1957 Porsche 356A Speedster; assembling the short block. After working on this car for 14 years, taking 10 years to write my book seemed like a piece of cake!.
A little more about me…
It seems like I was destined to be on wheels, as my earliest recollections were about rolling about in or on something with wheels. It was from these experiences that I developed a taste for mechanized fun.
I’ve had a life-long passion for machines, especially automobiles, and since 1966 I’ve either restored, ridden, or raced something. But speedsters were always in the back of my mind.
Speedsters have been a part of my life since I was ten years old. I remember accompanying my father, who was a commercial photographer, on a "shoot" one Saturday. I was his camera boy and I carried his bag full of 4x5 film packs and blue flash bulbs.
The year was 1957, and we went to photograph a 1905 Stanley Model G Speedster that belonged to a friend of his. I distinctly remember the firing of the boiler and fine-tuning the flame to build pressure in that old steam car. The driver mounted the speedster and sat behind the dash controls, grabbed and released a couple of levers, and off he went in a silent =whoosh!=, punctuated by a hissing chu-chug-chug that accelerated in frequency as the car hurtled down the road. I was both transfixed and smitten. I had to have one.
No, I don’t own this 1914 Bearcat speedster. But I write about them in my book. Get your copy today!
About the Author
My name is Ronald Sieber, and I am the author of the book, Classic Speedsters: The Cars, the Times, and the Characters who Drove Them. I’m also the editor of the journal, Classic Speedster.
The book covers 12 companies and 12 famous owners in 12 chapters, plus a passel of speedsters, of course. The journal taps into a wider collection of speedsters and companies, but not in as much depth as found in the book.
Either way, please join me in reading about this type of car. You will soon be plugged into the inner circle of those who know about this topic, a concept of car that has had an underreported but truly phenomenal impact on automotive history and culture.
I’m on my trike in 1949, and my brother Billy was the passenger. It seemed like I always had some wheels!
After a lifetime of careers in education, construction, and manufacturing jobs, plus raising a family, I now find more time to work on the speedsters that come my way. And drive them. Wouldn't you?