1953 Porsche 356 Limousine Custom Right from the Taj Ma Garaj

You Know What You Need?

How many times have you been driving in your limousine and thought, “You know what, this needs to be much more fun to drive.” I know I thought that several times in the past week. Front engined limos are so 1952. What you need, my dear friend is a rear-engined limo. And who could possibly make such an outrageous proposition true? Well, none other than Porsche, of course.  

Taj Ma Garaj

The 1953 Porsche 356 Limousine has quite an interesting backstory. Coming out of the Taj Ma Garaj, an intriguing place that deserves is entire own cover story on its own, the 356 Limo is a one-off car built specifically for John Dixon by Don Boeke. Dixon was the owner of the ostentatious Taj Ma Garaj (he, unfortunately, passed away recently), but also happens to be a massive Porsche fan. His rentable banquet hall has a large number of Porsches scattered throughout the halls, making it quite a unique establishment.  

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Up For Auction

Much of the late owner's collection is up for auction by RM Sotheby’s and features 30 cars and 350 lots of memorabilia on September 28. Truly an impressive collection, it features some special cars, such as the "Casa Linda Lace", a couple of old Porsche tractors, several iterations of 911’s, and even death. The Limo is up there as one of the more unique pieces of inventory going up for auction in September and will drive an interesting cost without reserve.  

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Pieced Together

The front half is based on a 1953 “bent-window” 356. A classic car to start with to say the least. The rear is pieced together from several other donors. The goal was to make the car look as factory stock as possible as if Ferdinand would somehow have approved the design coming across his desk. Which, goal achieved as far as I'm concerned. I thought this was a factory designed piece when I first saw it. They attempted to keep the engine the original 356 flat-four, but the lack of power led them to adopt a later flat-four from a 912 with upgraded pistons and cams. 

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Interior

The interior is so unique, to say the least. The chauffeur compartment was designed to look as factory as possible and used mostly original switches and gauges. A partition separates the front from the rear passengers as having the driver address you is such bad taste. Rear passengers are greeted with drink shelves, a beautiful outside temperature gauge, footrests, a hand-painted ashtray and some luggage space behind the seats. It’s really pretty nice on the inside, the lack of features is made up for by the pure class of the thing.  

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Porsche Pusher

All in all, this truly is a unique piece. As I am not a Porsche fanatic, I did a double-take the first time I saw this as was surprised to learn of its origins. I thought Porsche had done this themselves. The tasteful completion and attention to detail are not enough to fully get me over some of the impracticalities of a rear-engine limo, but that is basically what “pusher busses” are anyways, so maybe this is onto something. Whatever the case, I will surely be following this sale and hopefully seeing this off-kilter limo pulling up to some high-class events in my area. 

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