These two Porsche supercars will be the highlight of this year’s NZCC Classic Car Weekend
Unlike Italian auto manufacturers, German companies have never shown a huge amount of interest in producing what we have come to know as ‘supercars.’ One suspects that the trained mind of the average German engineer is far too practical to waste too many grey cells on contemplating something as intrinsically impractical as a supercar.
Of course, most of the major German players have produced some scintillating competition cars but, more often than not, these forays into racing have not resulted in out-and-out supercars for the public road.
However, having said that, BMW did a brief flirtation with the breed during the ’80s with the M1; although it had to woo Lamborghini to assist it in developing the car — and, as you can imagine, that alliance ended in tears. BMW was, perhaps, more successful with the more recent Z08, but that was more sports car than supercar — far too practical.
Mercedes-Benz also eschewed the production of a corporate supercar for many years — ironic really, as you could easily make a good case for the 300SL Gullwing as being the first ever supercar — it was certainly fast and impractical enough to qualify. Subsequent SL sports cars did not, however, follow the lead set by the 300SL — each becoming progressively softer and more sloppy as time went by.
Audi, in the meantime, steered well clear of the supercar arena.
As for Porsche — well, that was one manufacturer you really expected to be a major player in the supercar leagues; after all, it had produced spectacular sports racers which had dominated Le Mans and CanAm racing. Even before then the tiny, mid-engined RS Spyders had cleaned up in sports car racing.
Alas, all this activity didn’t really result in a bone fide supercar; although many would place the iconic 911 Turbo in that class simply by default. Trouble is, the Turbo was always a very practical machine — almost a daily driver — but, despite huge performance from its turbocharged flat-six, the 911 Turbo was hardly full of the cutting edge technology so beloved of the supercar manufacturers. This lack of hi-tech wasn’t only about the Turbo’s engine dangling over the rear axle — a throwback to Dr Porsche’s basic, people’s car — it was about the trimmings. A case in point. The Turbo had to make do with a sloppy four-speed gearbox for far too long, as Porsche engineers reckoned that the torque of their force-fed flat-six meant that no more gears were required. It’s that kind of thinking that led Porsche to plough its own performance furrow — in a field a long way away from established supercar makers such as Ferrari and Lamborghini.
In fact, Porschephiles would have to wait until the ’80s before the factory brought the full might of its racing experience to a Porsche road car — but we’ll get onto that subject a little later.
The Modern Age
Although German auto-makers seemed not to be very much interested in producing any seriously notable supercars, that would all change as the world floundered towards the new millennium.
As we approached a new age, it seemed that every man and his dog suddenly had a supercar on their drawing boards — Horacio Pagani chimed in with his outrageous Zonda, Caparo came up with an equally outrageous car and Ascari brought us its own version of the supercar. Even Sweden got in on the act with the Königsegg while cash-strapped TVR entered the fray with its short-lived Speed Twelve. And, of course, how could we forget the awesome McLaren F1 — and, if you want another Kiwi tie-in, you could even put the New Zealand-designed (and still unresolved) Hulme supercar onto the list.
Amidst all this high-end activity, Ferrari trumped everyone with its Enzo and, finally, the German engineers woke up. Audi, which had already tinselled up its previously stodgy image with the quattro in the early ’80s and subsequently achieved Le Mans success with its diesel-engined prototypes, fronted up the cash to buy Lamborghini and then, in a moment of blinding inspiration, even came up with its own supercar — the mid-engined R8. The R8 may be little more than a tarted-up Lamborghini Gallardo, but at least it showed willing on Audi’s behalf.
Even the suits at Mercedes eventually caught up with the Italians with the current McLaren SLR — once again proving that a German auto-maker couldn’t cut the supercar mustard without an outside specialist.
Apart from the Z08, BMW still couldn’t be bothered by all this supercar frenzy — after its chastening experience with the M1 it has always seemed much happier producing high-performance saloons.
Which brings us back to Porsche.
The Porsche 959
When first mooted, the 959 was intended to be a Group B rally car — however, after that category was outlawed, continued development transformed the 959 into a road car; one that would highlight Porsche’s best technology.
And, being Porsche, the concept was to use the standard 911 as a basic building block for the new car — not surprising really, all of Porsche’s post 911 models can trace their lineage back to that car; later they even managed to ‘gift’ the Cayenne, a massive off-roader, with a vaguely 911-look.
