Project 356/930

The year is 1996. The place is an inn in the village of Klein-Neusiedl, population nine hundred, around twenty-five kilometers southeast of the Austrian capital of Vienna. Viktor Grahser sits alone at a table in the far corner, talking excitedly in English. He has ordered stuffed crêpes, like he does every Friday. Three years ago he returned to Austria for reasons of the heart. The woman for whom he left his adopted homeland of Australia after thirty-one years is no longer in his life. Grahser, who trained as an aviation mechanic, is fifty-six years old. His features are chiseled; his brown hair is combed back and sticks out over his collar. He’s wearing blue overalls, and his jacket with a Trans-Australia Airlines logo is slung over a chair. A rusted bicycle stands outside the door. Cigarettes lie on the table to his right, and to his left a car magazine that he leafs through while engaging in conversation with himself.

Auspicious encounter

The son of the inn’s owner sits a few tables away, observing Grahser. Rudolf Schmied is in his mid-twenties and has recently returned from a vacation in Australia. The young man doesn’t wait too long before addressing the loner in his village in English. The two quickly find common ground—Down Under—and their first conversation leads to many more. Nearly every day Grahser sees Schmied driving a red VW Beetle past his house in the neighboring village of Fischamend and waves to him from his front yard, and on Fridays the two often meet at the inn. Schmied helps Porsche fan Grahser obtain replacement parts—and listens to the older man, whose stories mostly revolve around Porsche. Eight years go by before Grahser invites Schmied to his two-story house. He wants him to see something he has never shown anyone before. “And bring your camera!” he adds, knowing that Schmied is studying photography in Vienna. The next day the two of them stand in Grahser’s living room in Fischamend.

“And bring your camera!” Viktor Grahser

“Here we go, my friend,” says Grahser, pointing to the heart of his home. Schmied can hardly believe his eyes. A Porsche 356 Speedster stands in the middle of the living room, with just one headlight and no floor or seats. The engine lies behind it, next to a pile of wood. “All right, now you can take pictures of me driving,” says Grahser. “And where are we going?” asks Schmied. ”I’m driving on the Great Ocean Road, on the southern coast of Australia. You’ve been there, right?” replies Grahser. Without waiting for a response, he sits down on the metal frame of the unfinished Speedster, puts both hands on the steering wheel, and imitates the sound of the engine while calling out, “Second gear, third gear—see, the wind is blowing through my hair.” He closes his eyes and turns the wheel to the left and right, shifts through imaginary gears, accelerates and brakes. All the while providing the appropriate acoustics.

The dream of a museum

Schmied doesn’t miss a beat and proceeds to take photos of the scenery rushing by, although he’s having trouble with the focus as tears well up in his eyes. He has just found the subject for his thesis. Shortly thereafter Schmied will tell the story of Grahser’s love for his Porsches in evocative black-and-white images. With Ein Leben. Ein Mythos (A Life. A Legend), the young photographer graduates with honors. He captures the unstinting devotion and sacrifice, and the attempt to make the dream of a lifetime come true. Grahser allows himself only about twenty square meters of living space. One room with a narrow bed, chair, desk, radio, and stove. He doesn’t need anything else to be happy, he says. The rest of his space goes to the Porsche 356.