The Porsche 356 Bonsai: Preservation Without Restoration

An artist’s rare Porsche is stripped down to its bare essen­tials and reimag­ined through Japan­ese craft tra­di­tions and wabi-sabi phi­los­o­phy, trans­form­ing into a ful­ly dri­vable art object intend­ed to weath­er, evolve, and reg­is­ter the pas­sage of time rather than con­ceal it.

When an aban­doned clas­sic car is redis­cov­ered in a barn or garage, the first instinct is to return it to its for­mer glo­ry, and bring about a sense of time­less­ness to a piece of old engi­neer­ing. But what if the ele­ments of time and wear were actu­al­ly col­lab­o­ra­tive forces rather than prob­lems to be erased? Oxi­da­tion, fad­ing, scratch­es, and repaired sur­faces can record decades of use more faith­ful­ly than a flaw­less repaint, pre­serv­ing evi­dence of envi­ron­ment, han­dling, and care. Amer­i­can artist Daniel Arsham explored that con­cept in a project in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Porsche.

Arsham’s 1955 Porsche 356 Speed­ster is far from your aver­age col­lec­tor’s piece. At first glance it seems like you’re look­ing at a barn find left to oxi­dize in the cor­ner of a coastal garage, wait­ing to be restored, yet every detail, even the unpaint­ed met­al exte­ri­or left unpol­ished, is delib­er­ate. Rather than seek­ing a sense of pristine­ness, the project actu­al­ly embraces the pas­sage of time. project, known as the Porsche 356 Bon­sai, presents a work­ing sports car as a work of an art inspired by Japan­ese aes­thet­ic prin­ci­ples.

One of sev­er­al art cars pro­duced by Arsham, the Porsche 356 Bon­sai was cre­at­ed in 2022 as part of his ongo­ing explo­ration of time, mate­r­i­al aging, and cul­tur­al craft tra­di­tions. Born in Cleve­land and raised in Mia­mi, Arsham first trained in archi­tec­ture and per­for­mance before becom­ing known for sculp­tures that depict every­day objects as erod­ed or crys­tal­lized relics. Arsham’s work fre­quent­ly ref­er­ences archae­ol­o­gy, preser­va­tion, and the trans­for­ma­tion of famil­iar objects through time, becom­ing a high­ly sought after artist in the con­tem­po­rary art world. As a child he drew every­day items that inspired him like sneak­ers, cam­eras, and Porsche mod­els, inter­ests that he con­tin­ues to ref­er­ence in his sculp­tur­al work today.

The Bon­sai project is Arsham’s third offi­cial col­lab­o­ra­tion with Porsche, cre­at­ed over a peri­od of two years. Instead of restor­ing the vehi­cle to fac­to­ry con­di­tion, he stripped the body to bare met­al and pre­served the scratch­es, oxi­da­tion, and wear accu­mu­lat­ed over decades. The exposed steel was treat­ed with lin­seed oil to slow cor­ro­sion while allow­ing the sur­face to con­tin­ue devel­op­ing pati­na. The approach reflects the Japan­ese aes­thet­ic phi­los­o­phy of wabi-sabi, which val­ues imper­ma­nence, irreg­u­lar­i­ty, and vis­i­ble aging rather than pol­ished per­fec­tion.

Although the exte­ri­or appears weath­ered, the car is ful­ly func­tion­al. Mechan­i­cal restora­tion was car­ried out with John Will­hoit of Will­hoit Auto Restora­tion and Matthew Ammi­rati of Bridge­hamp­ton Motor­ing Club. The work pre­served the orig­i­nal num­bered engine and returned the vehi­cle to fac­to­ry per­for­mance stan­dards. Few­er than 4,000 Porsche 356 Speed­sters were pro­duced, and sur­viv­ing exam­ples are con­sid­ered his­tor­i­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant with­in ear­ly Porsche pro­duc­tion.

