Last year we reviewed the Porsche 911 flat-six boxer engine scale model by Franzis, but this year, we have the grandfather of all Porsche racing engines…the Porsche Carrera race engine model. The Type 547 4-cam, 4-cylinder engine was the engine that set Porsche on the road to motor sport fame around the world, when the model 550 race car, the first car to be fitted with this … [Read more...]
Porsches and wall-to-wall sunshine
I received the email inviting me to join the judges panel for the 2018 Concours Masters Celebration of 70 Years of Porsche on Saturday, 1st September. It didn’t take long for me to accept as this would be an opportunity to get up close to some stunning machinery, and to be involved in a very special anniversary event. As it happened, we had glorious weather with wall-to-wall … [Read more...]
Porsche – It’s My World
Porsche – It’s My World: what is this book all about? Well, for starters, you won’t learn anything about Porsche’s cars, it doesn’t contain any technical specifications, and it has no narrative. So, you may well ask, what good is that to a Porsche enthusiast? And who is this guy, Stéphane Coradi, we have never heard of him? Also, his name doesn’t appear anywhere in the book, … [Read more...]
911 Carrera Club Sport – rolling back the years
The 911 Carrera Club Sport was Porsche’s attempt at rolling back the years and once again, stoking the fires of high performance, lightweight motoring. Porsche Road & Race pulls back the covers to reveal the origins of the 911 Carrera CS. Originally created on the core building blocks of lightweight, high performance and superb engineering quality, the early 356 model … [Read more...]
The 911 Carrera Type 964
From a technical perspective, the 911 Carrera Type 964 represented one of the most significant steps forward for Porsche, for many years. The new Type 964 looked like a 911 that had just undergone an annual face-lift, but this was because the only real external changes were to the wheels and details below the bumper line, which were designed to improve aerodynamics. Even the … [Read more...]
Porsche racing in Southern Africa – Part I
Porsche used its racing exploits around the world to not only gain exposure and media coverage, but also to improve the performance and reliability of its road and race cars. Here we look into the first part of a two-part mini-series covering Porsche racing in Southern Africa. Racing in Southern Africa in the 1950s and 1960s was a colourful affair, contested by all … [Read more...]
Roland Kussmaul
For many years, the éminence grise of Porsche’s competition department, but now in retirement, Roland Kussmaul seems busier than ever. He left Porsche officially at the end of 2008, but our attempts to meet him were thwarted for several years by his amazingly busy schedule. More recently, we were luckier: despite a programme still just as full, he found time to meet us at his … [Read more...]
Porsche 911 R
A large package landed on my desk just before Christmas, and being weightier than normal my interest was aroused, so I immediately tackled the packaging to reveal the contents. It was the latest offering from T.A.G Motor Books, a 384-page tome on the Porsche 911 R. This was a book that justifiably jumped the order of books that I have to review, and so it was a case of 'last in … [Read more...]
Erich Strenger and Porsche – A Graphical Report
In the early 1950s, Porsche was still a very young company, and they certainly did not have the budgets enjoyed by the bigger motor manufacturers with which to splash out on expensive public relations campaigns. Well before the idea of ‘Corporate Design’ or ‘Corporate Identity’ became a household term, Erich Strenger began to build a Porsche house style that would become famous … [Read more...]
On Auction: Porsche 911 Carrera RSR 3.8
Every so often, Porsche creates a short production run of cars that celebrates the attributes of one of their special models. In 1993, the Stuttgart engineers decided to develop a race version of their 911 Type 964 Carrera RS, aptly named the Carrera RSR 3.8, and aimed it squarely at the race track. With the 1993 Carrera 2 as the starting point, Porsche had to make at … [Read more...]
