Porsche Race Cars

The Miller 962 that clinched the Rolex Daytona 24 hours back in 1989 and the Coke-liveried 962 are among the seven cars on display in the Petersen Vault, which is open through November 19 this year.

Porsche has built some of the world’s finest sports cars and continues to do so, but the company’s lineup of race-spec vehicles is even more impressive. The German carmaker has dominated the racing scene for many decades with race cars like the 917, 935, 936, and 956, winning hundreds of races and championships with them.

All these race cars are impressive in their own right, but the 917 holds a special place among them. Not only it was the most extreme race car of its era, but also because it was the first Porsche to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Most of us won’t get to see a 917 in the flesh, but this ride-along video from Canepa Motorsport will give you a taste of the car’s outstanding track capability.

The Formula 1 World Championship has drawn to a close last weekend but, in the aftermath of the season’s 17th Grand Prix, it wasn’t Max Verstappen’s dominant victory that has gathered most of the headlines as, once again, sports car racing came to the fore with the announcement that Porsche will return to the sharp end of both the FIA World Endurance Championship and IMSA’s Weathertech Sportscar Championship in 2023 with the German automaker set to run a prototype built around the LMDh rules that will also be sold to customers.

Porsche is about to launch the first race car based on the 992-generation 911. It’s called the 911 GT3 Cup and will be raced in the company’s already iconic and popular one-make series. The latest 911 GT3 Cup is still being tested, so Porsche is only showing us a camouflaged version. But while the car may appear wrapped in the usual swirly camo seen on most prototypes out there, it actually hides abstract maps of the race track on which the one-series is held.

Porsche’s partnership with LEGO isn’t exactly new and while so far it has involved the churning out of stunning brick-made cars under the Speed Champions and Technic monikers, the two brands just switched it up to a more laidback, slowed-down vibe.

Sure, you won’t see a real 911 RSR on public roads because race cars aren’t allowed there. But if you happen to know a skilled photographer like Tomek Makolski, then you’re in for a treat. One that’s not a mirage, by the way.

The 2020 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport MR is a race-spec version of the road-going Cayman GT4. It is essentially identical to the 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport race that Porsche introduced in early 2019, but it features a body kit made from natural-fiber composite materials.

Porsche first introduced natural-fiber composite materials on the Cayman GT4 Clubsport, which features doors and the rear wing made from this mix, but the MR version comes with an entire body crafted from fibers sourced from renewable raw materials. Developed specifically for the 24 Hours of Nurburgring race that took place in late September 2020, the 202 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport MR won’t become a full-fledged production, but the materials developed for it will probably be used on production models in the future.

As a fan of 1960s Formula One racing, it’s really painful to watch the modern version of the sport, which is more about technology and strategy rather than talent and innovation. And you can’t really own 1960s F1 cars since they’re massively more expensive than classic road cars from the era. But a dedicated enthusiast took matters into his own hands and turned an old Porsche Boxster into an F1 car inspired by the 1960s design.

Jeff Zwart is a man of many talents: he’s an eight-time Pikes Peak champion who broke quite a few records on the fabled Colorado hill climb course over the years mainly driving Porsches and he’s also a world-renown director having masterminded some famous automotive commercials that you probably were amazed by.

The next thing Zwart plans to do - which will amaze us and surely entertain him - is returning to the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb on August 30th. As ever, his weapon of choice is a Porsche but not just any product of Zuffenhausen. Think special, think very special, think 935-19.

The Porsche 917 marked Porsche’s breakthrough in sports car endurance racing. While well accustomed to victory in some of the world’s most famous races, it wasn’t until the 917 took to the track that Porsche was truly able to have a say in the battle at the front at Le Mans.

The car you see here is almost identical to those that won at La Sarthe and it even wears the legendary Martini & Rossi war paint but, unlike most other 917s, this one can be driven on the open road. If you dare.

Porsche came back to top-level sports car endurance racing in 2014 with the 919 Hybrid, a 900 horsepower beast powered by the combination between a V-4, turbocharged, 2.0-liter engine and an electric generator unit sending power to the front axle. Basically, when the batteries were fully loaded and giving all the power to the front axle, with the traditional engine powering the back axle, the 919 was AWD car but not just any AWD car - one that managed to win Le Mans three times on the trot, doubling that with a trifecta of World Endurance Championship titles.

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.