Saturday, September 28, 2024

the 1955 Porsche 356's imported to the USA could be bought with two different nameplates on the fender... Continental, and European. Only the '55 was given a name, as Hoffman convinced Porsche that Americans liked car names


Hoffman insisted that Americans wanted names on cars, not numbers, and convinced Porsche to call it a Continental for the 1955 model year. Within months, Ford, who owned the rights to the Continental name, threatened to put the fledgling brand out of business, and that was that. The Continental badge didn’t make it through a year of production.

 Porsche still had fenders left over with holes in them, so that’s when the European name came in. They used that until they ran out of those fenders and never put a name on the 356 again.

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