Porsche 356SL

About Porsche 356SL

The Porsche type 514, also known as the 356SL ("Súper Leicht", super light) is a purpose-built race car based on the 356/2. It was initially designed for participating in the 1951 Le Mans 24-hour race. The French Porsche distributor Auguste Veuillet suggested participating in the race during a meeting at the Paris Salon motor show in October 1950. Porsche determined that they had a chance of winning the 1100cc class G with a modified version of the aluminum 356/2 car with the type 369 1086cc engine. The Porsche 356 cars produced at that time at the Reutter factory in Stuttgart featured a steel body and Volkswagen style floor pan which was heavier and less rigid than the box-section chassis with aluminum body of the 356/2 cars. 63 chassis have been produced in total in Gmünd, Austria out of which about 50 cars have been fully assembled and finished in Austria, one or two were used for testing purposes or repairing damaged cars and the remaining 11 chassis with unfinished bodies were shipped to Stuttgart and used for the factory and customer racing cars based on the type 514 design.