Photo: Auto Trader - Private Seller
How'd you like to buy your very own vintage Porsche 550 racing sports car? Well, unless you have a spare several million dollars lying around under your mattress, that's not going to happen. A better sell is to build an all-new chassis and body that looks identical to the old Porsche, but at a price most sports car buyers can afford.
Meet the Beck Spyder, a car that looks so strikingly and uncannily similar to the Porsche 550 that you'd be hard-pressed to distinguish between the two with their badges removed. The 550 of legend sported a proprietary air-cooled 1.5 liter flat-four boxer engine. Such an engine would be difficult to reproduce today, so your choices on the Beck Spyder could vary in manufacturer from Alfa Romeo to Volkswagen and even other Porsche engines.
The body is honed from only a few separate pieces of rolled aluminum with a red leather interior and matching red steering wheel. The interior of the original 550 was pretty darn spartan in its own right, so no need to complain about its lack of luxury features. This particular example comes sporting a 2,160 cc Volkswagen engine, one of the higher displacement engines capable of fitting underneath the small rear engine hatch.
The car also comes with a black ragtop, removable by hand or by completely disconnecting it from the car and placing it in a garage. There's also a red tonneau cover on offer from the seller. Either would make the Spyder a fair bit easier to drive in less than ideal conditions. Why would anyone ever want to drive this machine in the rain or in the snow? We have no earthy idea. But it makes for a package just as authentically race-inspired as 550 Spyders of old. Although you'll never find one of these replicas selling for the gargantuan prices, we see real ones sell fairly regularly. Only 90 or so 550s were ever produced, so this isn't all that surprising.
This example was manufactured sometime in 1997 and has seen only 820 miles (1,319 km) of road time since brand new. The car was garaged in a climate-controlled dwelling for the last 24 years. Even so, the unrelenting Florida Humidity has taken a bit of a toll. A few blemishes of rust can be seen on some of the chrome trim pieces and on the forged steel steering wheel. None are issues that can't be repaired with a decent body shop and a little bit of money.
The car is for sale via AutoTrader in Islamorada, Florida, for $32,500 before taxes and fees. Based on that math, you could buy a fleet of 200 Beck Spyders for the cost of the most expensive Porsche 550 Spyder ever sold at auction. Not a bad deal at all.
The body is honed from only a few separate pieces of rolled aluminum with a red leather interior and matching red steering wheel. The interior of the original 550 was pretty darn spartan in its own right, so no need to complain about its lack of luxury features. This particular example comes sporting a 2,160 cc Volkswagen engine, one of the higher displacement engines capable of fitting underneath the small rear engine hatch.
The car also comes with a black ragtop, removable by hand or by completely disconnecting it from the car and placing it in a garage. There's also a red tonneau cover on offer from the seller. Either would make the Spyder a fair bit easier to drive in less than ideal conditions. Why would anyone ever want to drive this machine in the rain or in the snow? We have no earthy idea. But it makes for a package just as authentically race-inspired as 550 Spyders of old. Although you'll never find one of these replicas selling for the gargantuan prices, we see real ones sell fairly regularly. Only 90 or so 550s were ever produced, so this isn't all that surprising.
This example was manufactured sometime in 1997 and has seen only 820 miles (1,319 km) of road time since brand new. The car was garaged in a climate-controlled dwelling for the last 24 years. Even so, the unrelenting Florida Humidity has taken a bit of a toll. A few blemishes of rust can be seen on some of the chrome trim pieces and on the forged steel steering wheel. None are issues that can't be repaired with a decent body shop and a little bit of money.
The car is for sale via AutoTrader in Islamorada, Florida, for $32,500 before taxes and fees. Based on that math, you could buy a fleet of 200 Beck Spyders for the cost of the most expensive Porsche 550 Spyder ever sold at auction. Not a bad deal at all.
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