The wonderful Porsche Museum is currently running a special exhibition celebrating 50 years of the 911.
More than forty exhibits chart the progression of Porsche’s most famous progeny from 1963 to date, including a 911R, 3.0 RSR, a 934 from the 1976 Le Mans race, the first 964 Cup car and a GT3 RS 4.0.
Friends of Ferdinand have been visiting the museum and sharing their pictures through Ferdinand Magazine’s Facebook page, which is now followed by more than 110,000 Porsche fans. Latest to share was Isle of Man resident Karl-Heinz, who recently took his 1981 911 SC to Sicily and Malta via Austria, with a stop-over in Stuttgart to catch the show.
“A classic 911SC is the perfect touring car for two adults, plus a 6 year-old, with luggage! We visited the “50 Jahre 911″ at Stuttgart on the second day after opening with our own 911. A priceless experience!” Good work, Karl!
The 50-Year exhibition began on June 4, so has only been going for the last six weeks, but those lovely people at the Porsche museum are delighted by the response to their one-off event. “Since the opening of the most 911-centric 911 exhibition in the history of the Porsche Museum, we have welcomed more than 35,000 visitors,” says Astrid in Stuttgart. “This is more than we expected! All appreciate that we honour the 911 in such a huge environment.
“Looking at the first six months of 2013, we have seen more than 182,000 visitors from all over the world. In comparison to the first six months of 2012, that’s an increase of 6,000 visitors. This is amazing!”
I agree it’s amazing, and richly deserved. Even better is the social nature of the show. At least one of the cars on show is privately owned by a bona fide Porsche enthusiast friend, so its great to see these cars being shared. The ImpactBumpers.com crew recently stopped at the museum on their Slovenia road trip and one of the tour’s 964 interlopers made a memorable impression out front. Forget aesthetic barriers to 911 passion!
My own visit to the museum (in my own 911) for this unmissable show will correspond with the date the 911 was first unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show, on September 12, 1963. The plan is to take the Carrera to this year’s Frankfurt Show on the 12th and then drive back to Stuttgart, to see the 50-Jahre spread before returning home that weekend. Awesome road trip ahead! Anyone interested in coming along, just drop me an email.
The exhibition closes on September 29. All 911 drivers get free entry to the exhibition, obtained by presenting their registration papers at the museum ticket office. If you don’t have a 911 but were born in 1963, then it’s free in also! You can’t say fairer than that.
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Jersey Porsche mate Jamie sent me this pic a while back and I am well overdue in sharing it. It’s his 1972 911S, now running as an ST. Originally Viper Green, the car runs a 2.9-litre flat six built by Bob Watson, so goes well enough.
Jamie hillclimbs the car on the island: you’ve got to do something with a car like this on an island with a blanket 40 mph limit! Given that it’s 911-50 year, the most recent Bingham hillclimb as part of the Jersey Motoring Festival had a significant Porsche focus, so no doubt his beautiful car turned a few heads.
“We had 30-plus 911s from the 1970s to date, including RS 4.0, original RS and various 993RS etc all doing parade sprints. Healeys were over in force from the UK, so there were a lot of very nice, very quick cars taking part. We had our work cut out for us versus the 450bhp race-prepped Healeys, but we gave it a good go! Just nice to be out in the car, having fun with like-minded people.”
Original Viper Green 1972 911S running as ST. Is there any finer expression of the roadgoing early 911? That 76 912E shell I’ve got in the USA is heading in this direction.
Jamie’s car appears in this video from the 2012 event. His 2013 entry led to fourth in class and lots of Porsche fun. Good job mate!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QGSUjDebFQ
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This interesting Porsche 997 Carrera 2S is currently for sale. Hard to believe perhaps, especially as it looks so good riding on black-centred Fuchs alloys worth over £3,000! The matching Carrera S side stripes add to the look.
First registered in November 2004, this Arctic Silver 911 benefits from many driver’s improvements including a brand new engine fitted by Porsche in the last 31,000 miles. Black leather sports seats surround the all-important 6-speed manual transmission shift.
The cabin has Bose sound, with heated seats, PCM navigation, and Sport Chrono Package Plus. It’s got PSM stability management, PASM active suspension, Xenon lights. Elsewhere is a full set of Bilstein B6 front and rear shock absorbers, uprated rear control arms and carbon fibre headlight surrounds with carbon rear spoiler lip.
