Janis Joplin

The year on the label is not the year in the record

Connection

Former owner · commissioned custom paint

When

Purchased September 1968 · sold December 10, 2015

Identity

Chassis 160371 · engine 811908 · gearbox 77912 · “History of the Universe” mural

The Janis Joplin estate dates her purchase to September 1968. A surviving letter reproduced on its site calls the car a 1965, followed by the editor’s “[sic].” RM Sotheby’s and Porsche instead identify the individual cabriolet as a 1964 Porsche 356 C 1600 SC, chassis 160371. The auction catalog says Joplin bought the four-year-old car from Estes-Zipper for $3,500; this story keeps the first-person year mismatch visible rather than turning it into a second car.

Joplin paid roadie Dave Richards another $500 to transform the gray Porsche. RM records a Candy Apple Red base beneath the portraits, landscapes and symbols that became “History of the Universe.” Porsche and RM both describe a car Joplin drove, not a display prop.

After Joplin’s death, the car first remained with manager Albert Grossman and later returned to her siblings. The family had Jana Mitchell and Amber Owen recreate Richards’s lost mural from period photographs after the Porsche had been restored to gray. It spent roughly two decades on loan to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, then sold for $1.76 million on December 10, 2015. The sale record does not identify a current owner.