Porsche’s roadgoing model line-up has seldom, if ever, been very far removed from the company’s motorsport programme. This thread can be traced back even to the early 356 and 356 Carrera days. The Porsche 964 Carrera RS 3.8 is a very different beast from the cars of old, but the...
Anatole Lapine, 1973 Anatole Lapine who was in charge of styling at Porsche under two disparate CEOs, Fuhrmann and Schutz, looks back on quite a CV: Chevrolet Corvette, Opel GT, Porsche 928, Porsche 964. But there is a lot more to this designer whose career spans two continents and most...
Turbo 3.0, by Ryan Snodgrass – © Parabolica Press Amongst its numerous attributes, Porsche sports cars have always been about performance, engineering, innovation and being different. From the production of the very first sports car to bear the Porsche name, the 356 which came into this world in 1948, the...
The Story of the Porsche 911 – A Timeline Porsche Prepares To Evolve Beyond The 356 By the early 1960’s, with the commercial success of the 356 (in all of its variants) over the past decade, Porsche had garnered a reputation for building quality, high-performance vehicles that handled equally well...
This angle shows the sweeping lines of the 911 GT1/98 Strassenversion The origins of the 1998 Porsche 911 GT1 Le Mans winner can be traced back to a roadgoing version of the Group C 962 launched five years earlier. In order to homologate the 911 GT1/98, the FIA required a...
Porsche – It’s My World by Stéphane Coradi © Virtual Motorpix/Glen Smale 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...
A great many of Derek Bell’s racing achievements were achieved while behind the wheel of a Porsche racing car and for this reason, it was perhaps inevitable that Derek Bell – All my Porsche races, would one day be committed to print, highlighting his extraordinarily successful career. Contrary to what...
Porsche 930 to 935: The Turbo Porsches – by John Starkey © Veloce Publishing Ltd Much has been written about Porsche’s racing exploits over the years, but there is perhaps one model that has served, more than any other, as the pillar of the company’s achievements. Prototypes have come and...
© Hurley – From The Beginning (cover) There are just a handful of racing drivers that can list the number and quality of achievements that Hurley Haywood can. True, there might be more than a handful in total, but within each discipline of the sport, there are just a few...
Long Beach, IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, 14 April 2018: #912 Porsche 911 RSR of Laurens Vanthoor and Earl Bamber bounces over the kerbs during the race The efforts of the factory Porsches over the weekend came to naught, as the two 911 RSRs finished well down the order in the...
Rallye Paris-Dakar 1984: Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2 4×4 (Type 953) – driven by (from L-R) #175 Jacky Ickx, #176 René Metge, #177 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...
1972 Porsche 911 2.4 S, Inchydoney Hotel, West Cork, Ireland – we were peppered with heavy rain showers on the day of the photo shoot. You could almost draw a line from the clouds above past the back of the car, and see that we were getting drenched, but just...
Porsche Sport 2017 – Gruppe C Motorsport Verlag If you follow Porsche motorsport around the world, then Porsche Sport 2017 is not a book you want to be without. In fact, if you read this book from cover-to-cover, you would be one of the most knowledgeable people around concerning the...
Corsica Rally, 1967: Vic Elford and David Stone driving a Porsche 911 2.0 R Not a company to stand still for long, Porsche was constantly looking for ways to improve its engines in the ‘60s. Somehow the Type 916 twin-cam 6-cylinder engine always seemed to miss the limelight…not anymore! The...
Porsche 911R book plus slip case (English) by Christoph Mäder, Thomas Gruber and Georg Konradsheim 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...
If your favourite sports car comes from the Porsche stable, then you will want to know about this product – the Porsche 911 flat-six boxer engine scale model by Franzis. This quarter scale, working model is just the thing to bring your Porsche passion into your home, office or den....
Porsche 911 991.1 GT3 RS
Jean Behra following his accident at Caracas 3 November 1957 Staring out of period black and white photographs, Jean Behra’s handsome, but battered face tells its own story: a combative soul who seemed to thrive only when living on the ragged edge and for whom an exploit was either going...
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...
Dr. Ulrich Bez (1988) Hailing from the Bad Cannstatt district of Stuttgart, Ulrich Bez, who as Porsche Technical supremo hatched the 993, had two significant stints at Porsche. During the 1970s he worked in research and was responsible for establishing Porsche’s crash test programme; in the 1980s, he followed Porsche’s...
Not only Porsche enthusiasts all around the world, but rallying aficionados too, will appreciate the skills and achievements of Walter Röhrl. An unpretentious man who lets the race and rally reports do the talking for him, Walter Röhrl mastered many different types of motorsport in his time, from rallying to...
As their race director and one of the leading figures in their experimental department, Peter Falk contributed significantly to the character of the sports cars from Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen – both on the race track and on the road. From the first 901 right through to the very last air-cooled Type 993,...
