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Do you have a question about the history of our local club or the Porsche brand in Las Vegas? Drop me an email at jordan_godorov@yahoo.com 

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PCA Celebrates Their 70^th Anniversary

By: Jordan Godorov

The Porsche Club of America will celebrate their 70^th Anniversary on September 13, 2025. Linda Goodman, PCA’s historian, gave a great webinar a few months back on the history of the club and how it got started. If you want to access the webinar in its entirety, please log in to your PCA member account on the national website and look for RegionFocus webinars. The webinar she gave is RegionFocus #78.

In today’s world, you can go to your local, authorized Porsche dealer and get world-renowned service for your ride. There are also a multitude of independent Porsche and European auto repair shops ready and willing to help you with service on vehicle, as well. Back in the 1950’s, service and parts availability was limited. Bill Sholar was the driving force to put together a group to help support owners of these vehicles. The first meeting of what would become PCA took place on February 8^th, 1955 at Bill’s apartment. 8 people attended the meeting. The focus of the meeting was to create a club to provide technical assistance to its members, but also to make contact with the Porsche factory to create a charter, and place ads in car magazines to attract members. PCA was officially chartered by Porsche corporate on September 13, 1955.

On that date, the first official meeting of PCA was held at Blackie’s House of Beef in Washington DC. 12 Porsche owners attended and board positions were assumed. By January 31, 1956, there were 190 charter members in 27 states, Washington DC, and Canada. Nevada officially had 2 members. By 1957, 6 club region zones were created. This started a trend of exponential growth for the club. By 1969, there were 8 zones and by 1974, there were 10 zones. As of 2025, there are 14 region zones.

If you read online or receive the hard copy of the Panorama magazine, you might be interested to know that the first issue was published in 1955, only two months after PCA received its charter. The initial size of the newsletter was chosen so that it would fit into the glovebox of a 356. What I found truly fascinating is that, while the newsletter had 11 editors over the years, one particular editor held the position for 43 years. Betty Jo Turner was editor of the Panorama from 1969 to 2012.

Over the years, the club has organized PCA Parades, PCA Tech Sessions, Treffens, PCA Club Racing, and Sim Racing. These are all events that are open to any member from any region.

Currently, there are 167,000 active national members of the club, which continues to grow at a steady pace. The Las Vegas Region has right under 1,100 active members.

As far as the Las Vegas Region is concerned, we have planned out events for the rest of 2025 and hope to see you at a drive, track event, or social event soon.