Randy Carlson's 1963 Porsche 356

Randy grew up surrounded by cars in Southern California, where air-cooled Volkswagens and early Porsches were on every street corner. His father, Richard, was an enthusiast in the truest sense, who didn't just admire cars but used them. Among his treasures, we should mention a 1952 Porsche Pre-A 356 coupe and a '55 Mercedes 300SL Gullwing! A VW Beetle purchased in 1960 served as family transportation until '64, when he spotted a 356 B. "It had been picked up at the factory in Germany over a year earlier by a gentleman from Pennsylvania," adds Randy. "As so often happens with casual car-lot stops, he ended up driving away in the 356, leaving the Beetle behind as a trade-in."

The Porsche quickly settled into daily-driver duty. By the late '60s, it was commuting regularly between Orange County and Los Angeles, racking up miles at a fast pace. By 1979, when it was finally parked, the odometer was nearing 200,000 miles - quite a feat for a sports car! The original engine had certainly endured it all... Randy thinks his dad may have had the heads freshened up at one point, but otherwise, the bottom end remained untouched all those years.

After Richard passed away in 1985, the car entered a quieter phase, with dust settling on its tired shell. Randy acquired it in 1987, but like many long-term projects, it became more of a promise than a priority. At the time, he was building his own path in the air-cooled world, which led him to found a Volkswagen-centric business, oldbug.com. His involvement in the VW scene, including sourcing vehicles for film productions like Herbie: Fully Loaded, kept him busy. You might have seen him on a handful of television shows as well, including appearances as a car appraiser in 13 episodes of Discovery Channel's Sticker Shock a few years ago. Ironically, it also meant that the family Porsche had to wait...

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the 356 only experienced occasional use. Randy experimented with keeping it running, at one point installing a 1776cc Type 1 engine just to get it back on the road. It worked and it was fun to drive, but it never felt quite right. The soul of the car - the original Porsche flat-four - remained sidelined, disassembled, and incomplete.

That period wasn't without its adventures. A drive to Hollywood ended with a UPS truck incident that left a series of pipe-shaped dents across the front end. Marks of this mishap remain today. Earlier damage from his brothers' driving days added to the coupe's battle scars. Unlike a traditional restoration candidate, this 356 wore its dents and scratches with pride, as they told part of the family story.

The turning point came in 2025. A visit to friend and fellow enthusiast Randy Ingersoll led to an unexpected opportunity: a stash of rare and N.O.S. (New Old Stock) Porsche and Volkswagen parts. Among them, he found exactly what he needed to finally rebuild the original engine, including a crankshaft, big-bore cylinders, and heads. Yep, after decades of delay, the numbers-matching drivetrain was back within reach!

The rebuild itself was handled by respected Southern California specialists, with Benton Performance assembling the short block, while Tom's Foreign Autohaus completed the final assembly and tuning. Reuniting the flat-four with the car, after roughly 30 years, proved to be an emotional moment, as friends and fellow enthusiasts gathered to lend a hand in Randy's garage. This was the air-cooled VW and Porsche scene at its best!

Instead of a conventional restoration, he decided to lean into the car's history, transforming the coupe into a tribute to the famous La Carrera Panamericana race in Mexico. Sign artist Bailey Clayton did a terrific job hand-painting the graphics, many of which carry personal meaning for the Carlson family. This includes Richard's HAM radio call sign ("K6RLN") applied on the fenders, as well as the "Hotel California" lettering, nodding to both geography and music. Such tributes ensure that Randy's father is always part of the journey. Even the "dirt" on the body is intentional! Randy applied a mix of thinned-down, dirt-colored water-based house paint to evoke the look of a race car, fresh off the rugged roads of Baja.

More importantly, the coupe is now driven. A 400-mile trip to Monterey Car Week proved that the 356 is no longer a static heirloom but a functioning piece of family history. Randy comments: "It was the first time I felt like I was driving the car the way my father drove it: hard and fast - and with a smile on my face!"

Randy doesn't talk about finishing the car anymore. There's no final stage where it becomes something else. It's already there. The dents, the paint, the miles, the stories. It's perfect just the way it is!