When Frenchman Louis Malavieille bought a Porsche 356 in 1955, he had one goal: taking his family on a sports car adventure. Their remarkable journey from Paris to northern Scandinavia eventually faded into family history—until a color photograph from that summer resurfaced decades later. Their destination was the far north of Norway. Even today, such a journey would be ambitious. In 1955, with much of Europe’s road network still undeveloped, it was a genuine expedition. But the family would make it in one of the era’s most advanced sports cars, beginning an adventure that would forge a lasting connection to Porsche.
The story resurfaced thanks to Øystein Asphjell, a Norwegian Porsche and Volkswagen enthusiast who restores rare rear-engined cars on his farm northeast of Oslo. While searching a Porsche forum for restoration parts, he discovered a remarkably preserved color photograph. It showed a young boy beside a silver 356 with Paris license plates, standing aboard a ferry against a backdrop of mountains and a fjord. Intrigued, Asphjell contacted the photographer, Jean-Michel Malavieille. The boy, he learned, was Jean-Michel’s father, Franc-Loup, then 13 years old, and one of Louis Malavieille’s two sons.
More than 70 years have passed
More than seven decades later, Franc-Loup, now 83, still vividly remembers the journey. “It was a different time back then; you didn’t need an SUV to go on holiday with your family,” he says. His father was an architect, entrepreneur, inventor and passionate motorsports enthusiast. Louis had also worked at Renault, where he developed a computer-controlled gearbox long before such transmissions became commonplace.
“The roads we were driving on at the time, however, were mostly gravel and in a bad state,” Franc-Loup reminisces about the trip. “You couldn’t drive all the way to the North Cape in those days; Honningsvåg was as far as you could go.” Majestic nature: In Norway, the 356 encountered sheer rock faces and breathtaking waterfalls – quite the contrast to the Parisian homeland. From Paris, the family traveled through Belgium and the Netherlands to Denmark, then crossed by ferry to Sweden and continued north.
First big trip as a family
The Coupé was otherwise standard. With the rear seat removed to accommodate luggage and camping equipment, Patrice and Franc-Loup, ages 11 and 13, rode in the space that remained. “The rear seat had been taken out to make more space for our luggage and our tent – and Patrice and I had to sit on it. The heat from the engine helped make our little space quite cozy, and so we quickly forgot how hard it actually was. It was our first big trip as a family,” Franc-Loup recalls, “and we were never bored. The 356 also got us talking to locals, as that car was a rarity up there. Coming down on the mountain pass was exciting,” he muses, “it was quite steep and very windy. I still recall the smell of the hot brakes.”
Louis stopped frequently to let the brakes cool before continuing north. The family eventually reached Honningsvåg, then the northernmost point accessible by automobile. The road to the North Cape would not be completed until 1956. The return through Finnish Lapland exchanged Norway’s mountains and fjords for forests and lakes. Photographs show the Porsche decorated with juniper branches and reindeer antlers obtained during a visit to a Sámi camp.
The visit remains among Franc-Loup’s strongest memories.
“For us kids, it was kind of scary, as those antlers still had the blood on them from the slaughter,” he remembers. “The Sámi knife my dad bought me shortly afterwards in Enontekiö is still on my desk in Paris today.” Louis was also an enthusiastic photographer who used Kodak color film at a time when most family photographs were still black and white. More than a dozen images from the journey survive. “By the end of the trip, the car had covered more than 10,000 kilometers – and it didn’t break down once,” Franc-Loup says.
Today, Franc-Loup and his son Jean-Michel each own a 911 Carrera 4S (991). Jean-Michel, whose publication of the original photograph helped revive the story, is now searching for his grandfather’s long-lost 356, though so far without success. Franc-Loup returned to Norway two years ago. Once again, he did not reach the North Cape, but revisiting the fjords brought back memories of the journey he had made more than seven decades earlier. “Because the best memories,” says Franc-Loup with a smile, “are the ones you make as a child.”
Above story © Christophorus Magazine, issue 419.
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