Porsche prototype pipe

February 2024

Design items are not easy to construct. The designer strives for something new, for quality and uniqueness. It is therefore not surprising that he or she sometimes ventures into a new design countless times before the ideal end result is obtained. This also happened with the now famous Porsche pipe. Inspired by the design of Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, Heinrich Oldenkott from Rees came up with a unique creation in 1988 with the iconic cooling fins. But the story didn't end there. More than ten years later, in 1999, the Dutch Gubbels company continued the production of the Porsche pipe at its own discretion. At that time, the well-known metal top with the characteristic screws was introduced. Then a new, fully curved shape was designed, but that did not go without a hitch. While milling the cooling rings around the pipe bowl, it turned out that the cutter hit the tige and damaged it. A solution had to be found and that was only possible by building the pipe in two parts. The bowl with the constrictions was made separately and then glued on to the base. The first pipe that succeeded in doing so is the example shown here. However, the method was too cumbersome, so this model never came into production. Around the same time, several Porsche pipes were designed that were ultimately not put into production. Fortunately, they ended up in the collection of the Amsterdam Pipe Museum, where they illustrate the trials and errors. These prototypes provide an interesting insight into the process of creating design objects; really something for a museum collection.

Amsterdam Pipe Museum APM 24.703