So, industry speculators wouldn’t have been too taken aback when Porsche isolated its venerable flat-six as the 959’s intended powerplant. But things were not, it transpired, to be that simple. Porsche took the boxer six originally developed for the ‘Moby Dick’ racer — that meant, prophetically, water-cooled cylinder heads, four-valves per cylinder and a pair of sequential turbochargers, the last chosen for their ability to provide seamless power delivery right across the engine’s rev range. The engine, as used in Moby Dick (and the short-lived Porsche Indy Car), produced around 331kW. This engine, only marginally altered, would form the heart of the 959.
While the body developed to cover this mighty engine was, of course, a further refinement of the 911 shape, Porsche built it from a series of exotic materials — including aluminium, Kevlar and Nomex — thus helping to keep weight down to a minimum.
But Porsche didn’t stop there. As the 959 had originally been intended as a rally machine, four-wheel drive was considered essential. This desire for all-wheel drive led to the development of a highly advanced system — Porsche-Steuer Kuppling (PSK) — the main feature being that it was capable of altering front/rear torque distribution whilst on the move.
All this technology was highly impressive. Porsche even, finally, got around to adding some more gears; six in the 959’s case.
The 959’s suspension was height adjustable, albeit a fairly conventional double wishbone set-up, but Porsche went to town with the car’s magnesium alloy road wheels which were hollow, to form a sealed chamber with the tyre. A tyre pressure monitoring system was included in the final specification.
The initial, Group B version of the 959 was unveiled at the 1983 Frankfurt Motor Show — with the road-going version debuting at Frankfurt in 1985. The road cars were available in two levels of trim — Sport and Komfort, read ‘race’ and ‘road.’
They were staggeringly expensive to build and buy. It was reckoned that Porsche lost money on each 959 sold — and, by the time 959 production ceased in 1988, 337 examples had been built, including 37 pre-production and prototype models. Interestingly, the 959 was never complied for its largest overseas market, the US — although this didn’t stop high-rollers such as Microsoft’s Bill Gates and comedian Jerry Seinfield from buying the Porsche — although neither of them would be able to legally drive their 959s on the road until many years later.
On the motor sport front, the 959 realised some if its intended potential when it won the 1986 Paris-Dakar Rally. The same year, a racing version — the 961 — made an appearance at Le Mans, finishing first in class. The 961 returned to Le Mans in 1987 but failed to finish, effectively ending its brief racing career.
However, the 959 story would continue for several more years — in 1992/’93, Porsche put together a further run of eight cars from spare parts. Although outwardly identical to the original 959s, this final batch featured speed-sensitive dampers.
Porsche may have lost several large sacks of marks whilst developing the 959 but, in hindsight, that can now be seen not as a loss but as a sizeable investment in Porsche’s future. The lessons learned from the 959’s on-board engine management electronics and four-wheel drive would all surface on subsequent 911s — indeed, the very existence of the 959 allowed Porsche to extend the 911’s already long life even further.
The 959’s 4WD system would later appear on the 964 and, in much simpler and more conventional form, on the 993 Carrera 4.
Mike’s 959
Mike Hampton has been a long time Porsche Club NZ member — since 1993 — and, although based overseas (mainly in India, Singapore and Hong Kong), he always looks forward to receiving his bi-monthly club magazine, Spiel, to find out what is happening in Porsche’s New Zealand world.
Mike has owned a 1991 Porsche 964 Cup Car since 1997, which interestingly came third in the 1991 German Carrera Cup driven by Jürgen van Garzen and was subsequently brought into New Zaland by Bill Fulford in 1993 and raced by Gray Matthias.
Early this year, Mike started to think about a car to drive when in New Zealand and looked around on the internet for something suitable. As a long-term fan of the 959, he felt that if I was ever going to get one, now was a good time to do it. After a lot of searching and a number of phone calls later, he found a car that suited him at Freisinger Motor Sport in Karlsruhe, Germany. Karlsruhe is a couple of hours drive South of Frankfurt and not far from Stuttgart.
Mike was able to negotiate a deal over the phone, which basically meant swapping his Cup Car for the 959. He travelled to Germany for a weekend in August to meet the 959’s vendor, Manfred Freisinger, and conclude the deal. It was a successful trip and the Cup Car is now in Germany and the 959 is here in New Zealand, complied, registered and completely roadworthy.
Not a bad toy to own and drive during Mike’s occasional visits to his homeland.
Porsche Carrera GT
Our featured 2004 Carrera GT arrived into New Zealand in 2005, and is currently the only example in New Zealand, although rumours suggest that another may arrive on our shores in the not too distant future.
Unlike the 959, the Carrera GT was a ‘clean-sheet’ design but, in a world seemingly overpopulated with supercars, Porsche’s intention was unchanged — the Carrera GT would be developed and built as a showcase for Porsche’s advanced technology and virtually limitless racing experience.
