The Lost Porsche 356 Carrera Speedster Zagato Reborn

The incredible automotive styling of Italian design house Zagato remains worshipped by gearheads, particularly with efforts surrounding Alfa Romeo and Aston Martin. However, Zagato also created a very special racing car for one customer using a Porsche 356 Carrera as the base. The latest Petrolicious film documents this incredible machine.

Created at the request of a French customer who wanted a lighter, and more focused, version of his Porsche 356 racer, this beautiful car was sleek and aerodynamic. Sadly, a crash in its career totally destroyed the car, leaving the Zagato Speedster lost to history.

For Zagato’s centenary, the Italian firm started to look back through its history. Andrea Zagato remarks: ‘We discovered that in 100 years of Zagato, our designs number over 440. Not all of these cars survive today, we call them the lost designs.’

Zagato decided to bring some of these forgotten creations back to life, with the Porsche 356 being one of them. The ‘Sanction Lost’ project would recreate no less than nine Porsche 356 Zagato Speedsters to their exacting original specification.

Afshin Behnia has a close relationship with Zagato and was offered car 000 — the prototype. Using period photographs and the original technical drawings, Zagato were able to perfectly execute their objective. The 3D mapping technology used is incredible to see in action, something the proves that Zagato are still at the cutting edge of coachbuilding. Yet, the actual forming of the car was done by hand, just as the original Speedster was created.

The finished article is a beautiful piece of engineering and design. Watching it dance through the Italian mountains is wonderfully cinematic, with Afshin clearly loving every second behind the wheel of his new pride and joy.

He said: ‘Driving these hills, not too far from Zagato’s headquarters, in the maiden drive of this car is just amazing.’

He also highlights how the lightweight nature of this Porsche makes it fantastically agile, and how its steering and suspension setup make it feel far newer than a design of 1957. It’s a mighty impressive effort by Zagato to revive a design lost for decades.

Source: YouTube