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JoinedSeptember 18, 2021
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Before: 1968 Porsche 912 1.6-litre 4-cylinder engine developing 90 bhp; after: 2014 Dutchmann Porsche 912 with 2.8-litre 6-cylinder engine developing 240 bhp What do Porsche 911s, surfboards, bicycles and coffee have in common? A lot, it would seem. South African entrepreneur, Gavin Rooke, hit on a common thread that runs...
Designing and developing a new model to replace an already popular and successful one, is for any manufacturer, a difficult and stressful procedure, especially when the model being replaced is the much-loved Porsche 356. But with the benefit of hindsight, the 911 would shape the company’s future, as the new...
After the music had died down, and the last of the revellers had left the party that had just a few hours earlier welcomed in a new decade, little thought was given to life much beyond the next day or perhaps the next week, at best. And yet here we...
PORSCHE 993 “25 YEARS” 1994–2019: by Andreas Gabriel, Manfred Hering & Thomas Nehlert © Berlin Motor Books Berlin Motor Books, a boutique book publisher located not far from the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate) in Berlin, has been steadily raising its profile on the quality automotive book scene since its inception...
Porsche Sport 2019 – © Gruppe C Motorsport Verlag The 27th publishing of this superb edition of Porsche Sport 2019 by Gruppe C Verlag, opens with this paragraph, “The year 2019 marked exactly half a century since a new competition sports car from Porsche was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show....
Le Mans 24 Hour, 16-17 June 2012: The #55 JWA-Avila Porsche 997 GT3 RSR driven by Paul Daniels, Joël Camathias and Markus Palttala gets the full attention of the team in the pits. This car would finish 33rd overall and eighth in the GTE Am class This feature, the second...
Le Mans: The Official History 1960–69 by Quentin Spurring © Virtual Motorpix/Glen Smale This edition of Quentin Spurring’s fabulous series covering the Le Mans 24 Hours decade-by-decade, concerns the 1960s. Many will agree that the decade, 1960 to 1969, saw some of the most innovative race cars, and with relatively...
Total 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, 4 May 2019: Imagine the surprise when we arrived at the track, to be greeted by a scene of snowy white with zero degrees showing on the circuit thermometer, and then to get a further snowy blast at the start of the race. This was...
24 Stunden Nürburgring Nordschleife 2019 © Gruppe C Motorsport Verlag It must rank as one of the most awesome races in the world. This year was my first visit to the famed 24 Stunden Nürburgring Nordschleife, the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring, and what a baptism it was. Having covered...
Classic Car Auction Yearbook 2018-2019 Edition © Historica Selecta It’s a case of, more of the same for the 2018-2019 Edition of the Classic Car Auction Yearbook. Once again, the authors Adolfo Orsi and Raffaele Gazzi, have delivered an excellent publication providing good quality, industry-leading, analytical information on the classic...
1956 Porsche 356 A Carrera 1500 GS – 752 LMA For many years now, the name ‘Carrera’ has been associated with Porsche sports cars. But the story of how the fledgling 356 first got its ‘Carrera’ name is a fascinating one. This required the far-sightedness of the company founder, Ferry...
Kyalami 9 Hour, 21-23 November 2019: #09 Team Perfect Circle Porsche 911 GT3 R On 23 November 2019, the sound of approximately 15,000 bhp will break the long silence that has persisted over the famous Midrand circuit as twenty-eight top GT3 race cars tear down the start/finish straight in the...
Porsche: Excellence was Expected by Karl Ludvigsen – © Bentley Publishers For many years, Excellence Was Expected, the book on Porsche’s models, motorsport, company history and much more, has been regarded as the final word on the subject. That accolade was well justified because the author, Karl Ludvigsen, has been...
Lined up in the pit lane before the 1994 Le Mans 24-Hours, is from the left: #36 962 Dauer Le Mans GT driven by Mauri Baldi, Yannick Dalmas and Hurley Haywood; centre is the street-legal 962 Dauer with rather appropriate Boeblingen region (Weissach) registration plate ‘P 962’; on the right...
Kyalami Racing Circuit – 2019 Last held officially as a 9-hour race back in 1982, Kyalami will play host to the revival of a great classic endurance race next month, the Kyalami 9 Hour. Run by the masters of the international endurance motor racing scene today, the SRO Motorsport Group,...
Works Porsche 956 – The Definitive History: by Serge Vanbockryck – © Porter Press International I met the author, Serge Vanbockryck, a good number of years back at the Le Mans 24 Hours, and since then I have known him to be the quiet, hardworking PR manager for the Chev...
Motor Racing – The Pursuit of Victory 1963-1972 by Steve Wyatt © Veloce Publishing Limited The age of motorsport, when an aspiring photographer could amble around the paddock snapping world championship drivers, team personnel and stripped race cars, is long gone. Today, even with the required media accreditation, you have...
The colour and style of Goodwood, were better than ever this year! The event has grown over the years, and what with the favourable weather the numbers seemed even larger than before. Of course, this was good news for the many stalls in the village, as most of them were...
