by John Glynn | Jul 18, 2018 | Classic Porsche Blog, Market & Prices, Race and Rally
RM Sotheby’s has announced that the only works Paris-Dakar Porsche 959 rally car in private hands will be offered for sale in its Porsche 70th Anniversary Sale at the Porsche Experience Centre Atlanta on October 27th. Driven by René Metge in the 1985 Paris-Dakar Rally, the car failed to finish, but that’s another story.
I have spent a little bit of time with this car over the years, as it was previously maintained by Tuthill Porsche and supported by the team on appearances including the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
I first met the 959 on an early visit to the Wardington workshops in 2004. My 911 SC Cabriolet had been in with Francis for a service and I had a nose around the barns when I came back to collect it that evening with two year-old (now 16 year-old) Ciara in tow. As a Porsche rally freak, it blew my mind to see the Dakar 959 sitting in a corner under the cover. How crazy to think my humble SC was being worked on under the same roof: that was a pretty cool thing.
Paris-Dakar Porsche 959 up close
The Paris-Dakar Porsche 959 was a constant presence through my early years of working with Tuthills. I never used it in a magazine feature, but Chris Harris drove this car back-to-back with a roadgoing 959 for GT Porsche magazine in September 2006. The original Paris-Dakar car featured a lightweight 3.2-litre engine with a close ratio gearbox versus the road car’s 2.85-litre twin-turbo flat six, but the 959 as tested by Harris was running a magnesium-cased 3.5-litre engine producing 350bhp, to safeguard the 959’s original engine. Despite this, Chris was effusive in his praise for the 959 Dakar’s high drama.
“The car is brutally noisy. In fact, it sounds so intense that the sensation of speed is heightened because you can’t believe that such a racket could ever be produced unless the sound barrier was imminent. It chomps through the close ratios faster than I dare use the uprated 915 gearbox and like any rally car on the road, it feels completely detached because so much of its suspension performance isn’t being used.
“It rides quite beautifully – better than the road car – steers like you’d expect given that it isn’t hampered by hydraulic assistance and the brake pedal takes a decent prod to have any effect. Driving through rural Oxfordshire, its remarkable to think that this car was capable of 140mph over boulder-strewn African tracks.”
No doubt this is a wonderful 911: a real piece of history that would certainly spice up any serious air-cooled Porsche collection. I’m intrigued to see where the bidding ends up and who it passes to.
Main pic © Robin Adams courtesy of RM Sotheby’s
by John Glynn | Jul 6, 2018 | Classic Porsche Blog, Modified Porsche Hot Rods
Amongst many Porsche announcements this week was news of the impending arrival of Luftgekühlt in the UK. The Californian classic Porsche expo’s UK debut at Bicester Heritage on July 29 has got those who like Porsche meets somewhat excited.
Luftgekühlt is the brainchild of Porsche works driver, Patrick Long, and creative director, Howie Idelson. Revolving around Porsche air-cooled cars from the first 356s to the last 993s, Luftgekühlt describes itself as “an experiential car culture event centred around a tightly curated list of historically significant or interesting cars, both race and street”.
Luftgekühlt translates as air-cooled, and air-cooled Porsches are the stars of this ticket-only show. Air-cooled Porsche cars attending LuftGB are invited to park in the main event space. In addition to the ticketed parking within the Luftgekühlt display, there is a designated Porsche-only parking zone. Ample general admission parking is included in the ticket price. Those aged 15 and under go free, with adult tickets priced at £12.50 each.
“We are thrilled to announce that Luftgekühlt will be crossing the Atlantic and landing at Bicester Heritage, Oxfordshire, UK on Sunday July 29, 2018,” says the press release. “LuftGB will be our first overseas event and, together with our motoring and racing friends from across the pond, we will be channeling the informal, fun spirit of the early versions of Luftgekühlt to tell a new Luft story.
“The venue is Bicester Heritage, a former WW2 RAF Bomber Training Station. As the only hub for historic motoring of its type and scale in the world, and with over 35 specialist motoring businesses onsite, Bicester has a lot of heart. Its aesthetic, grit and heritage will frame the Luftgekühlt story in a perfectly British way.
“Like past shows, our first overseas foray will feature a blend of curated, invite-only rarities and ticketed enthusiasts’ cars. There will be a limited number of slots to fill within the venue, and they will be reserved on a first-come, first-served basis.
Despite July being a busy month of Porsche meets, with Classic Le Mans this weekend and Goodwood Festival of Speed straight after, the Porsche crowd is likely to turn out in force for the first-ever UK Luftgekühlt gathering. I spoke to one of the organisers on Tuesday and was told that the meet was already one-third of the way to being sold out. Anyone who would like to attend had better get their skates on. You can buy tickets here.
photo from Luft 3 courtesy of Luftgekühlt
by John Glynn | Jul 2, 2018 | Classic Porsche Blog, Race and Rally
We have finally arrived in the week of Le Mans Classic 2018, where my friends at Tuthill Porsche are supporting five 911s in the 2.0L Cup as part of the Porsche 70th anniversary celebrations. For those who cannot make it in person, the organisers have just announced unprecedented online coverage of this remarkable event.
Le Mans Classic will feature its biggest ever live and free online streaming during July 7 and 8, when sixteen cameras will broadcast for sixteen hours, covering twelve races which can be followed live at www.lemansclassic.com. The cameras wil share the action from the entire 13.6km circuit, and the broadcast is managed by AMP Visual TV: the organisation behind coverage of the Le Mans 24 Hours for the last thirteen years.
