Porsche Race Cars

Porsche returns to single-seater racing after a +30-year hiatus this year as it embarks on a new adventure in Formula E, the world’s top EV racing series. The factory-backed Tag Heuer Porsche Formula E team will field a pair of Porsche 99X Electric cars for Messrs Neel Jani and Andre Lotterer, both formerly part of the company’s LMP1 program. Expect to see this 335-horsepower red, white, and black beast battle at the sharp end of the field in the 2019-2020 season that’ll kick-off later this year.

Porsche halted its involvement in the FIA World Endurance Championship, where it raced in the top-flight LMP1 class with a pair of hybridized 1,000-horsepower prototypes, to race in Formula E. The German automaker will thus move forward in its quest towards electrification by competing in the first all-electric racing series in the world with a car powered by a 900-volt battery, just like the 2021 Taycan sedan. But you’d rather see Batman ride in this low-flying spacecraft than the Taycan and that’s why Porsche hopes to garner a new, younger, and tech-savvy crowd through its participation in the eco-friendly championship.

How often do you see an ex-works Porsche race car hit the auction block? It rarely happens and this is one of the few that were sold publicly in recent history. This is a 1960 Porsche 718 RS 60, member of the 718 RS family of open-top sports cars built and raced by Zuffenhausen for half a decade beginning with the RSK in 1957. The RS 60 appeared at a time when sports car manufacturers started realizing that mounting the engine behind the cockpit might be beneficial to the performance of the car after witnessing Jack Brabham muscling his way to the title in F1 in 1959. Porsche was already doing it and had been doing it for years, beginning with the 550 Spyder, a car infamous for having an important part to play in actor James Dean’s death but one that was, more importantly, a successful car in road racing.

The RS 60 Spyder raced everywhere around the world, following the trek of the World Endurance Championship and, along the way, ticking starts at Le Mans, the Nurburgring, and Targa Florio. Only 18 were built in period and the factory kept for its own use a mere four examples and this, according to RM Sotheby’s, was "the only to likely become available". Powered by a four-cam engine - first a 1.6-liter mill and, in 1961, a 2.0-liter one - the car you see in the pictures, chassis #044, doesn’t boast with the most enviable of racing records having retired out of both the 1960 24 Hours of Le Mans race and all of the three major races it contested in 1961: the 12 Hours of Sebring, the 1,000-kilometer race at the Nurburgring-Nordschleife and the Targa Florio in Sicily. Having said that, it must be said that the car was fast, taking pole position outright in the Italian road race before being raced extensively by Bob Holbert, father of Porsche legend Al Holbert, an amazing driver in his own right - both behind the wheel of Porsches and, later, Cobras. It is, then, no wonder that chassis #044 sold for over $5.0 million back in mid-August during the Monterey sale. That’s one expensive aluminum Spyder!

Porsche might have abandoned its Le Mans efforts, but the company made it clear that it wants to focus more on other competitions, namely Formula E. And now that goal is so much closer as Porsche unveiled the 99X Electric Formula E race car and, as one would expect from Porsche, even its name bears some significance in the bigger equation. Let’s see what’s what.

What happens when you take a current-generation Porsche 911, splash on a bit of the 911 RSR’s performance nuttiness, and infuse a little design inspiration from a 20-year old race car that won 47 endurance races in its career? The result is this series of renderings created by designer Emre Husmen. It’s called the Porsche 911 GT1 Concept, and while it technically doesn’t exist, these renderings are proof that maybe it should. Porsche has the final say on that matter, but seeing as the automaker has yet to field an entry for the upcoming FIA WEC season — new regulations require Porsche to build road-going versions of racers competing in the series — perhaps it should start drawing up those plans so that the road-going model can happen, too. If the latter looks anything close to Husmen’s rendering, the road-spec version of Porsche’s next WEC racer has "intriguing" written all over it.

