Remember when you could see Porsche
engines? 444 horsepower from just 2 .8 liters
was moon-landing technology back in the
’80s and is still rarefied air today.A
t the 1963 Paris Motor Show—the
50th anniversary of the event—
the Porsche 901 made its debut.
Reaction was mixed. So big! So fat!
And while the scribes nattered
about the Porsche’s girth compared
to the 356 it would replace, Peugeot
executives notified Porsche that its 901
nomenclature would violate Peugeot’s
trademarked “X0X” monikers.
Rather than get the lawyers involved,
Ferry Porsche (eventually) made the
decision to simply change the name,
and voilà! The Neunelfer, das 911, the
sports car all others want to be when they
grow up, was born. Production began in
September 1964, with just over 80 units
tagged 901 before the name was changed.
Everything that made a Porsche 911 a
911, and what continues to do so to this
day, was there. The sloping profile, the
large headlights, the biggish rear seat ( big
for a 2+2, at any rate), the rear-mounted
boxer six-cylinder engine with a transaxle
in front of it, the five gauges—all that
essential stuff was baked right into the
901 and can still be found in 911s today.
Much more the progenitor than any
sort of missing link, the 901 is analogue
to the Gmünd 356s, the first 50 or so
Porsches ever built at the workshop in
Gmünd, Austria, before the company
moved to Zuffenhausen. Both the 901s
and the Gmünd cars are a bit older, a bit
more interesting, but “same same,” as my
2-year-old is fond of saying. Back to the
901 specifically, I find it amazing that 55
years later, all that DNA is still there.Much, much, much—that’s three
instances of “much”—more amazing
is that just over 20 years later, Porsche
released the 959. Let’s go with flabber-
gasting. Work on Gruppe B, as the 959
was first known, began in 1983, less than
two decades after the 901, or the Ür 911,
if you will.
Going from 901 to 959 in that time
frame is, technologically speaking, akin
to going from a WWI-era biplane to the
F-16. Whereas the 901/911 was air-cooled,
rear-wheel drive, naturally aspirated, and
good for 130 horsepower, the 959 sported
water-cooled heads (with air-cooled
pistons), all-wheel drive, two sequentially
arranged turbochargers, and 450 metric
horsepower (444 SAE ponies) way back
when Porsches were manufactured in
Westdeutschland.
Think about it: Porsche released the
992 in 2019, and the Carrera 4S is water-
cooled, AWD, and twin-turbo, and it
produces—wait for it—450 PS/444 SAE
horsepower. It took the 911 more than 30
years to catch up to the 959, and the base
car still hasn’t! And has the 992 caught
up? Its top speed is 191 mph. The 959could go 197 mph. Oh, and the 959 Sport
could hit 211 mph. To continue the aircraft
analogy, the state-of-the-art, mega-bil-
lion-dollar F-35 Lightning II can hit 1,200
mph. The F-16 Fighting Falcon, first flown
in 1974, can go 1,500 mph.
Comparing these two cars, the 901
to the 959, is perhaps pointless. It’s like
describing the difference between an
elephant and an ant. Possible to do, but
why bother? Or perhaps I’m just not a deft
enough auto scribe to pull it off. Could be.
Could also be that the two are so wildly,
strikingly, fundamentally different that
there’s just not a point. Still, I can tell youJUNE 2020 MOTORTREND.COM 51