Live coverage of Classic Le Mans 2016 attracted more than 300,000 online spectators worldwide, and this should easily be eclipsed in 2018. Bruce Jones, Jim Roller and Martin Haven, will provide the English language commentary.
I don’t yet know when the coverage starts or how long it lasts daily, but the race schedule at the circuit for the two days is as follows – it is reasonable to assume that the cameras will not be showing some of the night sessions:
Le Mans Classic 2018 Race Schedule July 7:
10:00-11:10 – Jaguar Classic Challenge (race)
11:20-12:20 – Group C Racing (race)
14:02-15:17 – Porsche Classic Race Le Mans (race)
16:16-16:59 – Grid 1 (race 1)
17:55-18:38 – Grid 2 (race 1)
19:34-20:17 – Grid 3 (race 1)
20:54-21:37 – Grid 4 (race 1)
22:11-22:54 – Grid 5 (race 1)
23:26-00:09 – Grid 6 (race 1)
Le Mans Classic 2018 Race Schedule July 8:
00:40-01:23 – Grid 1 (race 2)
01:59-02:42 – Grid 2 (race 2)
03:14-03:57 – Grid 3 (race 2)
04:29-05:12 – Grid 4 (race 2)
05:44-06:27 – Grid 5 (race 2)
06:59-07:42 – Grid 6 (race 2)
08:14-08:57 – Grid 1 (race 3)
09:33-10:16 – Grid 2 (race 3)
10:48-11:31 – Grid 3 (race 3)
12:26-13:09 – Grid 4 (race 3)
14:01-14:44 – Grid 5 (race 3)
15:17-16:00 – Grid 6 (race 3)
Pic © ACO
by John Glynn | Jun 29, 2018 | Porsche People, Race and Rally
Timo Bernhard has claimed an all-time Nürburgring lap record in the Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo, with a staggering lap time of 5:19.55 outpacing the great Stefan Bellof’s Nürburgring lap record of 6:11.13, set in qualifying for the 1983 Nürburgring 1000kms.
Bellof’s lap record had been regarded as almost unbreakable, as it was set on a shorter circuit: a section having been bypassed to avoid construction of the new grand prix circuit. While today’s Nürburgring Nordschleife is 14.2 miles (20.8 kilometres) long, the ’83 circuit was a smidge under 13 miles in total. Adding almost 1500 metres to the distance had made the record almost unassailable.
Race car engineering has enjoyed substantial advancements in the intervening years, with hybrid power, four-wheel traction and modern tyre technology bringing incredible mid-corner speed and acceleration into play. That said, you still need a nut behind the wheel and Porsche chose 37 year-old works driver, Timo Bernhard for the job. It was a solid decision.
“This is a great moment for me and for the entire team,” said Bernhard. “It is the icing on the cake for the 919 programme. I’m pretty familiar with the Nordschleife, but today I got to learn it in a new way. Thanks to the downforce, you can stay on full throttle in places I never imagined. For me, Stefan Bellof is and remains a giant; today, my respect for his achievement with the technology available back then increased even more.”
Dickie Meaden was at the circuit to see the lap record, with access to the speed data from the record-breaking run. “So, approach to Schwedenkreuz was 344 km/h, took crest at 322. VMAX on Dottinger was 369 km/h, lap average 233.9 km/h” tweeted Meaden, who last year made his own attempt on Bellof’s record in the Toyota LMP1 simulator.
The 919 continues to demonstrate just how much excitement electric power can bring to road cars. The other side of this is that it’s hard to imagine manufacturers and lawmakers allowing tomorrow’s hybrid performance cars to run completely unrestricted on public roads, given their seemingly unlimited performance potential.
by John Glynn | Jun 26, 2018 | Classic Porsche Blog, Art and Books
EB Motorsport supplies its lightweight EB Porsche body panels (hashtag #madeinyorkshire) to customers all over the world, but not all customers put these panels on classic 911s. Belgium’s Jean Denis Claessens and his partner, Edmond Thonnard, create interesting artworks using the composite bonnets as emotive canvasses.
One of the pioneers of Belgian street art, Edmond Thonnard has been a video decorator, an exhibition scenographer, a designer and a rock singer. His work has been seen in the biggest global WWI exhibition and in the Liege House of Science and the European Space Centre. Jean-Denis began his career as a graphic designer and moved into advertising in the early 1990s, later developing into film and documentary making.
The duo now work together, creating race-inspired artworks on composite and metal Porsche panels. Each work is an individually hand-made piece created without vinyl. Every bonnet, every door is unique, freely inspired from the decorations of legendary race cars and signed by the artist. The painting is made using the techniques of graffiti art, with the patina added using slag from the race, including oil, tyre rubber and other secret ingredients.
Two art-on-bonnet products are available. Composite bonnets weigh 5 kilograms and are a reproduction to honour the lightness of the great cult race car: the Porsche 935.
Steel bonnets weigh 15 kilograms and are real bonnet from a used and iconic Porsche 911. Each work features a riveted panel on the back to prove the authenticity and signed by the artist.
“We import EB panels from England to Belgium as they are the best quality and my clients want a real 911 bonnet; not an ersatz for decoration,” says Jean-Denis. Seems like a cool way to use a lightweight part. I would love to hang something like this: having it painted and then sticking it on a car for a real 6-Hour race – maybe Spa – would be cool. Learn more about these artworks at aftertherace.be.
