke out - Ferdinand Porsche's own, one for a family member, and another for a customer. The cars were put into storage at the beginning of world war two to protect them - unfortunately, one was destroyed during a bombing raid, one was discovered by American soldiers (allegedly the customer car), and had the roof cut off and used as a 'joy-mobile' until it was reduced to scrap, but one made it through unscathed. It was competed with until 1951, until Porsche re-acquired the car. The car can be seen in the Porsche Museum, in Stuttgart.