The Belgian national auto museum Autoworld held a major exhibition last year, honouring the 70th anniversary of the Porsche car company.
For those who are not familiar with this car museum, Autoworld usually hosts four to six major thematic exhibitions a year, where several dozen thematic vehicles occupy the main gallery on the first floor. They just opened a new one to honour Citroen’s 100th birthday a few weeks ago, and another major one I scheduled to the end of the year, to honour the legacy of the British car industry.
Last summer, the Porsche car company celebrated its 70th birthday, as the first sports car to bear the Porsche name was registered on 8 June 1948. This car was the very first 356 the No.1 Roadster showcased in the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart.
In the case of Porsche, we are talking about THE car brand with the most active presence in the classic car scene. 911s of various generations constitute the very backbone of every major classic car show in all corners of Europe. These models are also featured high in many classic car racing series. No wonder that the entire classic car world was in high gear to celebrate from 2018 Retromobile through many events and museums to the factory centres in Stuttgart and Wolfsburg.
One of the last events of the anniversary series was the exhibition in Autoworld that closed its gates in January. Given this timing, it was safe to conclude that it became my favourite Porsche exhibition of 2018, including the factory shows.
The Autoworld Porsche 70 exhibition really covers every era, category and purpose, from the Gmünd stables to the latest models, from crazy concepts (like the 928 station wagon and a Lego car) to race cars (including the current 919 Evo, that trolls former competitors with absolute lap records).
As usual, a set of new cars greet the visitors by the entrance. The stage featured the entire line-up from 718 to Cayenne, providing a stark contrast to the classics upstairs.
The stairs leading to the exhibition are guarded by a lovely set of speedsters. In the beginning, the speedsters were lightweight models tailored to minimise weight and cost. The more recent models were developing into a homage to the classic model in design, but the actual lightweight racers moved towards the GT2/GT3 versions.
Another exciting batch was a set or Police Cars from German 356 to the royal dutch highway police.
The gallery starts with a set of 356s surrounded by a discreet rural decoration honouring the stables in the Austrian Gmünd, where he first cars were assembled, until to the production was relocated to Stuttgart in 1950.
The set kicks off with a Gmünd series Porsche 356, one of the 44 Porsche type 356/2 entirely out of aluminium. The concrete exhibit was a one of 15 Swedish export model that on 15 June 1950 the first international victory, when Swedish rally driver Cecilia Koskull won the Midnattsssollrallyt.
Trophies acquired by Porsche drivers can hardly be considered unique, (the best of 30.000 trophies are showcased in an impressive segment of the Porsche Museum), but the first victory is always special.
The initial series production 356 is nowadays referred to as the ‘pre-A’, and is easily recognisable for its split windscreen, used until the model year 1952. The 356 was available in several open versions including Cabriolet, Speedster or Roadster. The 1100cc engine disappeared in 1954 and was replaced with a 1300cc power unit producing 54bhp as the base model. In 1954 a 1500cc engine was added, but soon replaced with a 1600cc unit. Of the Pre-A models in total, a mere 327 cabriolets and 1,362 coupés were built.
The 356 A was replaced as from the model year 1960 with a redesigned 356 B that ranged from a 60bhp 1600 to a 140bhp 2000 GS-GT Carrera 2.
The 356 C arrived as of the model year 1964, while the number of engines was reduced to three, the top-spec 2000 GS Carrera developed 130bhp. Visually there was hardly any difference between the C and the B series. In addition to the half a dozen cars in the stables, there are 356s in the exhibitions various segments, such as the production model in the main gallery or the speedster corner by the stairs.
As one of the means to finance its own car brand, Ferdinand Porsche commercialised its concept developed at the beginning of the ‘30s for a ‘Volksschlepper’ (peoples’ tractor). In 1956, Mannesmann AG bought the licence of the Porsche-Diesel engines and the Allgaier-tractor design. Up until the end of 1963, the Porsche-Diesel tractors were produced by a division named Porsche-Diesel Motorenbau GmbH. In all, over 125.000 Porsche tractors were built, and they are a must-have decoration to every serious Porsche collection and hence of auctions as well, along with the Lamborghini Trattori. One particular heaven for Porsche Diesel is Fahrtraum, the private collection of the Porsche Family, that hosts over a dozen Porsche Diesels and Allgaiers.
