He was the man who officially imported the first Porsche sports car into the UK. That was not the first Porsche car in UK that was brought in as a private import by Thomas Borges and was on German licence plates.
Charles Meisl dealt directly with Porsche in Stuttgart while he worked for Colborne Garage in Ripley Hampshire. He was given a demonstration car following a phone call to the Porsche export manager in Stuttgart, Charles was a fluent German speaker. He arranged a stand at the 1951 London motor show where the car was put on show and attracted some attention. The garage where he worked did not have the funds to pay for cars to later be sold so they started by ordering one car at a time.
This was only 6 years after the end of WW11 so German cars were not the flavour of the day but this is where AFN led by H J Aldington came into the picture, as they had more ability and money to import more than one car at a time they took over the Concession to import and Charles Meisl eventually became an employee of the new Concessionaires AFN.
The rest is history but we should raise a glass and drink a big toast to the man who had the foresight to start importing the cars that we all love and enjoy owning, driving, and all the other things we do with and to our Porsche cars.
Happy 100th anniversary Charles Meisl !