It’s hard to believe that the Goodwood Revival 2019 has come and gone again. With memories of the deluge from a few years back, and snow during last year’s Members’ Meeting still fresh in my memory, you can imagine the relief after having enjoyed three days of pristine late-summer weather....
Le Mans 24 Hours, 14-15 June 1975: Porsche 9083 in the paddock ahead of the race (copyright Yves Ronga) When I’m not helping to sell the occasional old race car, or visiting old race car meetings, I’ve usually got my head down, researching various projects for clients, usually to do...
Professor Ferdinand Porsche (centre) with F. A. ‘Butzi’ Porsche (left) and Ferdinand Piëch (right), ca. 1949 Ferdinand Karl Piëch was born in Vienna, Austria, on 17 April 1937, to Louise (daughter to Ferdinand and sister of Ferry Porsche) and Anton Piëch, a lawyer. He was the grandson of Ferdinand Porsche,...
Nissan GTP & Group C Race Cars 1984-1993 by John Starkey © Veloce Publishing Limited Yes, I know, this is not a book about Porsches, but it does cover one of the 962’s greatest rivals in IMSA and the Group C championships. Over the next few months, we will be...
On the 2010 Le Mans starting grid before the race was the (foreground) #76 IMSA Performance Matmut Porsche 911 GT3 RSR driven by the familiar trio of Raymond Narac/Patrick Pilet/Patrick Long. The #76 car qualified in sixth place in class and 41st overall out of 54 starters. The #97 BMS...
Rennsport Collective, Donington Hall, 20 July 2019: Porsche 996 GT1 Evo 1997 on display with numerous other Porsche classics They were all there, from a Pre-A 356 to the latest 991.2 GT3 Clubsport, by way of the most mouth-watering collection of 911s, 956 and 962s, including the indomitable 917. The...
Just minutes after I drove out of our driveway at 06h15 on Thursday 18 July en route to the inaugural Rennsport Collective track day, so Darren Clarke teed off in the first covey to start the 2019 Open Championship at Royal Port Rush, in Northern Ireland. Both events were momentous...
Richard Wiley at Le Mans 24H, 2019 PORSCHE ROAD & RACE is proud to announce that contributor Richard Wiley was recently honoured by the South African Guild of Motoring Journalists. Following his passion for writing on all things motoring and motorsport related over several decades, the honour of Fellow of...
Project 1 burst onto the World Endurance Championship (WEC) scene at the start of the 2018 Super Season. We covered their arrival on Porsche Road & Race in A New Team On The Block, and What You Need To Know About Team Project 1. While their arrival on the WEC...
© White Racers from Zuffenhausen: Porsche 904, 906, 907, 908, 909, 910 In 2018, we reviewed one of the other books in this series, Porsche Spyders 1956-1964, and this year we will have a couple more to do. White Racers from Zuffenhausen, is another in this series, and as we...
Boasting the largest starting grid of the weekend with 201 qualifiers, the ADAC 24h-Classic race was always going to be a busy event. Also, the wide spectrum of cars and the performance differential between the front and back of the grid, was huge. Despite this, the field was about as...
At the start of the 24 Hours of Le Mans
Endurance racing should be a test of sustained strength and stamina over a prolonged period of time. It is not a sprint, because that is a test of a race car’s high speed capability over a short distance, such as Formula 1. As a result, race cars in these two...
The more things change, the more they stay the same…someone famous once said. Perhaps the same can be said for the 2019 starting grid for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which will kick off tomorrow, Saturday 15 June, at 15h00. With the titles decided in the LMP1 and GTE...
Before we arrived in Le Mans for the start of the 2019 week of activities, we knew that the weather was going to be very changeable. Unfortunately we got to our administrative registration too late in the day to still make Sunday’s scrutineering session, but we made it to the...
IMSA 1969-1989 – © Octane Press Simply titled, IMSA 1969-1989, this recently published book gives the inside story of how John Bishop built one of the world’s greatest sports car racing series. In truth, there can be little doubt that the two decades of IMSA racing covered by this book...
Le Mans 24 Hour, 13-14 June 2015: Lined up prior to the formation lap are (from L-R) – the #18 Porsche 919 Hybrid driven by Marc Lieb/Romain Dumas/Neel Jani (finished 5th); #17 Porsche 919 Hybrid driven by Timo Bernhard/Brendon Hartley/Mark Webber (finished 2nd); #19 Porsche 919 Hybrid driven by Earl...
Although the factory squad was crowned the World Manufacturers champions for the first 2018/2019 Super Season, their success in the forthcoming 24-hour race is by no means a foregone conclusion. With the Test Day just a few days away, Porsche will begin preparations to defend its Le Mans title. Porsche...
Porsche Club GB Festival, Eynsham Hall, 2006: On display at the PCGB annual festival was this pre-production Porsche 997 GT3 Gen. 1 – looking resplendent in front of the fountain and with a superb backdrop of Eynsham Hall itself. On the licence plate – BB EM 812 – “BB” refers...
