Car O'Clock

My first road trip in a Porsche with no roof

Circumstances forced me to drive my new 1957 Porsche Speedster one-handed. This was because my other hand had lost all sense of feeling. This was thanks to what felt like Arctic conditions in a country I imagined never became cold, in an open car with no roof, in winter. 

Let’s backtrack a little: I had arrived from England in 1982 knowing next to nothing about Australia, other than someone had offered me a job in Sydney and I had been instructed to find a place to live, organise a car to drive and start working ASAP. I was a copywriter, working for a Sydney advertising agency and, really, I didn’t have a clue about life ‘down under’ other than what I’d been told by a Kiwi pal, Jim, who’d also moved from London with his family 18 months prior and recommended I join him in Sydney.

So, here I was in Australia being told by the ad agency Financial Director to organise a car quickly because he had to sort out the paperwork before the end of the month! What’s more, I was told the name of an accountant who would arrange a lease contract for the chosen car. I’d never heard of a car lease before, but I quickly realised this meant I could have a car I couldn’t afford because I would be paying for it over a number of years, while also obtaining a number of tax benefits. It sounded too good to be true to a young car nut like myself.

Upon hearing this, my natural petrolhead inclinations lead me to discover just what kind of exciting options might be available to me. While the Financial Director might have imagined I should buy a sensible new Holden Commodore, I learned the right lease broker could arrange something more exciting and that’s how I found myself purchasing an immaculate, 1957 Porsche 356A Speedster from an auto industry PR man in Melbourne.  

The crazy journey begins

Just to recap a little, I had been in Australia for less than a month and, up to that point, I’d only experienced sunny skies and warm days, in complete contrast to my life in cold, drizzly London. Sydney felt always felt like summer to me, even though it was approaching winter.

Therefore, the weather wasn’t a key consideration when I jumped on a plane to Melbourne, accompanied by my Kiwi pal, to collect my ‘new’ old Porsche from a country town outside Melbourne. The deal was done over a delightful bbq on a bright, sunny day and at the end of the afternoon, I thought it was time to head back to Sydney. The owner explained that he had ordered a roof, but it hadn’t arrived from the USA yet, so there was only a tonneau cover. “Sure, I said, no problem, it can wait.”If only I knew.

Reality sets in

Setting off, the sun went down and within 30 minutes I realised I was freezing cold. So cold, I could hardly keep hold of the steering wheel. Wearing a light summer jacket and T-shirt, I began to appreciate that winter in Victoria could be almost as cold as a winter day in my home city of London. Why hadn’t anyone told me? Why was my co-driver Jim huddled under the tonneau cover? Why did I buy a car with no roof? Clearly, I hadn’t thought this through.

I suppose I’d been driving for an hour or so when, in the middle of nowhere, the Porsche spluttered to a halt. My whole body was shaking from the cold and what began as a joyful road trip had become a total disaster. Needless to say, I had next to no tools, no torch and no clue what to do next. Kiwi pal and I determined that a dead battery was the most likely cause of our demise and wondered how new 6-volt battery might be found in country Victoria after 8.00pm, on a Saturday night…

An angel on a dirt bike 

When all seemed hopeless, a noisy trail bike roared into view and pulled up next the Speedster. The rider worked on a local farm and, keen to help, said he had a whole bunch of 6-volt batteries back in his barn. “I’ll be back in 20 minutes,” he said. And, wonder of wonders, he was, complete with a 6-volt battery from an old VW. Miraculously, the car roared back into life and my Jim and I found a motel just down the road within half an hour. The room was slightly less cold than the being outside in the car, but exhaustion helped me sleep for a few hours.

I can’t remember if I paid for the battery and how the farm lad happened to be on a deserted Hume Highway on a freezing winter’s night. It all seemed surreal even though it did actually happen, bizarre as it was. 

7.00am Sunday morning

At first light, I looked out of the motel window and realised I couldn’t see my precious Speedster. After a few seconds, I realised it was because the motel window was covered in ice and, after opening the door, ascertained my car was too.

Close to panic, I became desperate to figure out how I could possibly keep driving an open top car, without a coat, or gloves. Especially the Speedster, with its tiny 30cm high windscreen. I’d learned the previous night that just trying to steer the car had become next to impossible with my hands literally turning blue with cold in a few minutes.

Orange gloves, with kangaroos.

Necessity is the mother of invention, so the old saying goes.  I quickly looked around for anything that might provide just a smidgeon of warmth. I found an old newspaper, plus a couple of tourist leaflets to shove down the front of my jacket to help keep me slightly warmer. And, a stroke of genius, discovered a bright orange, one piece, oven glove (complete with embroidered kangaroos).

I cut it into two to create a pair of ridiculous-looking, substitute driving gloves which I taped to my wrists (yes, I left money to pay for them). Alas, the old Porsche had a slippery enamel steering wheel. And so I drove with one hand wrapped in a huge orange oven glove to keep warm and the other bare to steer with. Every 15 minutes or so, I had to swap the glove to the other hand for a while before it lost all feeling.

