The first Carrera

When associating words with Porsche, a common theme shows up.  A large proportion of Porsche cars have carried the moniker of Carrera.  Carrera inspires visions of the recent Carrera GT supercar, several iterations of 911s, The 924 Carrera GT turbo, The 904 Carrera GTS, and of course the 356 Carrera.

When placing a name on the new 7500 RPM four-cam screamer Porsche resorted to the world of racing history.  Porsche, as we know, had tremendous success with its efforts in the Mexican cross country race known as the Carrera Panamericana.  Using Carrera (Spanish for “race”) to describe its most berzerk sporting car was a no brainer.

Essentially a 356A body with a Type 547 four-cam, the Carrera was a sports racing special for the street.  In production, the Type 547 produced an astonishing 100 horsepower, only down fifteen horsepower from the engines that competed in the Le Mans 24 hour to increase the reliability.  The car was fitted with wider rims and tires and a larger diameter steering wheel.  Also, due to the additional weight of the engine, the torsion bars were tightened just a bit more.  With the improvements made to the car, it hit American shores with a price tag of nearly six thousand dollars, or more than twice the starting price of the Corvette.

Common contention is though, that the Carrera was well worth the asking price.  It was the first car in production to reach 200 kilometers per hour with less than 1.5 liters at its disposal, accelerated to 60 miles per hour in 11.0 seconds, and was capable of outrunning many cars with much more power on the racetrack.