PCA—Porsche Club of America welcomed a special guest at this year’s Tech Tactics West, Rod Emory, founder and owner of Emory Motorsports. He came to speak about the
history of “Outlaw” Porsches and, crucially, go in-depth about a car he recently restored: the first Porsche to win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in 1951.
One of Rod’s longtime clients obtained the Gmünd Porsche 356 SL from the estate of its late former owner, who had raced it every single year since 1957 until the day he died in 2009. You may have seen it at the Monterey Historics, but it was
unrecognizable. For the better part of 50 years it was a convertible, the owner unaware of the car’s early history at Le Mans, before the roof was chopped off. It was the first Outlaw 356, before Rod and his father, Gary, coined the term while churning out tastefully modified Porsches decades ago.
