MAKING IT YOUR OWN

Making it your own

Why some cars just work better once you learn to make them your own.

Having owned it for 23 years, Martijn de Haas and his 356 have been through a lot together. It began as a bare shell and a disorganised box of parts, but each passing year has seen it improve just a little further.

As with so many air cooled Porsche fans, Martijn started with Beetles as a teenager. He found work at a small VW workshop, one of the many independent garages that kept these ageing cars alive throughout the 1980s. He spent what money he made on his own Beetle, working on customer cars by day and his own by night. That was all he needed for a while, until one day when his uncle showed up in a silver-grey 356.

The proportions, the unmistakable beat of the flat-four, the effortless way it outperformed his beloved Beetle. It immediately became the car to have. Two decades later, he spotted this 356 in an online ad.

“At the time, you could still find a decent 356 for around €10k” Martijn says. “The one I found had been stripped down entirely. The shell was sitting on a trolley waiting for paint, and all its components were packed away in boxes.”

The deal seemed too good to be true. The gearbox had been rebuilt, and the paperwork showed €30k worth of body restoration. It looked like the bargain of a lifetime, until he discovered why it had become an abandoned project. The previous owners, once business partners, had fallen out. During their dispute, one of them had been quietly carrying away parts whenever he could.

“The seats were gone, so were the instruments, steering wheel, trim, wheels, and a large number of engine components. I spent countless hours on eBay looking for replacements and four and a half years later, the car was back to how it looked from the factory. Dark grey paint, burgundy interior, and all rebuilt with original parts.”

Following years of painstaking work, Martijn had finally returned his 356 to a factory state. It was a long effort to get there, but somehow he couldn’t quite enjoy it. The chrome sparkled, the panels sat precisely where they should, and yet he never quite connected with it.

“The engine never felt right. It leaked oil and simply didn’t run the way it should have. It was the first 356 engine I’d ever rebuilt, so perhaps that shouldn’t have been a surprise”, Martijn chuckles. But there was something else too. “Whenever I attended Porsche meetings, my car disappeared into dozens of other immaculate 356s. Apart from the colour, it could have been any one of them.”

He spent what money he made on his own Beetle, working on customer cars by day and his own by night. That was all he needed for a while, until one day when his uncle showed up in a silver-grey 356.

"I spent countless hours on eBay looking for replacements and four and a half years later, the car was back to how it looked from the factory."

If the engine had to come apart again, he decided it would return stronger. Seven years ago, he found an unlikely starting point: a 912 engine that had spent decades powering a fire pump. During the 70s and 80s these industrial conversions were more common. So Martijn rebuilt that engine from the ground up, starting with oversized 1720cc cylinders. Reworked heads with a sport camshaft then gave it an output of 120 horsepower.

“The difference was remarkable. Suddenly the car was everything I’d hoped it would be - light, eager and genuinely fast.” Then came another revelation. A visit to California and the LA Lit Show introduced him to outlaw culture. “It completely changed my perspective. Back home I started with small changes. I experimented with wheels, the bumpers came off, the suspension went down, and I built most of the exhaust system myself.

This is the car I always wanted, even before I knew it. I've recently driven more than 6,000 kilometres across Europe with Porsche friends, without a single issue. It no longer needs to be concours perfect. It simply needs to be driven.”