Bring a Trailer has once again posted an ad for a Porsche Type 547/1 Fuhrmann Four-Cam opposite-cylinder engine that the 356 Carrera 1500 RS Speedster and some of the marque’s earliest racecars came equipped with in the 1950s. The asking price is a prohibitive U.S. $220,000.
The prototype unit took Ernst Fuhrmann six months to design. With 1.5 liters of displacement and 100 horsepower (75 kilowatts) at the crank, the mill is primarily unique in that it has two camshafts attached to each cylinder head group. Back in the time, a single camshaft at the bottom of the cylinder assembly was more common.
The Type 547/1 Fuhrmann Four-Cam had a major design flaw, namely, it was so complex that, once broken, repairing it took exorbitant amounts of time and effort.
The gasoline engine passed its first racetrack trials in the spring of 1953, and brought Porsche victories at the 24 Hours of Le-Mans and the Mille Miglia later on that year.