Barn find of the century? First porsche ever built?

Just came across this article, anyone else have more info?

"On Monday, Porsche revealed that it had recently acquired the barn find of the century — the first car ever designed by founder Ferdinand Porsche, which hit the roads of Austria in 1898, and has been locked away untouched for the past 112 years."

Car P1 - an electric car designed by Ferdinand Porsche at age 22 Wonder where that sucker was hiding.

http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/first-porsche-uncovered-112-years-hiding-160424431.html

Wow.

seems a weeee bit fishy.... not saying it AIN'T true... but finding the companies founder's first designed car... from 112 years ago...

reminds me of the wonderful story by Oliver Wendell Holmes... "The Deacon's Masterpiece or The Wonderful "One-Hoss Shay"

I wonder why it was stuffed in a barn for so longer and did the owner know what they had ...

Nice.

oldeskewltoy wrote: seems a weeee bit fishy.... not saying it AIN'T true... but finding the companies founder's first designed car... from 112 years ago... reminds me of the wonderful story by Oliver Wendell Holmes... "The Deacon's Masterpiece or The Wonderful "One-Hoss Shay"

That's kinda my first thought, too.

Rear engine.

The transverse and longitudinal rear leaf springs are interesting.

Bumboclaat wrote: The transverse and longitudinal rear leaf springs are interesting.

that spring setup was pretty common on buggies from that time period- i found an old horsedrawn buggy frame out in the pasture when i was cutting up an old manure spreader for scrap that had that same spring setup. i didn't have the heart to cut it up because it was kind of neat, so it's leaning up against the shed..

That is cool as hell, probably some old hermit bought it or stored it way back when or hid it from the invading russians like was done with the Auto Union grand prix car and was just "a neat old car in the barn" to their heirs. Someone finally did some research and realized what they had.

johndej wrote: Car P1 - an electric car designed by Ferdinand Porsche at age 22 Wonder where that sucker was hiding.

Plugged in to the power station. It's probably almost done charging by now.

I was just at the museum, I just missed it!

did that really say 2,900+ lbs? was the missing body work made out of lead and gold? are the tires filled with mercury? It looks like a semi-beefed up shopping cart frame, where is all of the weight?

In reply to Rufledt:

Deep cycle lead acid batteries?

I was sort of expecting an unusual variant of the three fiddy six. Interestingly enough, Porsche put the bulk of the motor ahead of the rear axle making the buggy mid-motor

Some much better detail here - http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2014/01/29/ferdinand-porsches-first-race-winner-rejoins-porsche-in-stuttgart/

Apparently it was a known car but in a private collection. Not exactly a barn find.

ArthurDent wrote: Some much better detail here - http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2014/01/29/ferdinand-porsches-first-race-winner-rejoins-porsche-in-stuttgart/ Apparently it was a known car but in a private collection. Not exactly a barn find.

was the collection stored in a converted barn?

Rufledt wrote: did that really say 2,900+ lbs? was the missing body work made out of lead and gold? are the tires filled with mercury? It looks like a semi-beefed up shopping cart frame, where is all of the weight?

Well, crash standards really add weight....

Lol