White Side Walls & 356 Porsches!

                                                                                                             By:  Charlie White

This website is about Whitewall Tires and 356 Porsches. It's a whimsical look at 356 Porsches with White Sidewall Tires. The idea to do this website addition came while I was looking through some old Christophorus Magazines. Most of you know that Christophorus is published by Porsche and has been since 1952. Christo #36 published in November 1960 has a beautiful blue 356-B T-5 Coupe on the cover with a beautiful blond in a bright red dress sitting on the front fender. First the blue Coupe cought my attention, then the blonde caught my attention, and then the white wall tires caught my attention, hence you see what follows! White Wall Tires......not something you see very often on later 356 Porsches!

The more I looked at the picture on the cover of that November 1960 Christo, the more I thought that the magazine publisher had the picture backwards! A careful review of a blowup of the cover confirmed that the picture as published was, indeed, shown backwards! Somewhere along the line, it had been flipped horizontally. This wasn't done digitally as we would do it today, but somewhere along the way, the picture's negative had been turned backwards when the photo was printed. Maybe by mistake, maybe intentionally, who knows.

Back Cover	Front Cover

 The front and rear cover images, originally one image, was flipped horizontally.

The above postcard image shows the original picture.

This image of the postcard has been flipped horizontally.

Notice:  "Porsche" on the front of the car is BACKWARDS!

White Wall Tires for 356 Porsches? Well, Yes!

White wall tires were commonly available in the 1930's for luxury vehicles. This carried over after World War II into the 1950's. Little documentation was available about factory-provided white wall tires for 356 Pre-A Porsches. Presumably they could be ordered during this time. White wall tires were not mentioned in the early 356-A Factory Accessory Catalog. They did appear in the late 356-A factory Accessory Catalog dated February 1959 and a buyer could order a set of five white wall tires as part of a new car purchase from the factory. White walls were also mentioned in the later 356-B T-5, 356 B T-6 and 356-C Accessory Catalogs. In doing a little research on the history of white walls it appears the popularity of white walls declined during the mid-1960's. White walls tires were not shown at all in the early 911/912 Porsche Factory Accessory Catalogs.

White sidwall ads from Road & Track Magazines of the mid-1950's!

356-B T-5 Coupe, shown in a postcard set published by Porsche in 1961, M&M 210!

Every once in a while, something completely unexpected happens as a result of creating these 356 Porsche related websites. Jordan Bochanis, another 356 Porsche enthusiast, saw the photo above of the blue Coupe with the white wall tires on this website, and thought "that sure looks familiar"! Sure  enough, he lives in  the very area  where this photo was taken, probably some time in 1960 - 1961, and he went out and found the very spot where the old picture was taken and sent the photo below. Thanks Jordan, for making  the connection and sending the photo!
 

White Sidewall Tires on 356 Porsches!

White Side Walls are Cool!!!

Click here and go directly to DerWhite's 356 Porsche Literature Website!

"DerWhite's 356 Porsche Sales & Technical
Literature......the Book!"

Size 8.5 x 11 inches, Hardbound, 356 Pages, All Color!

Click here for more details about DerWhite's Book!

Research and Website Creation By:

Charlie White

Reporting on this interesting facet of early 356 Porsches! Comments, corrections and additional information welcomed!

Copyright@2011, 2014 DerWhite Productions, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Website first posted 2/15/11, updated 1/18/14!