The Porsche 597 is a Cabriolet from Porsche, built from 1953 to 1958, at the height of the post-war boom. Under the bonnet: Air-cooled 1.5 L boxer.
How it came about
The Porsche 597 Jagdwagen (hunting car) is a light 4WD military vehicle, designed in the 1950s to fill the same general military role as the VW Kübelwagen, the US Jeep and British Land-Rover. Originally developed as a prototype for a 1953 tender to the West German police and a future West German Army, the car never reached mass production after the DKW Munga was chosen over it for reasons of economics. The 597 was propelled by an induced air-cooled flat-four taken from the Porsche 356, located in the rear of the vehicle like the VWs and Porsches of the period; first in an amended version of the 1.5 litre, with a later bump to 1.6 in the l-model. This engine had an output of around 37 kW (50 HP). Together with a vehicle weight of 990 kilograms a maximum speed of around 100 kilometers per hour could be achieved. For transmission, a 5-speed manual box with additional on-the-fly two/four wheel drive shifter was provided. With its short wheelbase of 2,060 mm, the vehicle had the ability to climb steep grades of up to 65%. The prototype body of the car was manufactured by Porsche's own Stuttgart Body Works with later versions (stabilized with torsion bars) coming from Karmann. The monocoque shell came with no doors and high sills, meaning passengers needed to climb over them to enter and exit the vehicle; The upside of this design being that the body was buoyant and amphibious. Later versions of the body came with rigid doors and exhibit a more steeply dropping angle to the front wings/fenders and bonnet–hood.
The Porsche 597 'Hunting Car', alongside the Goliath Type 31 'Hunting
The hardware
Power comes from Air-cooled 1.5 L boxer; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. It weighs 990 kg-1090 kg. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Chevrolet Corvette, the Cadillac Eldorado, the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL — show what else the money bought that year. Its Porsche stablemates include the Porsche P1 and the Porsche Type 12.
What it costs now
There is no federal ownership record for the Porsche 597 — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.