The “Automotion Roadster” started life as a stock 1960 Porsche 356 Roadster Super 90 (#88078), Royal Blue (6012), southern California car. In the mid 60’s the car was purchased by Dieter Vongehr, the owner and operator of a well known Porsche shop in San Diego, Dieter’s Foreign Car Service.

When Dieter bought the car it was still a street stock car in the original Royal Blue color. During his ownership the car broke a rod and destroyed the original Super 90 case (800831), he replaced it with a 356 C engine.

In February 1967 Dieter had the Roadster at Riverside Raceway to participate in a time trial. He had been doing some track days with the car and had purchased a roll bar for the car, but had not found time to install it. He was driving on a set of recapped Goodyear Blue Streak tires and a friend offered to let him swap wheels and tires so Dieter could try a ‘real’ set of Blue Streaks.

Dieter was surprised with how much better the new tires worked and kept increasing his speed with each run. Carrying a passenger with him, he pushed a bit too much and the car got sideways between turn 6 and 7, spun into the infield and rolled. The Roadster windshield frame did not collapse and saved both driver and passenger from injury.

Dieter’s insurance company had not included an exclusion in the policy for track use, and they ended up totaling the car and paying him off. Dieter in turn bought the car back from the insurance company as a total.

During the mid 60’s Dieter and Dick Barbour started a business in San Diego called ‘Automotion’. They supplied the Southern California racing community with a wide variety of racing, rallying and driving equipment as well as race car building and preparation.

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By March 1968 Dick appeared to be well on his way to a bright future in Porsche racing, he was featured on the cover of Gridlines racing the now silver #6 Roadster. Inside the magazine he was listed as the early season points leader in the SCCA ‘E Production’ class.

At the time Barbour was still racing with only a ‘regional’ SCCA license, but the April issue of Gridlines reported, “Dick Barbour drove a fine race Saturday in the Automotion Porsche to a sixth overall, fourth in EP finish. After getting a special waiver and his National license (he was one regional race short), he drove to a fine third in class and fourth overall Sunday.” This issue also featured a nice racing photo of Barbour driving the car.

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Well into the race, Dennis was exiting from a pit stop and was waved out of the pit road by a track worker who thought an oncoming car would clear the end of the pit exit before Dennis got there. The two cars collided; the Roadster was hit hard in the door and knocked out of the race.

The Internet and email are amazing tools; they have been invaluable in finding photos and information on the Roadster. Surfing the web I discovered Frank Sheffield’s web site where he has documented much of Southern California’s 1960’s car racing and track history.

I emailed Frank to inquire if he remembered the car and he replied, “You’ve made a very good purchase. That is, and was, an excellent car. I spent many happy hours at racetracks where Dick Barbour was the entrant and driver of that car. He was very much involved in the San Diego SCCA region during those years. Dick was partner in Automotion, a repair, preparation and accessories business in San Diego, where ‘local tech’ took place.

At one Holtville event he was contesting the overall win with another, similar car, and they rubbed fenders more than a little. I was an observer on Turn Five, where a good deal of the action took place. After the race, while helping the marshals police the track, I found a “Super 90″ emblem from Dick’s car. It was bent and twisted, and roughed up considerably. It was no good to him, so I kept it on the wall of my workshop for years. I’ll bet it’s still around here.”

Another Porsche Roadster driver and racer, John Straub, reports that Barbour wanted to use a door off of his Roadster to continue the race. John took the accompanying photo at the enduro race, prior to the accident (thank you!).

Frank was able to supply scans of the Gridlines magazine and the emblem above to help document the cars history (thank you!).

In early 1969 Barbour received a 904 race car from Germany and sold the Roadster to another San Diego Porsche enthusiast, Don Trueblood. Barbour has provided a letter documenting his ownership, as well as Dieter Vongehr’s and Don Trueblood’s.

Barbour went on to become one of the legends of endurance racing. Driving the renowned Porsche 935, Barbour and his co-drivers had three consecutive class wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans (1978, 79, 80).