Ignoring all the cringeworthy acronyms, it’s basically a hoot to drive. Custom Bilsteins, Xenons, good seats and a 6-speed gearbox are all you need to have fun in a Porsche. If carbon trim is not your thing, then stick those bits on eBay and put the rest to standard, or give it a Gen 2 GT3 look:
Anyone looking for a sorted 997 to drive and enjoy on fine driving roads in the UK and Europe, or track days anywhere within motoring distance should check this one out. The sum of its parts could be just what you’re looking for.
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Last Saturday was spent in the Ferdinand Cayenne, doing some eBay pickups and drop offs in London and the wilds of Essex before heading to a client to catch up on what’s been happening there. I found this big shed in a field (above).
It was a boiling hot day, with temps on the dash display showing a stunning 42 degrees when I got into my lovingly-nicknamed ‘Big Pig’ to come home. Before that, the delights of Palmers Green and Cockfosters in London on a typical Saturday, with meandering seniors parking anywhere and everywhere, and stopping their cars mid-street to talk to neighbours. Can’t wait for my turn.
Once I’d sorted the PCM sat nav by sticking my Garmin to the front of it, the Cayenne made light work of the morning’s challenges. That boot (trunk) showed its limits when I arrived at a breakers to collect a set of 20-inch wheels I had won. Four wheels that would fit flat in the Subaru had to be stacked in the Pepper: not a great tribute to luggage space.
One weak point of the Cayenne since pickup has been the air con. I had it apart last week for a quick visual check, but the fan was still screaming when run at full tilt and struggling to cool the car down in these temps. I’m happy to knock Porsche a bit for selling shoddy engines in 996s and Boxsters (latest thing now affecting engines is stretched timing chains), but even I know they can make working air con, and much of the system in mine is brand new.
Mike had a think before suggesting pollen filter as a likely culprit. Apparently the filters get greasy, sucking up air from right above the exhaust manifold. Sure enough, when he took it out it was choked with a greasy film of dust. A new one cost all of £8.60 – who said Cayennes were expensive to run?! Problem solved in less than a minute: palatial cabin restored.
Next was a code read on the just-updated Porsche PIWIS system, so all the very latest diagnostic codes. A few things came up, including a camshaft position sensor which is known to be an issue on some of these. First logged many miles ago but ‘not present’ on code read. This means it is popping up but not stuck on all the time. It was pretty cool to watch real-time cam timing coming off the engine: very interesting.
We’ll watch this cam timing sensor and change if it it keeps on. Also had a play with setting rear park sensor proximity live on PIWIS to no avail – I’m going to have to change a few. My gear selector on manual is not working – some issues with dashboard gear display also. It locked in neutral on me once while in London traffic: more nosey poking required.
Ferdinand’s Porsche V8 is holding steady at 20 miles per UK gallon with mainly B-road and school run use. Rises swiftly towards the mid-20s when on the open road and the sometimes maligned six-speed auto is more than enough for UK motorway speeds: even 90-ish is not too loud. That nose might look a bit off when parked, but it does the trick for slipperyness and wind noise at speed on the highways.
A full tank will do about 400 miles if you run it scary dry. I’m filling up at 350 and running ordinary 95RON at the minute with no issues. I’ll try a few tanks of 99 soon and see what that does for it. Still loving the Cayenne, its ample strengths and its interesting foibles.
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Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
I love the daily drivers used by some of my Porsche friends around the world. The Californian climate allows the use of proper oldies, as is the case with this 1965 911, just pressed into service by a SoCal superstar: Hans Lapine at Kundensport in Camarillo, CA.
“It’s a 1965 2.0, with a bit more ooomph,” says Hans in his Facebook thread announcing the car. A bit more ooomph is right, as bluey runs an Andial-built engine. “The add-ons will be original rollbar, Scheel seats, my old Britax harness and maybe an old Momo steering wheel.” Soaked in the patina of a fascinating history, this 302-numbered chassis will provide some smiles in the months ahead.
Someone once said “time is a great healer, but a lousy beautician”. Based on what we see here, I’m inclined to disagree. Sun-bleached short wheelbase cars are the way forward!
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Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
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