by John Glynn | May 27, 2012 | New Models, Porsche News
The Porsche Museum is currently hosting an exhibition that celebrates sixty years of Porsche clubs. The manufacturer has just announced that it will make thirteen special edition 911 Coupes: twelve will be sold to clubsters who win the right to buy in a raffle, and one will remain in Stuttgart.
The first Porsche Club was started in Germany in 1952. Porsche clubs now have more than 181,000 members worldwide. This is officially recognised Porsche Clubs, so doesn’t include people like me and many others reading this.
If one included non-club Internet forum members, and fans of the brand regularly interacting with other Porsche owners, on- or off-line, the number would be a lot higher. Remember Porsche has 4 million Facebook fans.
The Porsche Museum is showing twelve special cars as club anniversary exhibits, including Dr. Wolfgang Porsche’s personal 993 Turbo S (top) and the neat Type 957 Jagdwagen (above).
Stuttgart is “using the anniversary as an opportunity to thank club members for their steadfast loyalty over the decades and their deep commitment” by building twelve special edition Club Coupes. Based on special-order Brewster Green Carrera S models, the cars feature a Powerkit upgrade to 430 hp, the SportDesign package and colour coded wheels. They come with bespoke lettering, and illuminated door entry guards with the anniversary logo.
Each coupe will retail at €142,800 in Germany, plus 19% tax. Or $175,580 in the USA, also plus tax. The standard Carrera S costs €102,000 in Germany, but that is including tax. Sorry, I should have sat you down before that.
Prospective buyers have until July 16th to register interest on the Porsche website, before a draw is held to decide the twelve winners. You can be from anywhere except China or India. I have no idea why this is – someone enlighten me.
A dozen €143,000-plus-tax Carrera S coupes awarded in a lottery is not Cult of Porsche. But, if you’ve got the cash and this is your thing, good luck to you. The lighting is very nice in the promo pics.
by John Glynn | May 23, 2012 | Classic Porsche Blog, Race and Rally
There’s some great video on Youtube that’s perfect for office lunchbreaks. I know many work servers block the Youtube domain in a browser address bar, so hopefully you’ll be able to watch it as embedded on here, or maybe watch it on your iPhone. My blogs all have an iPhone-friendly mobile theme that should works well on every mobile device.
The 2012 Le Mans 24-Hour race is less than a month away (16-17 June). There will of course be Porsches racing, but let’s look back 31 years, to the 1981 Le Mans as seen in this entertaining, if slightly over-narrated video.
For 1981, four-time Le Mans winner, Jacky Ickx, came out of retirement to drive the 936 with Derek Bell (follow DB on Twitter here). Fitted with the new 2650cc endurance engine derived from Porsche’s Indianapolis design, chassis number 003 used the same air- and water-cooled 930-derived motor as its predecessors, with two turbos. The slippery 936 could hit 225 miles per hour, giving it proper speed.
In the race, number 11 took the lead from the start and won with a 14-lap advantage. Considering its pole lap was just under three and a half minutes long, that’s almost an hour ahead of the rest (okay, that’s man maths but let’s round the numbers up). The race ran for just short of 5,000 kilometres.
Also in the field was the 924 Carrera of the Almeras brothers, and Jurgen Barth/Walter Röhrl in the 944 LM. Some fascinating Porsches racing that year!
Don’t forget to follow Ferdinand Magazine to keep up with old and new Porsche news. I am now splitting stories between both sites, so not all Ferdinand stuff will be shared here and some of it will certainly be of interest to Classic Porsche Blog fans.
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by John Glynn | May 22, 2012 | Classic Porsche Blog, Market & Prices
This Bill Gates Porsche 911 Turbo story has been doing the Internet rounds for a couple of days, but some of you may not have seen it. It is definitely worth following!
Bill Gates’ 1979 930 is for sale on an Austrian auction site. The car has apparently covered 89,000 miles, but was restored in 2011, with fresh paint and an engine rebuild paid for by the current owner, a year after it was imported to Austria.
As a ’79, it is of course a 3.3-litre, with the 4-speed transmission. Though it seems in good shape, any prospective buyers would be well advised to have a closer inspection. Early 930s can need more than engine rebuilds at this stage and it did live in Seattle: rain capital of the USA.
