How much do you like rust? Not too many car people do, and neither does David Balser, who hails from Encinitas (near San Diego), California. David has owned and restored a couple of Porsche 356 coupes (a '63B and a '59A) over the past 14 years, and he really liked his vintage tin. But after the restoration, tiny rust bubbles would pop up under the paint here and there, thus negating all the hard work that went into making the coupes look good.
Frustrating him to no end, David decided to go the 'glass route with his next car. Having always wanted a Porsche Speedster, Balser searched for a suitable replicar manufacturer that could give him what he wanted. David's brother, Ed, was also going to play a major part with the look of the car, since he is heavily involved in building street rods, for both fun and profit. The traditional look of some hot rods also plays into the whole "outlaw" theme that is well represented in certain Porsche circles.
In fact, when David checked out the Web site www.partsobsolete.com, he found a special section on outlaw Porsches (there are actually a few sites on the Web dedicated to this style of car). A typical outlaw Porsche is race-inspired, with drilled-out pedal arms and gas cap lids, louvers and leather straps, and large-diameter racing wheels. And one of the most identifiable trademarks of those outlaws? Stance. They're usually pegged on the ground, with only the slightest hint of rake. Sports cars are generally minimalistic, but the outlaw guys just take it to the extreme. And the folks who own these outlaw Porsches are the ones most likely to piss off the Porsche purists, but they really don't care. They're into it because it's fun, and they drive the snot out of their rides!
So, with the outlaw idea planted in his head and his hot-rodding brother giving him ideas, David went looking for someone who was willing to help customize his Speedster the way he wanted it. As it turned out, Tom McBurnie was his guy. McBurnie, who owns and operates Thunder Ranch (El Cajon, CA), has been in the replicar business since almost the beginning of time itself. He helped pioneer the industry and some of his exploits have actually become legendary-just the outside-the-box thinker David needed to complete his project.
David likes to describe his ride as a "German street rod" or even a "'56 roadster" because of some of its styling cues. Old Ford roadsters were stripped-down versions of the option-loaded vehicles car salesmen tried to push on the public. But the roadsters had no frills-no radio, heater, defroster, side windows, fancy door pulls, or exterior trim pieces.
David and Tom worked together to create a one-off body that employed those themes, working with hot-rod design elements, such as a dash that wraps around and into the tops of the doors, similar to the cockpit of a '32 Ford roadster. To accomplish that, McBurnie had to add a 550 dash to David's 356-something other replicar builders didn't want to do-as well as reshape the tops of the doors to make the door lines flow correctly. But David calls the Thunder Ranch staff (Dan, Chris, Larry, Julio, Marco, and Phil) "talented" and "flexible"-two adjectives rarely used together when a car owner describes his relationship with a builder. McBurnie also added a small flair around the rear fender lip, just another item to set David's ride apart from any other on the road.
McBurnie started the build with a tube frame of his own design. A standard VW IRS transmission was used in conjunction with the torsion bar rear, but the front uses the VW twin torsion beam setup with dropped spindles added to get the desired low profile. Cream-colored (to match the gauges in the interior), powdercoated 15-inch steelies (accented with two thin, red pinstripes) are shod with Pirelli rubber (205/60 and 195/60) to provide gription in the turns. Stopping the tub is the work of four disc brakes mounted to each corner (the fronts are stock VW discs, while the rear are a from CB Performance).