The Porsche 917-001 will be shown in the Porsche Museum for the first time in its original condition My 2019 European Expedition had been organised for some months, which was to take in the WEC Spa-Francorchamps 6 Hours (1-4 May) followed by almost a week in Stuttgart (5-10 May). It...
Spa woke to snow falling at 06h30 yesterday morning, and by the time I had made it to the circuit, the temperature was a steady zero. It looked more like a winter wonderland than a racing circuit, to be honest. There are all sorts of rules relating to whether it...
Our second trip to Spa in the 2018/2019 Super Season takes place at a time when the teams, across all four classes, have built up a considerable depth of experience and momentum in the championship. This time last year we had a dry race with brilliant sunshine from beginning to...
Targa Florio – 20th Century Epic: Pino Fondi & Gianni Cancellieri © Virtual Motorpix/Glen Smale Mention the words ‘Targa Florio’ and any motorsport enthusiast’s thoughts will drift off to those tortuous roads, tight bends, sheer drops, villages crowded with eager spectators standing on pavements with race cars rushing by just...
It is forty years since the introduction of Porsche’s first RS, the mighty Carrera RS 2.7, back in 1973. For Porsche, the letters RS, which stand for Rennsport, inspire images of sporting achievement and excellence earned the hard way through countless racing victories. At the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1993,...
Last week, at the New York International Auto Show, the iconic new 911 Speedster was unveiled by Porsche North America. Following on in the tradition that less is more, the Stuttgart manufacturer revealed to the public the latest model that will carry the Speedster flame for a lucky few. Of...
Porsche 911 ST 2.5
Porsche 911 ST 2.5: Thomas Imhof, Jürgen Barth and Michael Keyser © Virtual Motorpix/Glen Smale It landed on my desk one day, unannounced and unexpected. The package was large and covered in stickers and labels, suggesting that there was something important contained within. Indeed, a frantic exercise followed to open...
IMSA R3 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, Long Beach, 13 April 2019: The #911 Porsche GT Team Porsche 911 RSR of Patrick Pilet and Nick Tandy leads the #912 of teammates Earl Bamber and Laurens Vanthoor away from the start The week’s preparations started well for the factory Porsche team, as the...
Porsche 959 by Jürgen Lewandowski, published by Delius Klasing Verlag – © Virtual Motorpix/Glen Smale When the Pearl White metallic Porsche Group B concept car was revealed at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 1983, the response from the press and public was overwhelming. After the show had closed, Porsche...
Porsche Sport 2018 – © Gruppe C Motorsport Verlag For those who follow Porsche motorsport closely, the 26th edition of the well-known annual, Porsche Sport 2018, is definitely a book you want on your bookshelf. I have sung the praises of these publications before today, and for good reason, but...
On 21 March, the Le Mans entry list for 2019 was revealed for the 24-hour race which is to be held on 15-16 June. Just as in 2018, no less than ten 911 RSRs will be in action, with the potential for that number swelling to twelve if the two...
On 21 March, the Le Mans entry list for 2019 was revealed for the 24-hour race which is to be held on 15-16 June. Just as in 2018, no less than ten 911 RSRs will be in action, with the potential for that number swelling to twelve if the two...
Porsche – The Golden Years: Leonardo Acerbi © Virtual Motorpix/Glen Smale It is always a pleasure when a top-quality book lands on my desk, so when Porsche – The Golden Years arrived at the Porsche Road & Race offices, I was especially pleased. We had the pleasure of reviewing Ferrari...
There was a double victory for Porsche at Sebring, as the #91 Porsche 911 RSR of Gianmaria Bruni/Richard Lietz won round six of the WEC in Florida on Friday. Not to be outdone, Nick Tandy/Patrick Pilet/Frédéric Makowiecki also grabbed a win in the #911 Porsche 911 RSR in round two...
Porsche – Graphisme 917 by Stéphane Coradi © Virtual Motorpix/Glen Smale Porsche Graphisme 917: This is Stéphane Coradi’s second publication in less than a year, the man is irrepressible. His enthusiasm for the Stuttgart marque knows no bounds, and combined with a unique artistic talent, this new book is quite...
Legendary – The history of the Porsche 919 Hybrid, published by Delius Klasing Verlag – © Virtual Motorpix/Glen Smale There will be few who would argue that much of Porsche’s history has been shaped by motorsport. From the very early race cars, some constructed by privateer teams (in the 1950s),...
70 Years of Porsche Sports Cars – Edition Porsche Museum – © Delius Klasing Published in recognition of the company’s 70th anniversary, 70 Years of Porsche Sports Cars, understandably highlights and promotes the milestones along the way for which the Stuttgart motor manufacturer has become well known. The book is...
After a 45-year hiatus, the popular Ice Race GP at Zell am See near the picturesque Austrian town of the same name, was revived last month to great acclaim. Thanks to an abundance of snow in the region, the race track, which is laid out on the frozen runway of...
The author at the entrance to the Automuseum Prototyp, December 2018 This last December, we planned a trip to Hamburg to visit with family and to see the Automuseum PROTOTYP. This time, though, I wanted to travel via a different route, not the normal Dover-Calais channel crossing. Stena Line offer...