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Porsche Club of America
The Northeast Region

By Tom Tate
NOR'EASTER Online - September 2006

With the 356 Registry East Coast Holiday (think PCA Parade for 356's) scheduled for late August, time was important. The plan was to get it cleaned up and running well so that I could give it to my brother to participate in the Holiday with us. Bill and his wife (understanding wife) would drive Little Red and Rob and I would take Blackie. Bill has a '57 Speedster of his own but it's been apart and in the back of his garage since the '80's and I figured that this would inspire him to drag it out of the shadows and get it going again.

The clean up had already been done by Rob and the car looked great when it arrived in Massachusetts. The first drive only pointed out a few flaws like a speedo that didn't work and wipers that only quit when the fuse was pulled. Both easy fixes. Then there was the matter of the turn signal switch that was in a box under the seat, not on the steering wheel stalk where it belonged. Some door gaskets, the front trunk mat, and a tunnel mat were missing and the metal plate that covers the transmission was long gone. The rubber items were cheap and came from one of the 356 vendors but I had to fabricate a transmission cover out of a stainless steel dog dish. No, I didn't steal Zach's water bowl, I got a new one at Job Lot for $1.99. With carpet padding inside and out and a coat of flat black from a rattle can, it looks great.

The speedo repair was another matter and the beginning of a very strange tale. Rob had already checked the cable, it was fine and the speedo worked by itself but they didn't work together. I pulled out the speedo and the cable and put them both on the workbench. That's when I saw the writing on the back of the speedometer head. Written in black magic marker were the letters R M Inc. and below that, Sherborn, Mass. It seems that when a repair is done to automotive gauges the shop always puts their name on the back indicating who worked on it. I've seen a number of ID's scribbled and scratched onto the back of 356 gauges over the years, most of which I ignore, but Sherborn was the next town over from where I was standing. I wasn't aware of anyone that did Porsche speedometer repair or speedometer repair in general ever, and I had been in Medfield since 1973.

I picked up the phone and called Jack Styles up at Paul Russell Restorations in Essex, Ma. Jack has been traveling in Porsche repair circles since the early '70's and knows everyone everywhere. As I expected, he immediately came up with a name that I had long forgotten, Ralph Meany Inc.

Ralph had a Porsche shop in Framingham when I knew him in the '70's and had closed it to move to the west coast back in the mid '70's. Actually the IRS closed the shop, I was there at the auction and watched Kermit (the green 914/6) go to a couple of brothers that wanted to race it at Bryar, the track now known as NHIS. He was well known in racing circles having won a first in class at the Daytona 24 Hour race in 1970 in a 911 and campaigned a 914/6 in endurance racing. It turns out that the shop that I knew in Framingham was actually the second shop that he had. The original was in Sherborn and sure enough the photo on the website showed the 911 pictured at the 1970 Daytona Race with the words "Sherborn, Mass" written in the front fender.

Jack knew the story of how "Little Red" got to my garage and was interested in its condition so I filled him in on the upgrades that had been done to the car. The car had disc brakes installed but not just by replacing the drum brakes on the corners. Someone had replaced the entire transmission with a 741 gearbox from a '64 - '65 356. This was a difficult swap because the nose of the transmission is larger that the one it replaces and requires that a larger opening be cut into the bulkhead. Not something that a hobbyist would attempt in his driveway. That's when Jack mentioned that many years ago he had watched Jay Barry of Stuttgart Northeast in Danvers, MA do that very swap into a red Speedster. He couldn't remember much about the car because it was up on the lift each time he went in and he only saw the bottom. Simple solution, call Jay and see what he can remember. But Jay and Carol are now in their seventh year of a three year around the world cruise so he wouldn't be able to fill in the spaces but I wasn't about to slow down on this chase yet.

Ralph Meaney has a website, set up by his son, which lists all his racing victories and makes contact easy and in just a few minutes I had him on the phone. He remembered that they used to do repairs on Porsche gauges but couldn't remember this one specifically. When I mentioned the transmission swap the lights all came on. It turns out that he had sold the Speedster to Gil Myer who had Jay Barry install a transmission that also came from Ralph's shop. Gil Meyer and his wife Sue were very active in the Northeast Region of the Porsche Club and had both served as president of the region in the '70's. Although a dentist by profession Gil played with cars like all the rest of us at the time. He was an active racer, 904 owner, and bought and sold Porsches for fun. Unfortunately he died tragically in a road accident back in the early '90's.

Suddenly the picture of the little red Speedster with Gil at the wheel popped into view in my brain. Back in the day the local club used to race their cars on weekends at Hanscom Field in Bedford, MA. I was autocrossing "Blackie" (he was silver in those days) and Gil showed up with a Speedster he was working on to see how it would do. We lined up together and did our best to outrun each other. Although Gil was a road racer not an autocrosser, he did a great job on the course, pushing me harder and harder. I don't remember who won but I do remember that on one hard left turn his right door came open and we had to bungee it closed for his later runs. Just like today you did what you could to help anyone stay in the game.

Another long term PCA member, Mike Noonan called to say that he too had his hands on Little Red because he had started working for Brian Doherty at Custom Coachworks, of Danvers, in the late '70's and this was one of the first Porsches that he ever painted. He remembered that Jay was using what he called his Hot Rod, as his everyday driver at the time. It's a tribute to his early skill that the car still has the same paint after all these years and except for a couple of cracks and chips, looks great. Mike went on to Gullwing Restorations (today known as Paul Russell Restorations) and in 1988 started his own company, Mike's Auto Body, where today he continues to do fine work on our favorite marque.

We've all heard stories about how people have come across cars that they've owned years before but this is the first one in my garage that I'd competed against and that took such a long road to my door. I really don't have any idea where Little Red has been the last thirty years, the seller said that his brother got the car from a guy in San Diego seven years ago and they don't know anymore history that that. Besides, the guy said, "it's just an old car". Somehow it seems like a lot more that that to me. Just think that if Ralph hadn't put his name on the back of that speedo, or if I hadn't pulled it out to see what was wrong, I never would have known where Little Red had been. Amazing how small this 356 community really is after all.

I'm now looking at both of these old cars sitting side by side in my garage wondering if there is a way that these Speedsters can sense that they were together all those years ago. I like to think that some how they know. KTF