Porsche unveiled at the 2019 Goodwood Festival of Speed the most expensive, most advanced, and fastest 911-based race car in its portfolio, the emblematic 911 GT3 RSR. This latest version takes everything good about the 2017 model and distills it all in a better overall package that’s been improved in all four corners, even if you can’t tell the differences from the outside. The engine is still naturally aspirated, but it’s bigger than ever, and it’s still placed in front of the rear axle. Power is said to surpass 500 horsepower depending on the restrictor, and it gets sent to the back wheels only, just as before. Now, however, the car is easier to service and is safer.

Porsche has been putting out 911-based race cars since the ’60s and, in the five decades that have passed, the German automaker has constantly been improving the recipe while also staying true to the original ingredients. The shape is still largely familiar, albeit wider than ever, and the engine is still a six-cylinder boxer, and it’s naturally aspirated. However, the differences are aplenty: the engine is now in front of the rear axle instead of behind it, the exhaust now exits in front of the rear wheels through the sills, it’s water-cooled, and the capacity went up from 4.0-liters to 4.2-liters to make it more elastic. Is this the best 911 GT3 RSR ever? It has to be if it wants to surpass the impressive 2017 model that’s won almost anything there is to win in the FIA WEC and the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship. And, frankly, with a $1 million + price tag, it better be!

The annual 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps is, arguably, the world’s biggest professional endurance race for GT cars and, this year, the entry list reached a new high: 72 cars are set to take the start on July the 27th. Or that’s what we thought before a strange-looking Bug appeared out of a pit box during the official Spa Test Days.

Racing to raise awareness about a certain disease or in order to collect money for a charity is a noble thing but, up until now, we’ve seen no project go as far as this. The brainchild of Pascal Witmeur, long-time Belgian racing driver, this project aims to both celebrate the 50th anniversary of the original Herbie motion picture (’The Love Bug’, released in cinemas in the U.S. in March of 1969) and to gather funds for the VivaCité (RTBF) ’Viva for Life’ project and ’Kinderarmoedefonds.be’ charities. The car was created with the help of Belgian luxury car dealer Deman Brussels and is, at its core, a Porsche 911 (991) Cup MR - the Manthey Racing-modified version of Porsche’s 911 Cup car.

The Porsche 911 RSR, the company’s iconic race car for FIA endurance duty, was redesigned for 2019 and introduced at the 2019 Goodwood Festival of Speed. Improved in all key areas, the new 911 RSR replaces the previous RSR that scored more than 20 class wins in the FIA World Endurance Championship and other long-distance series in North America and Europe.

When you think of the first Porsche, you probably have in mind the 1948 Porsche 356/1 also known as the "Porsche No. 1". Indeed, that was the first car to wear the Porsche badge, but you’d have to go back almost a decade to find the first Porsche-named car, and that is the streamlined vehicle that stands before your eyes now. It’s called the Type 64, and three were built precisely 80 years ago of which two survive now, and only this one has the original sheet metal on it. Mechanically, it is a strengthened and tuned Beetle but, as far as looks are concerned, it has the 356’s DNA written all over it. Now, it’s up for auction, and if somebody other than the Porsche Museum buys it, I’ll be shocked.

Porsche’s crazy about its history. The German company has built its reputation via winning races - much like Ferrari has - and it can’t stop reminding everyone about its landmark moments. There are multiple events dedicated to the history of Ferdinand Porsche’s company, such us Luftghekult or the Rennsport Reunion. If you arrive in Stuttgart, the first thing you stumble across is the Porsche Platz, and there, on one side of the roundabout at the entrance of the city, there’s a futuristic-looking building. That’s Porsche’s own museum that’s filled to the brim with everything Porsche both new and old. But Porsche doesn’t currently own this car, the Type 64 chassis #38/41. It was designed by Ferdinand Porsche as a marketing ploy to showcase that you can extract genuine performance from the unassuming platform of the Beetle. If Porsche wants it back, it’ll have to join the crowd at the RM/Sotheby’s auction in Monterey, California, that’s scheduled for August 15th through to the 17th.

