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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.

First view of the Roadster

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.

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the Roadster as a time capsule vintage race car with lots of patina (a #2 car above) with hand painted numbers, out of date tires and old mirrors.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.

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).

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).

The rare Roadster hardtop will be restored and refinished in black

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.

Mark Powell, Redmond, WA

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 email me here, thank you!

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