Few cars have had more racing success and are more legendary than the Porsche 550 Spyder. From the model’s first competitive outing (at the time it was known simply as Type 550) in May of 1953, Porsche immediately knew it had a winner. In a torrential rainstorm, Helmut Gloeckler piloted 550-01 to the 1,500-cc-class win of the Nürburgring’s Eifelrennen. Inspired by the new car’s instant success, Porsche readied two Type 550s for the Le Mans 24 Hours which was only two weeks away. This second outing turned out to be even better than the first. The team of Paul Frere and Richard von Frankenberg won the 1500-cc class in 550-02 with Gloeckler and Hans Herrmann right behind them in 550-01. From here, international victories began to pile up.
It should, therefore, be no surprise that customers began to line up for the winning Porsche 550 Spyder. All told, approximately 90 550s were constructed (many of them for U.S. customers) with approximately 15 of these being works cars. And they were winners worldwide.
Les Gunnarson is a collector of many things mechanical. He’s a motorcycle maniac, a nonrecovering gearhead, and a racing enthusiast. So it was logical for him to jump from his seat in 1969 when he noticed an advertisement in the Los Angeles Times for a Porsche Spyder. Gunnarson recalls, “My wife and I drove over to Long Beach and this guy had two Spyders sitting in his shop. One car was in pretty decent shape. The other was a much bigger project without an engine. We had just purchased a 904 which required some attention so I was not sure about taking on a big project; but my wife insisted that we buy it. The frame, gearbox, suspension, and roll bar were there, and the underpan still wore its original 1950s red paint. The frame was stamped 0069, but the aluminum body tag was missing. The only history the seller knew was that the car had supposedly been raced by “a woman in Hawaii.”
Armed with the chassis number, Gunnarson was confident that he would be able to research the car’s racing history. Unfortunately, this didn’t turn out to be the case. And while the authenticity of the car as 0069 was never in doubt, Gunnarson was plagued by the uncertainty of his car’s earliest history. And this ate away at him, year after year, even after the car was restored.
Gunnarson’s big break came a few years back at a Los Angeles “Car Night” event when he ran into automotive supersleuth Ron Cummings of Arcadia, California. Over the past decade, Cummings has been responsible for identifying more cars and unraveling more automotive mysteries from the 1950s and 1960s than anyone else on the planet. And Cummings had been involved with Porsches back in the day, so he was naturally intrigued by Gunnarson’s car.
Cumming’s had a vague recollection of a woman racing a Spyder at the 1957 Hawaiian Speed Week. He began researching in this direction and found an article in MotoRacing (Vol. 2, No. 14, May 3-10, 1957) with a photo and caption, “Tetta Richert in Porsche Spyder.” A first clue! More research led Cummings to discover that Richert was famed, outboard speed-boat racer, champion, and World Speed Record–holder Loretta Turnbull (her maiden name). According to Cummings, “Tetta (now married to physician Tom Richert of Hawaii) was scheduled to drive John Edgar’s Porsche Spyder at the ’57 Speed Week at Hawaii. The deal fell through and the ride went to Lance Reventelow after she’d taken publicity photos in the car at her estate. Her brother Ray Turnbull was the promoter of the Speed Weeks and had bought a red Spyder from Jean-Pierre Kunstle. Although he had never even been to a race, he won the Novice event in the red Spyder. She (Richert) also raced the car. What I couldn’t prove was that it was Gunnarson’s car. Then I did a Yahoo search and came up with two obituaries. One of them shows her seated in the red car. The photo clearly shows the identical roll bar that’s in the Gunnarson car.” Mystery solved!
But there was one more piece of the puzzle. And Cummings wasn’t through digging. While at a Fabulous Fifties party at Willow Springs, Cummings happened to run into vintage racecar enthusiast Michael Sheehan. One thing led to another and Cummings learned that Tetta Richert’s daughter was Sheehan’s neighbor in Honolulu. According to Cummings, “Sheehan dialed her up right from the pits of Willow Springs and had her on the phone in two minutes.” And you guessed it. The daughter had the original body tag for Gunnarson’s car!
