How these pages work

These pages are built from Eric Cherneff’s research and photographs, the Registry magazine, 356Talk, the factory documents and members’ own kits. This page explains how they are laid out, how to check any statement on them, and how to send a correction.

How the series is laid out

The main page has three parts.

• Part 1, the kits. One page for each kit, from the canvas roll of 1950 to the C and SC. Each page starts where the kit changed, not at a model year.
• Part 2, beyond the standard kit. The contents chart, the Carrera and travel kits, Hazet round kits, reproductions, and cleaning a tool bag.
• Part 3, follow one tool. Screwdrivers, wrenches, bags, tire gauges, lug wrenches, spark plug sockets, and the pliers, jack, hammer and belt, each followed through every year.

Where to start:

• You have a car and want to know what belongs in its kit. Open the kit page for its build date, then check the contents chart.
• You are holding a loose tool. Find it in Part 3 and read its markings against the years.
• You are about to buy a kit or a tool. Read the reproductions page first.

Years are a guide

Changes often happened partway through a model year, and old stock was used up, so kits overlap at the boundaries. For much of the run the dealer put the kit in the car from his own shelf, so a car sold across a model change could get either kit. A kit that does not match its car’s year proves nothing on its own. A kit whose tools disagree with each other is the one to question.

The numbered buttons

Every statement on these pages that rests on a source carries a small numbered button, like this one: 214. Click or tap it and a box opens under the sentence. It shows the statement, who says so, the years it applies to, and a link to the source. Click the × or another number to close it.

The number is the statement’s citation number. It is the same on every page and never changes, so quoting it tells us exactly which statement you mean. Magazine articles open in the Registry library and forum threads on 356Talk; you need to be signed in to read them.

What the labels in the box mean

• Settled. Two or more independent sources agree, or one source with standing on the subject.
• Typical. Reported once and consistent with everything else we hold. Probably right, not established.
• Judgment. Someone’s reading of the evidence, recorded as theirs.
• Open. Unresolved. Sources disagree, or nobody has looked. These are the questions we most want help with.

Open questions

Most pages end with a section headed What we are still trying to settle. These are the questions the sources leave open, and each one says what would answer it: a dated kit, a photograph, a marking on a tool.

Send a correction or an addition

If you know something we have wrong, or you have a kit, a photograph or a document that would help, please tell us. If what you want to tell us has no number, give us the page and the sentence.

What to include:

• The citation number, or the page and the sentence.
• What you believe is right, and how you know. Your own car, a dated document, a part number, a marking on the tool, a photograph.
• For a kit: the chassis number and model year, and whether the kit has been with the car since new.
• Photographs, laid flat in good light, with any markings close in. If the files are large, send a few at a time or share a link to a folder.
• Whether we may use your photographs on these pages, and how you would like to be credited.