Once again, Porsche turned to a racing car for its initial inspiration — this time around, the highly successful 911 GT1 and LMP1-98, both of which had been rendered obsolete by changing regulations. Although Porsche originally toyed with the idea of using its venerable flat-six, in the end it opted to go with a powerplant more suited to a genuine supercar — a V10. Interestingly, the first Porsche V10s were put together by the Footwork Formula One team. That was in 1992 and, despite much development work, the V10 — by then a 5.5-litre unit — was eventually abandoned.
The V10 made a reappearance at the 2000 Geneva Motor Show in a concept car, which attracted sufficient interest for Porsche to consider developing a suitable vehicle for the engine.
Work began on the Carrera GT shortly afterwards and, right from the beginning, the car was conceived as a technical tour-de-force — that meant copious use of carbon fibre, magnesium alloy and cutting edge carbon-ceramic brake discs and a ceramic clutch. Oddly though, Porsche decided to use a standard, manually shifted six-speed gearbox, rejecting the paddle-shifted sequential system used in its potential number one rival — the Enzo.
On the other side of the coin, when seeking the best suppliers Porsche found them all over the world. The Carrera GT’s headlight system would come from Great Britain, while the car’s super-light alloy wheels were supplied by a Japanese manufacturer.
And, as the Carrera GT moved into its final development stage, Porsche brought in ex rally ace, Walter Rörhl to help fine-tune the car’s handling. In fact, it would be Rörhl who would drive the first Carrera GT into the courtyard of the Louvre in Paris on September 28, 2000, in order to show off the new Porsche to a selected group of 300 motoring journalists.
At the 2002 Detroit Motor Show, Porsche announced its intention to put the Carrera GT into production — with an intention to build only 1500 examples at its Leipzig manufacturing facility.
The car’s official debut came a year later at the Geneva Motor Show, with the first production cars going on sale in early 2004. Despite the original intention to produce 1500 Carrera GTs, production ceased in 2006 after just 1270 cars had been produced. The sudden halt was apparently brought about by altered US airbag regulations which, alas, would make the Carrera GT unsellable in its largest market — the US had taken around half of the entire Carrera GT production.
Porsche learned a lot from its first genuine supercar, the 959, but it remains to be seen what lessons it may have learned from the Carrera GT — Porschephiles wait in anticipation.
Specs
1988 Porsche 959
Engine: Twin turbocharged flat-six
Capacity: 2847cc
Bore/ stroke: 98x76mm
Comp ratio: 8.30:1
Valves: dohc per bank
Max power: 331kW at 6500rpm
Max torque: 500Nm at 5000rpm
Fuel system: Fuel injection
Transmission: Six-speed manual
Suspension (F/R)Independent, double wishbones, coil springs, dampers and anti-roll bar
Steering: Rack and pinion, PAS
Brakes: Ventilated discs, ABS
Wheels: Hollow-spoked alloy
Tyres: F: 235/45VR17, R: 255/40VR17
Dimensions:
- Wheelbase: 2268mm
- Overall length: 4260mm
- Width1840mm
- Height: 1280mm
- Track F/R: 1504/1549mm
- Weight: 1450kg
Performance:
- Top Speed: 317kph (197mph)
- 0-100kph: 3.7 seconds
- Economy: N/A
Specs
2004 Porsche Carrera GT
Engine: 68-degree V10
Capacity: 5733cc
Bore/ stroke: 98x76mm
Comp ratio: 12.0:1
Valves: dohc per bank
Max power: 450kW at 8000rpm
Max torque: 590Nm at 5750rpm
Fuel system: Sequential multi-point fuel injection
Transmission: Six-speed manual
Suspension (F/R): Independent, double wishbones, coil springs, dampers and anti-roll bar
Steering: Rack and pinion, PAS
Brakes: Composite ceramic discs, six-piston callipers, ABS
Wheels: Magnesium centre-lock; F: 9 1/2J x 19/R: 12 1/2J x 20
Tyres: F: 265/35ZR19, R: 335/30ZR20,/p>
Dimensions:
- Wheelbase: 2730mm
- Overall length: 613mm
- Width: 1921mm
- Height: 1166mm
- Track F/R: 1612/1587mm
- Weight: 1380kg
Performance:
- Top Speed : 330kph (205mph)
- 0-100kph: 3.9 seconds
- Economy: 17.8l/100km
Words by Ashley Webb and Allan Walton | Photos by Dan Wakelin
Many thanks to Continental Car Services for their assistance in preparing this article
