CITY SURFER

City Surfer

Taking a Porsche 356 to one of Munich's most unique urban pastimes

“We have pros coming by all the time and trying it out. It's very strange in the beginning because you're basically stationary and you're dealing with water which moves underneath you. It's very odd, but when you get used to it, it's actually quite nice.”

Two time Olympic snowboarder and one of the minds behind Banzai Skateboards, Christophe Schmidt is naturally proficient on anything with the word “board” involved. After a day at the office, we dropped in with Christophe in Munich to check out one of the most surprising parts of the city: the Eisbach Wave, a fully-fledged river surfing wave in the middle of the city.

“I did the Olympics twice and full time for about 10 years after graduating from school. But I did World Cups already when I was, I don't know, 15, 16. So I had the luck to be able to travel a lot even when I was still in school. I had a lot of missing school days and traveled all over the world to do my competitions. And then when I did it full time, I did pretty much 50/50 competitions and snowboard films.

The industry was really strong, and that was all the culture had, no huge energy drinks sponsors. And for them the snowboard movies counted more than competitions. Very similar to skateboarding in the early days. My friend who made them also made some of the films for Weekend Heroes. The bigger ones were called the Isenseven series.

I started skateboarding and snowboarding at the same time - when I was 11. Back in those days, that was really early, and then surfing a little bit later. So I always did the three sports in parallel. And of course they are very similar.

From the first money I earned in snowboarding, I bought my first old Porsche, a ’71 2.2 911S Targa in conda green, which I still own today. I bought it when I was 20. This 356 I bought eight years later. After the Targa I built a very small old Porsche collection. I had a really nice 993 S, but then I was always on the look out for a 356 Speedster, Convertible or Roadster. I looked for a couple of years - all over the world - to find a good car at a decent price. And then I ended up buying this car, I don't know, five minutes from my home.

"I started skateboarding and snowboarding at the same time - when I was 11."

It was really funny. I had seen the owner with the car a couple of years back and I always told him when I saw him, that if he sells one day, he needs to let me know. And then he said, ‘You know, I'm really attached to this car because I got married in this car, or I took it to my wedding with my wife. So I cannot really sell it.’ But yeah, it was one day he tells me, ‘Okay, I'm ready to sell it.’

"From the first money I earned in snowboarding, I bought my first old Porsche."

I drive it quite frequently, I like it a lot. I take it to my office, I have the surfboard here. It's such a simple car, always works. I put the surfboard in, I drive over to the river, jump in. This is basically what I do in the summertime.”