One thing you can be sure of is a decent history: Bill is not short of a bob or too. With the best 930s now being offered (perhaps slightly optimistically) at close to £50k in the UK – a LHD car should be expected to fetch more. Add in the kudos of Bill’s original Bill of Sale and who knows what it might fetch.
I’ve driven plenty of 4-speed 930s in the UK, Europe and the USA. Even in the best condition, they can be difficult to get excited about on a twisty mountain road. I don’t think that this car would be worth fortunes to me, but then I’ve been a fan of the 3-litre normally aspirated 911s and a Steve Jobs/Apple Mac user for many years!
What do you think it will sell for? Add your views in the comments. This story came in from Matthew (thanks Matt): email me with other interesting stuff you might see. We are always looking for interesting feature cars. Follow Ferdinand to keep in touch with all the Porsche stories we share online.
by John Glynn | Apr 28, 2012 | Porsche News
Spotted this 991 Carrera with a duck tail on the Porsche stand at Essen. I was not entirely mesmerised by Porsche’s stand at this year’s Essen Techno Classica. Previous stands felt better as the heart of the action in Hall 3 with the rest of the Porsche World, rather than in amongst the VW-Audi Group offerings.
There were some nice Porsche cars on the stand, but all felt lonely surrounded by unrelated product. Maybe that’s just me. One thing I did like was this 991 Coupe with the duck tail spoiler: seemed to work well on the new shape 911.
The Porsche sales guys present couldn’t tell me much about the ducktail, apart from it would form part of an options pack. There was no information on said options pack, though they thought it might cost around €4,000 for the front and rear bumpers and this ducktail.
Fit and finish was perfect so I presume this was not a prototype – the plastic looked very productionised. The Porsche folks couldn’t tell me if it was factory fit, so maybe your dealer will have to paint it for a cost on top of that. You can see from the pics that it is static: the flap above opens up to check oil and – yes – water. Not much else to see, really.
The front end looks good and I like those wheels, but wonder how it would look with 19″ or 20″ Fuchs instead. Those wheels are coming: keep in touch with UK Fuchs dealers for more info on the bigger Fuchs.
by John Glynn | Apr 24, 2012 | Classic Porsche Blog, Project Cars
My growing car collection just went up a notch, as new Ferdinand Magazine bought its first Porsche project.
The new addition is a 924 Turbo: a Series One car from the late 1970s, in Silver. It’s LHD (of course) and has a non-sunroof shell. Condition is reportedly very solid, but I’ve not seen it yet so will advise when it arrives with me, later today. The seller knows his Turbos and says this is the fastest one he’s ever had. Count on some test drive video! I’ve been looking for a good 924 Turbo for ages, so I really hope this is as sweet as it sounds.
The odometer is showing very low kilometres, which may or may not be genuine. There is absolutely no paperwork with the car, so a detective hunt lies ahead. It still carries its Italian registration: tracing that back should be interesting. Completely unconnected, I just started Italian lessons but have enough Italian Porsche friends to help me with the digging.
Plans for the car: it is seriously tempting to make this a Carrera GT replica. I’ve always loved 924 Carrera GTs and a silver one would sit well in the garage with the Orange 911 and my M3 saloon. I’m having the car delivered to Racing Restorations UK in Pershore, where Rob Campbell will give it a good going over. Rob has just finished tidying up the M3 – chopping out some rot in the sills and overhauling the suspension and underside – so the 924 will drop into that space.
Whatever about the Carrera GT plan, I know I have a gearbox fault to fix on this 924 first, so the spare transmission I bought with the car will be stripped later this week to check it out before swapping it into the newbie. Once the car is MOT’d, we’ll decide what to do for the future.
I know you will now ask me: what’s happening with the 944 Kombi/Estate project? The donor car we bought and paid for turned into a bit of a nightmare, with the seller initially agreeing to store it for a while, but then moving it and refusing to tell us where we could pick it up! Buying through eBay with Amex was a sensible move. We are back on the hunt for a donor: I still have my 86k-mile 1983 944 Lux stashed away, but I think that’s a bit too nice to chop up.
More updates later: follow Ferdinand Magazine on Facebook to get the news first.
