Porsche 550

Now, while I’m a man of simple pleasures, I have my indulgences and one of them happens to be automotive scale models. You know the little plastic and metal things that sit on your desk, gathering dust and occasionally falling victim to the vacuum cleaner. Anyway, recently, I acquired a 1:18 scale model of the Porsche 550 Spyder (my fourth) and it’s quite decent. Nicely painted in a rather understated shade of silver, doors, hood, and engine cover that, and even the motor look vaguely convincing. Cost me about fifty bucks. Not bad value, you might think. But then I stumbled upon this… this… thing from the Amalgam Collection that costs $30,000 and I found myself compelled to dig deeper into why the sky-high price tag.

Porsche as a brand has existed since April 1931. After a successful stint with Daimler and the consulting business that included the design and engineering of models like the VW Beetle and the 16-cylinder Auto Union Type 52, things finally started to fall into place, with Ferdinand Porsche’s dream of making the perfect sports car which came out in 1939. That said, the first mass-produced Porsche performance car – the 356 – did not arrive until well after WWII ended, debuting in 1948. Since then, the German marque has developed a stalwart image as one of the most prominent performance car manufacturers in the world. With a history spanning 93 years and counting, there are many iconic models, many of which were significant to Porsche’s development as a brand. Given Porsche’s storied history and rich motorsport heritage, the list of truly noteworthy Porsche models is impressively long. However, I managed to narrow it down to seven Porsche models, with each one being historically significant through the decades, and paving the way for future Porsches.