Wheels Australia - June 2018

IT FEELS almost sacrilegious to cherrypick

just three cars from seven decades of

Porsche heritage, none of which are 911s,

but this trio naturally elevates itself atop

the median. Elitist? We prefer extreme; the

cars that stretched the boundaries of what

we thought was possible. Not all of them

were commercially successful. The 959

retailed for around US$300,000 yet it cost

Porsche more than twice that to build each

car. Like BMW’s ill-starred M1, it was built

by Baur and was also designed to compete

in a race series that had been legislated

out of existence by the time it was ready to

turn a wheel in anger.

As much as anything, the 959’s story is the

story of Helmuth Bott, Porsche’s brilliant

head of R&D who aside from developing

the 959, designed the Weissach test track

and introduced the wind tunnel and crash

testing at Porsche. It was Bott’s vision that

poured one innovation after another into

the 959. Functional active suspension, tyre

pressure monitoring, sequential twin turbos,

a dedicated off-road gear, water-cooled

cylinder heads, composite body, dynamic all-

wheel drive – all of this was rocket science

for what was briefly the fastest road car in

the world back in 1983.

The Carrera GT feels like an analogue

THE

INCREDIBLES

No road cars epitomise Porsche’s desire to push the limits more than 959,

Carrera GT and 918 Spyder. We gather all three to explore their icon status

62 whichcar.com.au/wheels