Before Panamera.(Escape Roads)(Porsche AG's Beutler Porsche Coupes and Cabriolet )

Byline: JAN TEGLER

In early 2005, Porsche revealed that it would build a four-seat, four-door sports sedan dubbed the Panamera. Due in showrooms in 2009, the Panamera will be the company's first true four-door car. Contrary to widespread belief however, it will not be Porsche's first true four-seater. Yes, 911s and 928s have token back seats, but they're fit only for children or those who are vertically challenged. We're talking about real back seats.

Ferry Porsche harbored a desire to produce a four-seat sports tourer as early as the late 1940s when the first Porsches, the original Gmund-built 356s appeared. In 1959, Porsche reunited with Swiss coachwork manufacturer Beutler and created its first true production four-seaters, the Beutler Porsche Coupes and Cabriolet.

"Reunited'' is an apt term for the German manufacturer's relationship with the Swiss coachbuilder. Near the end of World War II, Porsche relocated from Stuttgart to Gmund, Austria. It was in Gmund where the company crafted its first car, the Type 356 roadster, in 1947. Swiss advertising executive Reinhold von Senger purchased the prototype and enthusiastically contracted to buy the first 50 examples of the Type 356/2 coupe in 1948. The order established Porsche as a manufacturer. Raw materials and parts, virtually unavailable in postwar Austria and Germany, also were supplied by the Swiss. In return, Porsche sent bare 356/2 chassis to von Senger and his partner, car dealer Bernard Blank. Several body-less chassis were forwarded to a firm near Bern, Switzerland-Beutler Brothers. There, the aluminum body for the first production cabriolet, 356-003, was designed and hammered out. Ernst and Fritz Beutler built six more cabriolets between 1948 and 1949.

Porsche was so impressed by the Alpine coachbuilder's work that the company proposed Beutler be the exclusive manufacturer of cabriolet bodies. Not wishing to be limited to any one carmaker, Ernst Beutler declined. But 10 years later, Beutler purchased ...