History of a Giant Killer

The Porsche 550 Spyder left an indelible imprint on the motorsports world during the 1950s. It was Porsche’s first purpose-built racecar, and it immediately made its presence known on the international stage by winning its class at Le Mans in 1955 and taking first overall at the 1956 Targa Florio. It convincingly defeated, with regularity, cars of much larger displacement and higher class designation, earning it the moniker of “giant-killer.” The 550 was followed up by the 550A, an evolved version that first appeared in 1956. It incorporated a series of significant changes, including a tubular space frame to replace the ladder frame for increased structural rigidity, a 5-speed transmission to replace the previous 4-speed unit, and 15-inch wheels with wider offset that stood in place of the 16-inch wheels, thus providing both a lower center of gravity as well as an increased contact patch area.

The Porsche 550A-0141 Spyder featured here captured multiple podium finishes during its maiden 1958 season with driver Ernst Vogel, who just happened to be a virtuoso composer and professional concert pianist. One of a mere 39 examples built, the 550A-0141 Spyder is one of the last to leave Porsche RennWerks and is believed by current owner Steve Terrien to initially have been a Piech family-owned car that was raced in competition by the Porsche Salzburg team—the same de facto Porsche works team that captured the marque’s first overall win in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Louise Porsche was the matriarch of the Piech family, and her son, Ferdinand Piech, later ran operations at both Porsche and Volkswagen Group and today owns 10 percent of Porsche shares (at the time of this writing there is no documentation in hand to verify the Piech and Porsche Salzburg provenance).