Porsche will celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2023. The company’s first model, the 356, arrived in June 1948, and the automaker is honoring its past with the new Vision 357 concept. The Porsche Style team is working to reinterpret the 356 for the modern era.
“This concept car is an attempt to merge past, present and future with coherence,” said Michael Mauer, vice president of Style Porsche. The 357 adopts its original proportions while featuring stylistic details that point to the future.
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One of the most striking things about this concept is its subtlety. There are no door handles – the designers hid them in the rear window. The camera replaces the traditional rear view mirror. At the front and rear, Porsche hid the lights behind perforations in the body panels while integrating a third brake light into the rear grille motif, one of several callbacks to the original 356.
Early 356s featured a split windshield with a bar down the middle. While such accents weren’t present on the Vision 357, Porsche played with the concept glass, wrapping it around the black A-pillars to unite the three window elements into one piece and resemble a helmet visor. Twenty-inch magnesium wheels with “aerodynamically advantageous” carbon fiber hubcaps sit in the corners.
Porsche finished off the exterior with a two-tone paint scheme with Ice Gray Metallic covering most of the car and Grivola Gray Metallic accenting the front bumper. Large “75” stickers adorn the doors and hood, while subtle “357” stickers are on the front fender and rear fascia. The company even marked the air inlet on the rear side window with an “Air” sticker and an arrow pointing to the inlet. The 357 exhausts its exhaust through a bluish-looking titanium exhaust pipe that has a ceramic interior.
The Vision 357 is a styling concept, putting the powertrain on the back burner. However, Porsche built the car on the technology platform of the 718 Cayman GT4 RS, lending itself to the naturally aspirated 4.0-liter flat-six engine concept. It “theoretically pulls” 493 horsepower (362 kilowatts) from the block. The company said it would design a mid-mounted powertrain to accommodate synthetic fuels, not that Porsche indicated plans to manufacture the car.
The public will get a chance to see the concept at a special exhibition in Berlin celebrating 75 years of the Porsche sports car. The exhibition at the Volkswagen Group Drive Forum opens on January 27 and runs until mid-February, with Porsche planning to present the concept at other international events throughout the year.
