Northern Ohio Region
Porsche Club of America
History
Northern Ohio Region, or NOR-PCA Inc., was started in November of 1960 as the Greater Cleveland Porsche Club of America, being granted charter 33 by the PCA’s founder, Bill Sholar, a commercial artist in the Washington D.C. area and owner of a 1953 Porsche 356. The Greater Cleveland club changed its original charter name to the current name, Northern Ohio Region, in January of 1968, to reflect a realignment of PCA chartered clubs in this area. NOR’s area is defined by the counties of Cuyahoga, Lake, Geauga, Lorain, Erie, Huron, Medina, and Ashtabula in Ohio and Erie and Crawford counties in Pennsylvania.
In 1960 the Club’s first President was Herbert Whiting and Secretary was Samuel Mantel. There were fourteen members. The first U.S. Porsche dealer was importer Max Hoffman, in New York City. It was 1952 when Max sold the first 32 cars he imported from Porsche. In 1956 Porsche created its own sales division in the U.S. and by 1960 had sold approximately 12,000 Porsches. Compare that to the fifty-eight million cars American manufacturers made during the 1950’s you can see that a Porsche would have been a rare sighting indeed.
As of January 2022, there are five current members of NOR who were members of the original Greater Cleveland club in 1960.