Even indi­vid­ual knobs and oth­er small com­po­nents were hand-select­ed in the process. In the ded­i­cat­ed Porsche forum on Red­dit, a user by the name of Own_Key_971 who works for Will­hoit had this to say about the project: “I had the plea­sure of being assigned to help on this car. Super fun project, Daniel is a rad dude. I did all of the fake pati­na on the car. I had to match a lot of fresh parts to the rest of the bare met­al and rusty car. It was a fun learn­ing process to bal­ance and try to match things to stuff that has gen­uine­ly been out­side for who knows how long also just using lots of ran­dom stuff like dirt and the torch to black­en stuff, a lot of exper­i­men­ta­tion. I also got to pick all the aes­thet­ic parts from our ware­house stor­age of old stuff. All the knobs, gauges, steer­ing wheel, head­lights, grills, the badges, side spear decos, wheels, wind­shield frame and what­not where all hand­picked from our stor­age by me and weath­ered to match the car if nec­es­sary. The horn but­ton is one that I found in a box split in two so I super glued it back togeth­er, I felt that fit the vibe.” Notably, an oxi­dized bronze relief in the shape of a bon­sai tree is inte­grat­ed into the rear engine grille, and the car car­ries a vin­tage New York “Bon­sai” license plate.

The inte­ri­or was redesigned in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Japan­ese design­ers Moto­fu­mi “Pog­gy” Kogi and POGGY and BerBer­Jin direc­tor Yuta­ka Fuji­hara. Uphol­stery includes indi­go-dyed boro patch­work, sashiko-stitched can­vas, and den­im pro­duced by tra­di­tion­al crafts­men in Okaya­ma, Japan. Boro tex­tiles orig­i­nat­ed as repeat­ed­ly repaired house­hold fab­rics, while sashiko stitch­ing rein­forces mate­r­i­al strength and cre­ates geo­met­ric pat­terns through vis­i­ble repair. The mate­ri­als were select­ed for dura­bil­i­ty and for the way indi­go fab­rics fade and soft­en with use. A tata­mi mat made from rice straw is placed beneath the spare wheel in the lug­gage com­part­ment, ref­er­enc­ing domes­tic inte­ri­ors and the con­cept of omote­nashi, the prac­tice of atten­tive hos­pi­tal­i­ty.

Arsham’s inter­est in Japan­ese prin­ci­ples extends beyond this project. He main­tains a Zen sand gar­den and a bon­sai tree at his home, and the accep­tance of aging and degra­da­tion has long been cen­tral to his sculp­tur­al work. “Through­out my career, I have looked to Japan as a source of inspi­ra­tion for their love and ded­i­ca­tion to craft. These sen­si­bil­i­ties were the base for the Bon­sai 356.” he says.

The Porsche 356 Bon­sai was shipped to Japan and exhib­it­ed in Tokyo by Porsche, where its empha­sis on mate­r­i­al aging and craft res­onat­ed with Japan­ese tra­di­tions of vis­i­ble repair and long-term use. The vehi­cle remains dri­vable and is intend­ed to con­tin­ue aging through use and envi­ron­men­tal expo­sure, allow­ing its sur­faces and tex­tiles to evolve over time. Since 2024 it is now locat­ed full-time in Japan, occa­sion­al­ly exhib­it­ed at var­i­ous art events.

Seen in motion or at rest, the Porsche 356 Bon­sai is an inver­sion of restora­tion cul­ture, where val­ue is often tied to eras­ing age. Since noth­ing is tru­ly peren­ni­al, pre­serv­ing wear, expos­ing raw mate­r­i­al, and allow­ing sur­faces to con­tin­ue evolv­ing means the cre­ation of beau­ty is an ongo­ing process, in line with the tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese wabi-sabi approach­es to art the project was found­ed on.

Arsham’s Bon­sai Speed­ster is an object that admits its his­to­ry remains active rather than com­plete. As the years go on, the car’s sto­ry will con­tin­ue as its met­al will dark­en, its indi­go tex­tiles will fade, and its pati­na will deep­en with use, and that is exact­ly the plan. Ensur­ing that the car does not remain fixed in the moment of its cre­ation means we will nev­er tru­ly see the same car twice.

Just as its orig­i­nal own­ers in the 1950s saw an entire­ly dif­fer­ent vehi­cle; those who encounter it decades from now may find it trans­formed again, shaped by time into a new expres­sion of the same endur­ing form.