Porsche Type 64: the 1939 Berlin–Rome race car and its survivor

The Type 64 is the missing link between the Volkswagen and the first Porsche sports car. It is also a textbook documented prototype: a known commission, a known number built, one survivor with a continuous ownership trail.

Why was the Porsche Type 64 built?

The Porsche Type 64 was built for a road race from Berlin to Rome, announced in spring 1939 for that September. The race was meant to showcase the Axis partnership and the new KdF-Wagen. Porsche’s office received an order through the National Socialist Motor Corps (NSKK) for three sporting KdF-Wagen, and revived the Type 64 streamlined coupé project to fill it. War broke out on 1 September 1939 and the race never ran.

Porsche Type 64 specifications

What happened to the three Type 64 cars?

Accounts of the three cars differ in detail, so both published versions are shown here.

• RM Sotheby’s (2019 sale description): chassis 38/41 is the first car, damaged in a 1939 accident and repaired, then used by Ferdinand and Ferry Porsche. A second car had its roof cut off by US Seventh Army soldiers after the war and was driven into the ground. The third body was completed in June 1940; its fate is unclear.
• Other accounts: the first car was wrecked in a crash, the second destroyed by occupying forces, and the third survived as the Porsches’ transport.

Both agree on the point that matters: one Type 64 survives, and it is chassis 38/41.

Who owned the surviving Type 64?

Austrian privateer Otto Mathé owned the surviving Type 64 from 1949 until his death in 1995, 46 years. He converted it to right-hand drive and raced it in Austria between 1949 and 1953, making it one of the first Porsche-built cars raced by a private owner. In 1947 Ferry Porsche had applied Porsche script lettering to its nose, which is why it is often called the oldest car to wear the Porsche name.

What happened at the 2019 Monterey auction?

At RM Sotheby’s Monterey sale in August 2019 the Type 64 was offered as lot 362 with an estimate of $19–22 million. The auction house records the result as not sold, so there is no public sale price. Coverage of the evening focused on confusion over the bid amounts announced in the room, which is why the sale is still widely discussed.

How does the Type 64 lead to the 911?

The Type 64 leads to the 911 through the 356. Its shape, together with the unbuilt Type 114, shaped the Gmünd 356 coupé, and the first Porsche-registered car, the 356/1 roadster, was built in 1948. The wider context of Porsche’s work for the regime in these years is set out on the Ferdinand Porsche and Hitler page.