Why do Porsches have the ignition on the left? – Jalopnik

On March 29, 2019, Wall Street Journal readers were refilling their morning espresso and adjusting their power cords when they came across an article titled, “The real reason why Porsche ignitions stay off the steering wheel.” The gist is that the story that ignitions on the left side of the steering wheel allowed a faster start in the Le Mans races before 1970 is nonsense. Placing the ignition on the left side rather came from a need to save wire in early road-going Porsche 356s, as resources were at a premium in post-war Germany, and Porsche kept it there (mostly) out of tradition. Well, just think, the bomb has dropped.

The specifics of the Le Mans optimized placement are as follows: Before 1970, drivers in the 24 Hours of Le Mans would line up on the track, wait for the flag to drop, sprint to their cars, start them and take off. By placing the ignition on the left side, Porsche would have saved drivers valuable seconds while holding the gear lever with their right hand and inserting the key into the lock with their left hand.

Two incidents led to the practice being abolished: an accident in 1968 that was probably the result of driver Willy Mairesse improperly closing the door of his Ford GT40, and a protesting slow stroll in 1969 by Jacky Ickx, who was barely stuck when other cars had already left but still managed to win the race. In 1970 the drivers were already at the start and in 1971 a rolling start was used.

So if key placement was the key to victory, then that must mean that most pre-1970 Porsche Le Mans cars had the keys on the left side, right? Well no. They may be located on the left side in your average, enjoyable Porsche 356 Super 90 Coupe, but that’s not the case for the vast majority of Le Mans Porsches.

Let’s take a look at the dashboards of Porsche’s Le Mans cars from before 1970. If the ignition is on the same side as the shifter, we call that ‘same’, and the opposite placement will of course be ‘opposite’.

• 356 SL Gmünd Coupé: ditto
• 550s: same thing
• 718s: same thing
• 356 Carrera GTL Abarth: ditto
• 904s: same thing
• 906s: same thing
• 910s: same thing
• 907s: opposite
• 908s: opposite
• 911s: opposite
• 917s: opposite

Seven of the eleven cars had the ignition on the same side as the gear lever. The 907s, 908s and 917s have the steering wheel on the right, but the gear lever is on the right side near the door and the ignition is on the other side of the steering wheel. The 911s have always had an “opposite” key/shifter layout. (Infotainment is more recent, though, so if you want Apple CarPlay in your 996 Porsche 911, you’ll have to get creative.)

Porsche claims in the manuals of its vehicles that the ignition is on the left side, because “in the 1950s European racing events often used a ‘Le Mans Start’, with the drivers sprinting around the track to their cars. Porsche gained a small but vital advantage by placing the ignition switch on the left side.” Well, every Porsche Le Mans race car of the 1950s – 356 SL, 550, 718 – had the key on the right side, so there was no advantage. Listen to the glorious exhaust note of this vintage 550 and notice the key just above the shifter:

Yet somehow Porsche was incredibly successful in the 1950s. In 1955, for example, Porsche 550s took the podium in the 1,500 cc class at Le Mans. They achieved this feat with inflammation on the right side. The right-handed 718 also delivered podium results at Le Mans, as well as at Sebring and the Nürburgring 1000km, races that also used running starts.

The first Porsche-backed car at Le Mans with a left key was the right-hand drive, right-shifter 907 in 1967. The 907 won its class, but it’s not like the 910s and 906s that also competed performed poorly. Oh well, the 906 also won its class.

Porsche has even been inconsistent about the placement of the keys in its road cars. Acclaimed when it launched in 1978, the 928 was a water-cooled, front-engined V8, a radical departure from the air-cooled, six-cylinder, rear-engined 911. The 928s also had an ignition switch on the right side of the steering wheel, as did the gear lever, as did the four-cylinder 944, which debuted in 1982. 1954, Porsche built a road car with a key on the right side: the 356 Speedster. It must have escaped Porsche when it tweeted in 2017 that every consumer model since 1925 had left-handed ignitions.

Returning to that Wall Street Journal article, the author, Dan Neil, spoke with then-curator of the Porsche Museum, Klaus Bischof, in 2008. Bischof told Neil that the placement of the key on the left side of the 1948 Porsche 356-001, the first street-legal Porsche, was simply to save wire. Porsche operated from a former sawmill in Gmünd, Austria, and 200 grams of wire was a real saving.

If ignition placement never seemed to make a difference for Porsche, why continue with the story that it was a performance improvement? Frankly, the “we didn’t have enough wire back in the day” story is a cooler rags to riches type story. Unfortunately, Porsche is withdrawing from the World Endurance Championship after this season due to financial concerns, potentially preventing a Le Mans show. So ‘wealth’ is again a problem.