The X---- Porsche cars

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Working on a future topic dedicated to the European Hillclimb Championship that Porsche won 19 times out of the 23 possible from 1957 to 1967
Why 23 possible victories when there his only 11 years between 1957-1967 ?
Just because if from 1957 to 1959 included there was only one European Hillclimb Champion, from 1960 to 1966 there were two European Champions (one for the Sport Cars, one for the GT cars) and from 1967 to 1971 4 off European Champions per year : Serial cars, Touring cars, Sport cars and GT cars

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One of the most popular European Hillclimb Champion was Heini Walter from Switzerland

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Son of a garagist, Heini Walter started to race for his plaesure just after the end of the 2nd WW on a Bugatti
He took over his father business and was never a professionnal driver, but a wealthy "gentleman driver" in a certain way the same profile than the Dutch pilot Ben Pon
His palmares include 3 European Hill climb champion title (1960 on a RS60-1961 on a RS 61 and 1964 on a 904GTS in the GT class) and 4 vice Championj title, all on Porsche

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The 1st European Hill clib Championship was raced in 1957 but hill climb races had always been very popular in Austria, Germany, Swiss and in the French Alps
In 1955 Heini Walter bought a Merkel-Porsche

and raced it extensively mainly in Switzerland and won the totality of the races he entered
Harry Merkel the builder of the Merkel-Porsche told him when he bought this car that the engine was a 1100 cc Porsche
This car was so fast that Heini Walter competitors put a claim against him and asked for the engine capacity to be checked :
Indeed this car had a 1300 cc Porsche engine and Heini Walter was disqualyfied

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Heini Walter was very affected by this affair and decided to come back in 1956 with a new car : a Sauter-Porsche

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Despite the fact that this car built, by the Zurich pilot and race car constructor Heinrich Sauter had a 1500 Fuhrmann Heini Walter did not won many races and finish the year by a very serious crash with it in the 1956 Ursanne Les Rangiers hill climb
For 1957, the first year of the European Championship Heini Walter bought a Porsche 550 spyder (550-010) and in 1958 another one 550 (550-042 ex Carel Godin de Beaufort)
In 1959 a bought a 718 RSK (718-029) and in 1960 a RS60 (718-042)

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Merkel-Porsche ?
Sauter-Porsche ?
I decided to do some search on these 2 Swiss small sportcars constuctors and discovered that Merkel had a link with Rometsch a German car constructor also known for his Porsche powered cars and also that Heini Walter help another Swiss sportcars constructor Enzmann,gave me the idea to rewrite a topic (Porsche competitors)I wrote 2 years ago before Justin had to close his original site and to re-open the one you all know and appreciate today
I have call this topic : the X---Porsche cars

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So the first X---Porsche car constructor I will start with will be Kurt Sauter
Kurt Sauter was running a coachbuilder company in Basel (Switzerland)
He was also fan of racing and drove his own Sauter-Porsche prototype of the America roadster in races such as Liege/Rome/liege or the Nurburing or a 356 steel Gmund style Stuttgart in the 1951 Tour de France Auto
I discovered him some weeks ago which lead meto post some pics on the Historical races topic

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From 1948 to 1960 Kurt Sauter built around 30 off race cars
The first one appear to be this Sauter Fiat

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After this car Kurt Sauter build on A356 chassis (probably on a Porsche a roadster who was presented to Max Hoffmann as what will become the America roadster

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More interesting is that end 1955, Heini Walter, one of his good friend, asked him to build him a light spyder to compete in the 1956 S

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Sorry wrong manipulation I continue
Heini Walter asked Kurt Sauter to build him a light sport car inspired by the Porsche 550 spyder to enter the 1956 Swiss Hillclimb Championship

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I have seen that Andrew list this car as an unknown 550
This car was built end 1955/first months of 1956 so nearly 2

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May be I have too much posted today the site appear to be very nervous and the post leave without any notice
Anyway it is true that this car is very similar to the 550 spyder
Based on the fact that this car was built end 1955/first months of 1956 ie more than 2 years after the original Porsche spyder, make me thinck that Kurt Sauter built this car as we will say to day : a"tribute" car
What is certain is that although this car was fitted with a real 4 cams 1500 cc Fuhrmann engine (number 90022) the performances were not the ones that Heini Walter expected, which decided him to buy an original 550 for the 1959 season
This car still exist today