Collectors\' Motor Cars and Automobilia

“In 1956, as now, there was glamour attached to racing cars, and there

were people who thought they’d like to drive to work in the hottest

racing car of the day. Of those who actually could buy the latest in

winning cars, some did enjoy the experience, and some didn’t.

̧This car, No 90, was first bought by a West Coast television

executive ̄¹ ¶ actually one Willett H. Brown, sometime President of

CBS ¶ ̧The car was delivered equipped for the street but the owner

must have found it more of a challenge than he was equal to...When

the first owner sold it¹ ¶ in 19557 ¶ ̧ ̄he had enQoyed it for a total of

634 miles.

“The next owner was more of an enthusiast. That led to his sale of the

car, you might say. He sold it to raise capital to start a Porsche agency,

after 12,000 presumably delightful miles...

̧During this time the present ̄¹ ¶ remember, this was in 1971 ¶ ̧ ̄

owner Fred Sebald, had been longing for a Spyder. When the Spyders

were the competition machines, Sebald was the race car body

repairman of Southern California. When Ginther and Hill and von

Neumann and their peers shunted hay bales and each other. Sebald

made things right again. So he knew and appreciated 550s.

“When 1956 Spyder 550RS1500 No 90 turned up on Vasek Polak’s

lot, Sebald bought it. He later retired from the bent metal business

(to become a ski instructor ̄). Skis mean snow, Sebald lives in the

mountains and the car now spends most of its time carefully wrapped

up in a garage. When he bought it he had intended it to be a wonderful

ad for his body shop. He meant to restore it, but couldnt’t bring himself

to lay an intrusive finger upon it. Not only has this car not been raced,

that’s the original paint...”

And so this extraordinary Porsche 550RS slumbered on. Fred Sebald’s

Foreign Auto Shop had been in Glendale, California, and that was

where he cherished No 90 through the 190s. When he opted out

of panel-bashing and into the ski-lodge business he and his equally

Porschephile wife Pat moved into their Sebald’s Bavarian Park Resort,

in picturesque June Lake, California.

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Then owner Fed Sebald and Ritchie Ginther
admire the car, California, 1971

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Ginther blasting along in his
‘Road and Track’ test. 1971

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Then owners the Sebald family with their prized
550 Spyder  Bill Motta

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MOTOR CARS | 139