Mont Ventoux, 18 June 1967 – Rolf Stommelen won this hillclimb driving a Porsche 910/8 Bergspyder Rolf Stommelen was one of Germany’s leading racing drivers for over a decade and if as the title (above) of his biography implies, he could drive anything anywhere, this was largely true. Although his...
Autograph card signed by Jürgen Barth (ca. 1980) More books have been written about Porsche than any other car company so the publication in English of another tome is hardly headline news until you realise that the author, exceptionally, is a Porsche insider, but not just any insider. Jürgen Barth...
2017 Porsche 911 GTS model line-up The Porsche 911 family is expecting a new member. In March 2017, five new variants will join the range: the rear-wheel drive 911 Carrera GTS; the 911 Carrera 4 GTS with all-wheel drive available in both Coupé and Cabriolet; and the 911 Targa 4...
It is by now well known that Porsche won the prestigious Le Mans 24-Hour race in 2016, the company’s 18th such victory in this classic French endurance race. To put this achievement in perspective, Audi have won the title thirteen times and Ferrari nine times. Just as they did in...
Blue cover – Limited Edition Much has been written about the Porsche 911, in fact there are few manufacturers in the world, that could boast as having as many books written about one of their models. But as can be expected, many of these books cover selected top models, and...
The 914 is the Porsche that most sports car enthusiasts turn up their noses at. Let’s face it, the 914 isn’t the most beautiful Porsche in the world, with its flat surfaces and angular styling. It looks unpretentious, unattractive, and was generally unloved by many. But is that a fair...
Most people, even those only vaguely interested in motor sport, will have heard about the Porsche 917. The first of Porsche’s race cars to truly dominate the world of sports car racing, the 917 project was in 1969 almost a step too far for the small Stuttgart manufacturer as it...
Every now and then a truly good book comes along, one that is not only excellent in its content, but is also significant due to the rarity of the subject it covers. Roy Smith’s book on the Porsche 924 Carrera is one of those books because it covers a worthy,...
The author starts his book, The Monza 1000km: 1965-2008, by calling the first chapter, the years between 1965-1971, the ‘Golden Years’ and he is not the only one to do so. While the cars were rather ‘explosive’ in their performance, drivers and team personalities could also be rather explosive in...
This is an autobiography by a man who enjoyed what many would describe as the perfect job. A talented mechanical engineer, Horsman worked first for Aston Martin under the legendary leadership of John Wyer on such projects as the DP214. After Aston Martin, Horsman moved to Ford Advanced Vehicles where...
The very existence of the Porsche sports car must rank as one of the more unlikely histories in the automotive world. Yet such was the pioneering spirit of Professor Ferdinand Porsche and his son, Ferry, that the irrepressible 356 eventually saw the light of day, produced behind the doors of...
Porsche Sounds is another fine publication to have been produced by the Porsche Historical Archives in Stuttgart. But why, you may ask, do we need another book on Porsche’s long and well covered history, and what makes this book any different from the many others out there? Valid questions indeed....
Author Brian Long needs little introduction to the serious motorsport enthusiast, and in particular, Porsche racing. This title covers Porsche’s motor racing achievements between 1953 and 1975, and is the first of two volumes (the second volume covers 1976 to 2005). Offering a brief historical look into the company’s origins,...
Porsche’s domination of sportscar racing in the 1960s and 1970s by the 917 is well known, but the manufacturer’s rise to the top would not have been possible had it not been for the existence of several highly successful race cars that were created before it. Bill Oursler, who needs...
If there was one Porsche racing car that set the Stuttgart company on the road to motor sport stardom, then it must surely be the 1970 Le Mans winning Porsche 917. For many years it had been the sole aim of Porsche’s Director of Research & Development, Dr. Ferdinand Piëch,...
Every once in a while a man or woman comes along who wants to shake the tree, turn convention on its side, or just to improve the way we do things. Having written several books on the Porsche marque, when the opportunity arose to review Karl Ludvigsen’s book, Ferdinand Porsche:...
For starters, when you pick up your copy of Kussmaul Chronicles, you can jettison any preconceived ideas of reading a ‘normal’ book on the story of an engineer and his years spent at Porsche. That way, with a clear mind, you will be better prepared for the unexpected when you...
A Porsche 904 Carrera GTS Coupé in 1963 outside the factory in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen. The early version had a slatted air intake behind the doors, this being replaced by scoops which were more efficient The Porsche Carrera GTS represented a watershed in the company’s march towards motorsport fulfilment. Gone was the...
Silverstone 6 Hours, 20 April 2014: The Porsche 919 Hybrid team, drivers and management pose for a family snap before the race In 2014, Porsche marched back into the top class of endurance racing, and announced that they were here to take the championship. Their new racer, the Porsche 919...