Denis Jenkinson 356
Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 2:08 pm
I've been off work this week with the most severe case of flu' known to mankind so in an effort to find something to do before I go round the bend started sorting through some boxes and found .............. a whole host of 356 books I haven't seen for ages including
"Porsche 356" by Denis Jenkinson which I think is the most wonderful story of actually using a 356 usually on trips around Europe to report on various race meetings.
Considering how this cars are so closseted nowadays and not even taken out in the rain, some of the photos are amazing, - one shows the car in Spain, jacked up by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere "in the shade of a large tree to perform some roadside maintainence, changing the rear shock absorbers and gearbox mount" and another "when the engine mountings broke away due to old age " so the photo shows the engine lid open and "the engine hung by rope from the hinges of the open lid and around the exhaust which allowed us to carry on our journey" ! presumably no AA/RAC roadside recovery and the story/pictures wouldn't be half as good if there were and of course no motorways.
In the section on handling there are some excellent quotes, amongst them, " I had always preferred the old-style Porsche accident of spinning off backwards" - " about every part of the body had to receive the panel-basher's art at some time or other" - " I was on the wrong side of the road doing 70mph (112kph) with no hope of stopping and no obvious escape route, by deliberately bouncing a front corner of my car into the rock face at the edge of the road, which then cannoned me obliquely into the Gogomobil, rather than head on, I got away with two very dented sides to the front of my car and no other damage" !!!
Every trip must have been the most fantastic adventure, if you don't have this book I'd certainly recommend it
Steve
"Porsche 356" by Denis Jenkinson which I think is the most wonderful story of actually using a 356 usually on trips around Europe to report on various race meetings.
Considering how this cars are so closseted nowadays and not even taken out in the rain, some of the photos are amazing, - one shows the car in Spain, jacked up by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere "in the shade of a large tree to perform some roadside maintainence, changing the rear shock absorbers and gearbox mount" and another "when the engine mountings broke away due to old age " so the photo shows the engine lid open and "the engine hung by rope from the hinges of the open lid and around the exhaust which allowed us to carry on our journey" ! presumably no AA/RAC roadside recovery and the story/pictures wouldn't be half as good if there were and of course no motorways.
In the section on handling there are some excellent quotes, amongst them, " I had always preferred the old-style Porsche accident of spinning off backwards" - " about every part of the body had to receive the panel-basher's art at some time or other" - " I was on the wrong side of the road doing 70mph (112kph) with no hope of stopping and no obvious escape route, by deliberately bouncing a front corner of my car into the rock face at the edge of the road, which then cannoned me obliquely into the Gogomobil, rather than head on, I got away with two very dented sides to the front of my car and no other damage" !!!
Every trip must have been the most fantastic adventure, if you don't have this book I'd certainly recommend it
Steve