First produced inside Austria in 1948, the Porsche 356 was Porsche’s first production model. A year later the production was shifted to Germany where the rest of the 76,000 cars were made until 1966.

The Porsche 356C was a replacement for the 356B. In this model, a more powerful engine was installed that gave up to 60 hp while the top variant model called the Porsche 356C 2000 GS Carrera gave up to 130 hp. 

One of the three J’s^ , American legendary star Janis Joplin, who sang blues, soul & rock music happened to purchase a second-hand grey colour car from a Beverly-Hills Estate car dealer for about US$ 3500. She gave another US$ 500 to Dave Richards, a roadie* of her band Big Brother and the Holding Company.

What Richards did was he painted the colour candy red and over it gave a psychedelic effect by painting the car with Joplin’s horoscope sign (Capricorn), butterflies, jellyfish, California Valley, etc. With a splash of colours this Porsche stood out so much that she drove to the recording studio daily in this car. 

Apparently, in 1967 when Janis Joplin failed to show up at a recording studio, it was Richards who went to her place in the afternoon and found out that her car was still parked in the garage. Upon entering her house, he discovered her dead body – she had taken an overdose of heroin in the night. Janis Joplin was only 27 (Club 27)**.

When sold at an auction house in 2015, this car fetched a whopping US$ 1.76 million (over 12 crore rupees) when it was supposed to fetch only 3.6 crore.

^ legendary singers Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix are the other two J’s
* someone who maintains band equipment
** at the age of 27, all the three legendary J's passed away giving rise to the moniker of Club 27 in the 1970s