In 1980 Barbour, his team and the 935 proved to be almost unbeatable with 14 wins including Le Mans, 12 Hours of Sebring, Road Atlanta Grand Prix, Mosport 1000K’s, Daytona, Sears Point Grand Prix, Grand Prix of Laguna Seca, Portland Grand Prix and others. The Barbour team walked away with the overall IMSA Championship and was the first American team to be awarded the coveted Porsche Cup (dickbarbourracing.com).

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Don was successfully importing and selling Porsches when he and his wife Cita decided to move to Germany for an opportunity work with Porsche. Anticipating only staying in Europe for a couple of years, they kept their home in San Diego and stored the Roadster in their garage.

One European business opportunity lead to another, and another, and the Trueblood’s ended up living in Europe for over 30 years. All the while the Roadster sat in their garage in nice dry Southern California.

In early 2003 the Trueblood’s decided it was time to sell the Roadster and a deal was struck with a collector car dealer in Southern California. Initially the dealer planned to keep the car for himself and prepare it for vintage racing.

In the summer of 2003, while on a Southern California vacation, Jo and I visited the dealership. Everyone was out to lunch except the receptionist and she encouraged us to “just look around”. This seemed to me like an offer to go beyond just the showroom. As I made my way down the side of the building I peeked in a door and discovered the Roadster in a back storage room.

My (admittedly amateur) view is that vintage race cars come in one of three groups:

1. Period street cars, where the actual car in question has no race history, but has been built to be “just like” the old race cars. You see a lot of Porsche 911’s and 356’s, BMW 2002’s, Alfa’s, etc. in this group.

2. Cars with documented period race history. These are the actual cars that were raced in the day, usually in some type of club racing like SCCA.

3. Famous cars with race history. Same as #2 above, but these cars were either raced by someone famous or they won some famous races.

I inquired about the car and was initially told it wasn’t for sale, but I could talk to the owner when he got back. With further investigation we discovered the Barbour connection, which even got me more excited as I realized I’d discovered a #3 car. We were again told the car wasn’t for sale, but we were getting mixed signals from the staff as we were also told the car may be headed to the RM Auction during the Monterey Historics weekend.

Over the next few hours, and then days, I made several calls to Rod and Gary Emory in Oregon, trying to determine a value on the car. Simultaneously I was trying to get the dealer to agree to sell the car. After several days of negotiating, reviewing the ownership documents and just plain wondering if I was nuts, I agreed with myself that opportunities like this don’t come along every day, so we bought the Roadster (including a very rare Roadster hardtop)

At the time, I recognized the Roadster as a time capsule vintage race car with lots of patina (a #2 car above) with hand painted numbers, out of date tires and old mirrors. I was very excited as I had been talking a lot with Rod Emory, of Emory Motorsports, about finding an open cockpit 356 vintage race car to replace my 1968 911 race car. My preference was to find a #2 car with race history. But, I would have accepted a nice #1 car, while a #3 car never entered my mind as they are so rare.

We had the car shipped to Emory Motorsports and the consensus between Gary, Rod and me was the same – preserve the original character of the car. They will spray a clear low gloss protective sealant coat over the existing paint and numbers. Overall the body is in reasonably good shape for an old race car that has been rolled and t-boned. The car is virtually rust free and the cracks in the paint add a lot of character, so we have no plans to restore the body (except the hard top).

All of the mechanicals will receive a complete rebuild while staying within the strict “period correct” rules of the Northwest vintage racing group SOVREN. Best case is that the car will be back on the race track late in 2003, but more likely in the spring of 2004. Most of our racing will be in the Northwest, but we will make a few trips a year to California and hope for a slot in the Monterey Historics someday

I would like to pass on my great appreciation to the following people for helping make this story possible. Dick Barbour, Dieter Vongehr, Don and Cita Trueblood, Frank Sheffield and John Straub.

Do you have more to add to this story? I’d love to hear from you if you have additional information, corrections or photographs. Please contact me here, thank you!

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Dick Barbour 356 Porsche Restoration Photos