Carrera Panamericana - Legacy

Legacy

Despite being abandoned, the race would not be immediately forgotten. Despite their models being small and often quite underpowered (especially with regard to American and other German opponents) Porsche enjoyed some success in the race, mainly class wins, which was a testament to the reliability engendered by the Volkswagen Beetle ancestry of their cars. Famously, a 550 Spyder won the Small Sports Car category in 1953. Later, some Porsche road cars were named Carrera after this race (in the same theme as the Targas named after the Targa Florio), and in 2009 the company shipped the Panamera, a 4 door touring car with a name inspired by Panamerica.

Also, the race saw famous people from different forms of auto racing converge in one event, making for an interesting mix of competitors. A few of the famous names involved in the race were:

• Bill France, Sr., Curtis Turner and Marshall Teague of stock car racing
• Mickey Thompson, Clay Smith and Ak Miller, famous hot-rodders
• Tony Bettenhausen, Walt Faulkner, and Jerry Unser from open wheel 'Indy' car racing
• Alberto Ascari and Juan Manuel Fangio, Formula One champions at the time; and Phil Hill, who would later be a Formula One champion
• Dan Gurney and Richie Ginther, American road racers who would one day drive for Ferrari in Formula One
• Jean Trévoux, Robert Manzon, Louis Chiron from France, winners of the 24 Hours of Le Mans as well as major international rallies
• Hermann Lang, Karl Kling and Hans Herrmann from Germany
• Piero Taruffi, Umberto Maglioli and Felice Bonetto, all already famous Italian race drivers.

These were the best in the world at that time and even fifty years later it is acknowledged that these are key people in the formation of modern motor racing.