The 1958 Alken D2
Hi Gang…
Go Alken!
We may have found just four (or perhaps five) Alken D2 sports cars so far but lucky for us – vintage information is still being shared and revealed from long lost archives across the USA. Recently, Petersen Publishing archives put some of their collection online thanks to the hard work of their senior archivist Thomas Voehringer. Some of these photos posted were from a 1958 photo shoot of the Alken D2 sports car by veteran photographer Bob D’Olivo.
When I wrote to Bob about these photos he shared that although the “shoot” was many years ago and he couldn’t remember much about it, the person in the car was a Motor Trend writer – Wayne Thoms. I’ll take any information that’s new – thank you 🙂
Let’s check out these photos:
Petersen Publishing Archive Photos of the Alken:
Did The Car In The Photos Survive?
The answer is…..yes indeed. It has been restored by the current owner Jeff Lipnichan. Let’s check out a few photos of Jeff’s Alken D2 sports car.
Jeff and Karen Lipnichan Standing in front of their 1958 Alken D2 Sports Car
Summary:
It’s fun to see a car like the Alken D2 come full circle – from its introduction to the public in 1958 to its restoration and debut 50+ years later. Jeff Lipnichan did a beautiful job on the restoration of this car and set the bar high for all of us Alken owners to follow.
And for those of you who want to explore the Petersen Archives in greater detail, have fun and click on the link below:
Click Here To View Photos That Are Part of the Petersen Publishing Archives
Hope you enjoyed the story, and remember…
The adventure continues here at Undiscovered Classics.
Geoff
Thanks Geoff, we love the car and have endless questions when we take it to shows. People poured their dreams and fortunes into these early fiberglass cars. We were fortunate to have so much documentation and pictures of our Alken to aide in the restoration
The whole rebuild is captured on a thread on the Samba and included on the link below.
https://www.thesamba.com/vw//forum/viewtopic.php?t=539063&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
The restoration looks so much better with Porsche 356 wheels, engine, Speedster seats and banjo steering wheel. Did the restorer fabricate the Alken D2 dash emblem, which is similar in design to the emblem Porsche used on the Speedster, Convertible D and Roadster models?
We found a 3D printer in Pittsburgh that was making 300SL Gullwing logos. They printed the dash logo in stainless, polished and chromed it. Good group.