The X---- Porsche cars

[Porschinelle]

In 1968 the Albert RS Porsche was change back to a Lotus 23 and sold
Frantz Albert replace it with a Ford GT40

that he raced in 1968 and 1969
From 1970 to 1980 Albert race sole special serie cars prepare by his own company
A Camaro first



and then a BMW Turbo

Frantz Albert is still alive today

[Jbrooks]

Porschnille

In your archive of racing data from Europe could it be possible to research 1300cc Porsche speedster in Europe from 1961-68. I am looking for photos of a T-2 speedster competing is a lower class with a 1300s motor. Maybe in airport, hill climb or rally racing. Is appears to be a street-able car with roll bar and body mounted fog lights. Red with black top and interior.

Thank you
John Brooks, jbrooks@pyrogen.com

[Porschinelle]

Two days ago I post the below pics at the end of the Huy 12 Hours race story

[Porschinelle]

These three pics are a good introduction to the next story : APAL-Porsche and the people who were at the originof the APAL epic, Edmond Pery and Roland d'Ieteren
Edmond Pery was born in February 1931 in a quite modest background with a father customs officer
After basic studies he left school qute early and went to work in the maintenance service of a Steel plant
His father was pushing him to became civil servant and he was continuing to study after the working hours but Edmond was already passionated by cars
From his job he got a very eclectic education
Very soon he open his own auto shop where he started to modify and built cars for his own use
In 1947 at the age of 16 he modify an old Amilcar pick up into a nice little sport roadster

[Porschinelle]

In 1951 at the age of 20 he had to join the Belgian army for 21 months to accomplish his military service
His job was to translate from English into French the technical brochures of the US Military equipments supplied by the USA to Belgium in the context of the "Marshall plan"
job who help him to improve his English to a quite good level
Back from the army in 1953 he came back to work for the steel industry and continued to improve his education by evening courses
In 1954 he join Piedboeuf one of the most important Belgian bewery as foreman responsible of 50 people
His duty cover a large spectrum from production maintenance to delivery lorries repair exhibition stands building etc
In parallel he continue to run his auto repair shop outside his working hours
In 1955 he heard that the Liege University was looking for somebody to became coachwork teacher and got the job
In 1958 for his wedding he built for himself starting from a VW beetle chassis
an US style car
He used this white and red car for his wedding trip in Sicily : over 3000 kilometers without any problem

[Porschinelle]

[Porschinelle]

About at the same time he was ask by his employer Piedboeuf to move from maintenance to production and having refused he was sacked with quite a large amount of money which allowed him to work full time in his garage but still keeping his coachwork teaching job
He had as student a young guy named Bruno Vidick whose dream was to built cars
Bruno Vidick was the son of the larger Liege stove maker and the son in law of Raskin a very important steel presses builder for the car industry

[Porschinelle]

[Porschinelle]

Now why Polyester and why d'Ieteren

Edmond from his job when he was in the army had kept close contact with the US industry and realise that reinforced polyester was a much cheaper way to build coachwork than aluminium
d'Ieteren because to build cars Edmond and Bruno Vidick needed to start from something existing : VW chassis

[Porschinelle]

Before to continue the APAL story a small disgression on the d'Ieteren brothers company
This company was creeated in 1805 to build horsecoaches

After the 1st WW the companhy move to car coachwork on bare chassis from known company as Minerva (Belgium) or Panhard (France)

[Porschinelle]

After the 2nd WW d'Ieteren decide to move to car manufacture
An agreement was first sign with Studebaker to build Studebaker for Europe in a bright new plant built in 1948 in the Forest Bruxelles suburb
Pierre d'Ieteren deposing the first stone of the new Studebaker plant in 1948

[Porschinelle]

At about the same period (194 an agreement was sign to first sale into Belgium and then build the VW bug
A further agreement was sign with Porsche in 1950
From 1948 to 1970 : 835.236 were built in the Forest plant
795.581 VW bug
16.650 VW combi
636 Karmann Ghia
7124 Porsche 356 including 269 Roadster D
18759 Studebaker
2916 Studebaker lorries
60 Packard

[Porschinelle]

[Porschinelle]

[Porschinelle]

And now you understand how it was easy for Edmond and Bruno V being friends with the d'Ieteren family, to obtain as much VW chassis, VW parts and engines, Porsche engines and Porsche parts they wanted
Where Edmond and Bruno were cleaver is that when they realised they will never make any money by making and selling cars, they decided to run an independant polyester business who will provide the necessary cash to allow them to realise their dream of building cars without ruining the company
By their connection with Raskin they started to produce plastic protection for the steel presses and then obtain the exclusivity for the production of very sophisticated beams used in all the airport runnway in order to allow the pilot to maintain his landing trajectoire by aligning one beam after the other
This business last for many years and was very very profitable