It’s the centerpiece of a 1971 motion picture starring Steve McQueen. It brought Porsche its first two overall victories in the fabled 24 Hours of Le Mans race. In 1973, it became the fastest car to lap a closed course at 221.12 mph. It all but annihilated the competition in the Canadian-American Challenge Cup and pushed McLaren to quit the series altogether. It’s the Porsche 917 and, in 2019, Porsche celebrates its 50th anniversary with an outlandish prototype.

Few race cars have an aura surrounding them like the 917 does. That’s because it is Porsche’s first truly great sports car, one that raised the bar higher in both endurance racing and the unlimited Group 7 Can-Am series. But, in 1969, when Porsche first unveiled the 917, nobody wanted to drive it. All of Wiessach’s works drivers tried to seem busy when Porsche called them asking to test or race the 917, and there’s a reason for that, a reason that sits at the foundation of the 917’s legend and its incredible story of evolution.

The Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport is a track-only version of the 718 Cayman developed for customer use. It replaces GT4 Clubsport that Porsche introduced in 2015 and represents a notable update over the outgoing model. Unlike its predecessor, it’s offered in two distinct versions: Trackday and Competition. The GT4 Clubsport Trackday was built specifically for amateur racing drivers that like to spend weekends at the race track without participating in FIA events. The Competition model features a more complex suspension system, and it’s a direct replacement for the old GT4 Clubsport, as it is eligible for GT4-spec competitions in Europe, North America, and Asia. According to Porsche, the new race car features improved driveability, and it’s capable of quicker lap times.

Porsche’s 935 race car was built to compete in the Group 5 class that was the pinnacle of GT racing in the late ’70s and very early ’80s. The 935 was the car to beat in Europe and across the Atlantic in the U.S. and even won Le Mans overall. Such accolades pushed F1 team owner Walter Wolf to want one, but not for the race track. The result was maybe the fastest road-legal car in the world at the time.

When you think about a GT racing car, you envision a car that’s based on a production model that was heavily modified, stripped of any useless equipment that only added weight, and then sent out on the track to compete against other vehicles like it. What’s unusual is to want for one of those race-prepped machines to be made street-legal again, while keeping most if not all of the racing bits on. That was the premise, largely speaking, of the insane GT1 class that lived a short life in the late ’90s but, even before that, there was one car that followed that same path: Walter Wolf’s street-going 935 K3 built by Kremer Racing of Germany.

Porsche has built its name in motorsports. The German brand won everything from the Dakar Rally to Le Mans. Chirs Harris, who needs no further introduction, got to drive Porsche’s last Le Mans winner, the 919 Hybrid from last year, and it’s tremendous to watch.

We can’t argue that Chirs Harris has been lucky enough to drive some of the world’s most coveted automobiles over the years. But buckling up inside the tight confines of Porsche’s 2017 Le Mans winner is something special even by his high standards.

It’s been too long since we last discussed the matter of Nurburgring records. This time, it’s big. Porsche claims to have re-taken the outright lap record for a production car on the fabled track located in the Eifel mountains. A GT2 RS prepared for the challenge by Manthey Racing is now the car to beat.

Porsche is crazy about records, as you might’ve noticed. They built a special 919 Hybrid prototype, known as the 919 Evo, just to showcase their engineering prowess, and to smash the then-lap record at the Spa-Francorchamps Grand Prix track and the all-time Nordschleife lap record. Now, they’ve returned to the ’Green Hell’ to claim the fastest time for a production car, which had been in the hands of Lamborghini since earlier this year.

Read on to learn why this is a convoluted situation

A micro-Rennsport Reunion took place at Monza over the past weekend when Porsche took a number of their new racing, as well as street cars, and pushed them to their limits on the F1 Grand Prix circuit near Milan.

The Porsche 550 is a true icon of Porsche history. Known as both a race car and a sports car, the 550 was the kind of machine you could drive to the track, take the win, then drive back home. The famous British-American racing driver Ken Miles called it the “greatest long-distance racer in the world,” and despite its low power figures, this plucky little two-door could take down cars with far more power and straight-line speed. Eventually evolving into the even-quicker 550a, the 550 is now widely recognized as one of the more desirable collectible Porsches in the world.

Continue reading to learn more about the Porsche 550a Spyder.