From under the tonneau, my Kiwi pal was falling about with laughter – he would pretend to be a radio commercial voice-over artist exclaiming the virtues of driving with a stylish new ‘kangaroo-style’ glove that would bring a certain panache to any Porsche driver. Very funny.

Foot to the floor, all the way to Sydney

My only thought was a need to return to Sydney as soon as possible because it would be warmer and less painful than driving in freezing winter Victoria. Now, this was 1982 and I suppose there wasn’t much traffic on the Hume Highway on a cold Sunday, so I just drove my Speedster as fast as possible, desperate for warmth and home.

It wasn’t fast the 356A, the engine was a standard ‘Damen’ motor with just 60 BHP.  Enough, I discovered, to manage about 170 km/h downhill, 140 km/h on the flat and about 120 km/h uphill. Being a Porsche, it was quite happy to do this all day long. Imagine getting away with this today…

It sounds unbelievable now I know, but I didn’t see a highway cop all day long.  Most motorists on the road just gave me a friendly wave as I passed them by. I suppose a 1957 Porsche Speedster wasn’t a common sight on the roads back then (or now).

A tourist shop to the rescue

Shops were closed on Sundays back in ’82. So I was lucky to find a service station selling a few tourist trinkets on a back shelf. I selected a huge pair of vinyl gloves and a horrible-looking sweatshirt – both were like gifts from heaven. Now I could have two hands on the ‘wheel’ and shiver slightly less.

My Kiwi pal had also found something warmer to wear. He bought the Melbourne Age and stuffed it down his shirt. He would only occasionally peer out from under the tonneau to see where we were. When we neared Sydney, he reminded me that I had promised he could share some of the driving and asked if he could take over for a while. By this stage, the temperature had risen and I’d begun to enjoy myself, so I’d completely forgotten my promise. I’d been driving all day, so I suggested he drive the rest of the way.

A funny incident with a cop

My mate continued driving at a similar speed to me until he came up behind two cars travelling beside each other at 80 km/h on the 100 km/h limit highway. After a while, my Kiwi friend had had enough and flashed his lights. No reaction. He used the horn. No reaction.

Eventually, the car on the outside (overtaking lane) pulled ahead and merged into the nearside lane and as the Speedster began to overtake, flashing blue lights told us the road hog proved to be an unmarked police car. Oops. 

Out came the cop, red in the face and clearly in a rage. “Who the f… do you think you are? If I want to drive in the outside lane slowly I f…ing will, you c…t!” Charming chap.

The vitriol went on for some time. Jim just looked ahead, wisely deciding it was best not to argue. I was just glad I wasn’t driving glad at the time and realised either of us would have passed the cop way over the speed limit if he hadn’t chosen to be a mobile roadblock. Phew!

Along comes my art director – at 200 km/h! 

Spittle came out of his mouth as he continued to ‘eff’ and ‘blind’.  I wondered if a driving charge was coming when the enraged lecture had finished. To be honest, the language from the cop was a shock to me who had been more used to polite British ‘bobbies.’

It was then that all three of us heard a high-pitched sound coming towards us. I looked around and suddenly realised it was my art director partner from work, who said he would come out to greet us on the Hume Highway, driving his very fast Alpina-tuned BMW 323i.  

He’d seen the Speedster coming the opposite way, so he turned around and was now trying to catch us. And sure enough, he blasted past at a hell of a lick. The howl from the screaming Alpina BMW had the cop glancing over his shoulder while he continued to hurl abuse at us. As the Alpina BMW flew past and off into the distance the foul-mouthed cop could restrain himself no longer. Mid-sentence he ran off in pursuit of after my art director mate. Laughing with relief, we wondered how his old cop car would be able to catch him.

Sometimes you get lucky

Inadvertently, my workmate had saved our bacon that afternoon, but had he caused a bigger problem for himself? Realising it might be smart to slow down, the pair of us cruised back into Sydney. We kept an eye out for the cop going crazy at the driver of an Alpina BMW at the side of the road, but we saw nothing.

“Did you see an angry cop later?” I asked when I met my A/D at work the next morning. “What cop?” he replied. He said he just kept going faster and faster in an effort to catch the old Porsche. I explained he made quite a spectacle as he flew past the Porsche and ‘our’ angry cop at some 200 km/h!

I guess we were all lucky that day. Well, all of us except one furious highway cop who had failed to book any one of us that cold Sunday afternoon on the Hume highway.

My orange kangaroo oven glove mitts were hung on my wall at home. They were a memento of a road trip I will never forget. Needless to say, I never again visited Melbourne in winter without plenty of coats and gloves – just in case.

As for the Porsche Speedster, that proved to be something of an ownership disaster in many ways. This is partly because the previous owner proved to be less than honest about the so-called restoration.  I was also hell-bent on making it go faster when I should have left it alone. Just one of many costly mistakes I made along the way – you live and learn. The full story of my ’57 Speedster will be revealed at a later date in another Car O’Clock feature.