Zone 2 History
Porsche Club of America History
Bill Sholar, a commercial artist in Washington DC and admirer of well-designed automobiles, purchased his first Porsche, a 1953 356 Coupe. As time passed, Bill met other Porsches on the road, and by February 1955 organized a first meeting of several Porsche owners. Eventually they decided to form a club. A brief paragraph in the August 1955 issue of Sports Car Illustrated announced the formation of the club, additionally, the Porsche factory was petitioned for recognition of the proposed club. The official name of the club became “Porsche Club of America.”
The first business meeting was held on September 13, 1955 with twelve prospective members in attendance. Bill Sholar was elected President. Word spread and the 190 Porsche drivers that attended the January 31, 1956 meeting were designated as “charter members”. The original Washington DC group became the Potomac Region, the 190 charter members were from 27 states. Members outside the Washington DC area started forming their own PCA regions in late 1956. In December 1955 the first edition of the Panorama club magazine appeared.
PCA has experienced an unparalleled growth, in members and in quality of events and services. In 2021, PCA served more than 90,00 families, with over 134,000 members, in 146 local Regions, making it the largest single marque car club in the world.
September 13, 1955
The first meeting of the Porsche Club of America was held at Blackie’s House of Beef in Washington, DC. Twelve people attended.
Zones History
In the beginning the Club was small enough that there was no reason for the Zone concept of management that we use today. In fact, they had trouble getting members around the country to form Regions. By the end of 1967 the Club had grown to 67 Regions and approximately 5,000 members and everything was being handled in the basement of a house in Alexandria Virginia by two people and a part time helper. During 1968 a committee was formed to look at a better way to administer the Club.
The result was the implementation of new concept of administration whereby every Region will be directly represented at Board Meetings by a Zone Coordinator, who will be appointed to present the opinions and report the consensus of the Clubs within his geographic area concerning matters before the directorate. The Zone Coordinator should act as a communications medium. Eight geographical zones were defined for subdividing the continental United States Regions into approximately equal membership districts.
Zone 2 was one of the eight original Zones.
The Original Eight PCA Zones : 1969
Zone 2 History
PCA’s Zone boundaries changed many times, not just when new zones were formed but also when growing member numbers in a Zone required reorganization.
Today, Zone 2 is for the most part, the same geographical size, minus the state of Ohio and half of West Virginia. Zone 2 includes 10 Regions encompassing most of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia with about 10,000 PCA members. Zone 2 has been host to 8 Porsche Parades and 1 PCA Escape.
PCA Zones, The First Major Changes : 1974