When exiting the stables a line of series-production models and rarities guide us through the decades, starting with another 356, followed by 912, 914 and various versions of the 911 down to the transaxle models.
One of the most peculiar road cars was the Project 942, a sort of an enlarged station wagon version of the 928, developed as a present for the 75th birthday of Ferry Porsche.
The third millennium arrives with a trio of modern cars, including a Porsche Cayenne S Transsyberia, conceived to prove the Cayenne’s off-road competences in a race from Moscow to the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar, where three Cayenne S Transsyberia finished in the top-3 places.
The side of the gallery is occupied by sporty versions of road cars, Turbo and RS editions of several model series.
My favourite stage was occupied by Porsche’s bloodline of four legendary hypercars from 959 to the recent 918 hybrid.
The Porsche 959 became a symbol of the 80’s Poster heroes, even if it was initially developed as a homologation model for the FIA Group B rally car.
292 street-legal models were finally built with a water-cooled twin-turbo flat-six, electronically controlled suspension and four-wheel drive. At its introduction in 1986, it was the fastest street-legal of the moment with a top speed of 315 km/h.
A few decades later, Porsche built another hypercar to enter the FIA GT1 series (this time only two dozens were made). Again with 6 cylinder Turbo engine this time producing 544HP, the homologation street-legal version reached a top speed of 310 km/h and 100 km/h in 3.7 sec. The street version had a price tag of 1,5 million DM in 1996.
Next up is the first real mass-market hypercar, the Carrera GT that reached over 1000 sales for the first time in this class where the half a million starting price was not unusual. In the absence of a homologation requirement, Porsche opted for a V10 producing 612HP, they reached a top speed of 330 km/h and reached 100 km/h in 3.9 sec.
The last one is the current (recently finished) 918, the first hybrid Porsche since the 1908 Lohner Mixte. The Porsche 918 Spyder is a plug-in hybrid sports car, driven by an atmospheric 4.6-litre V8 developing 608bhp (453 kW) combined with two electric motors delivering 279bhp (208 kW). The drivetrain produces a combined output of 887bhp (661 kW).
The Porsche brand’s racing tradition is well represented on the gallery. Without enumerating all the excellence, here are a few of my favourites.
The 959 Dakar (with Rothman’s livery) takes my podium for stealing the show. When Porsche started the development of the 959, the Group B racing cars were intended as the all-round solution to car racing and also the high-end laboratory for the technological development of production cars.
When Group B shifted its focus to rally championship racing, the 959-project was redirected to long-distance rallies. In 1984 three 911 Carrera models, with four-wheel drive, competed in the Paris-Dakar Rally, finishing in 1st (René Metge), 6th (Jacky Ickx) and 25th place. The Porsche 959 exposed won the Paris-Dakar Rally in 1986.
The Porsche 917 celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2019, but the retired race cars are already harvesting incredible bids at auctions. In 1970 and 1971 the Porsche 917 won no less than 15 of the 24 races in the World Championship, among which the 24 Hours of Le Mans, 24 Hours of Sebring, 12 Hours of Daytona, 1000 Kilometres of Monza, Spa-Francorchamps and the Nürburgring.
The Porsche 919 Hybrid is a racing car built to compete in the top Le Mans Prototype 1-Hybride (LMP1-H) category of the FIA World Endurance Championship. It went through baptism by fire in 2014 at Silverstone, and remained competitive until its retirement.
The 919 Hybrid-project was stopped at the end of the 2017 but remained active in trolling around the still competing for brands with new lap records in many famous race tracks.
As usual the organisers prepared the exhibition with a lot of love for details, from die cast cars through drawing competitions for kids in the children’s corner to a LEGO car scaled up to real size. There is quite a lot to digest, but given that all the anniversary exhibitions are published, I am working on a small recap of the anniversary year.
FOR AN OVERVIEW OF ALL THE CAR MUSEUMS I EVER VISITED, CHECK OUT THE INTERACTIVE MAP:
