Porsche marks a jubilee

By ALASTAIR SLOANE Motoring editor

Porsche will unveil a special anniversary model of its 911 sports car at the Frankfurt motor show next month to mark the 40th birthday of the 911 badge. Production will be limited to 1963 units, in honour of the year the first 911 model appeared.

The limited-edition model is based on the rear-wheel-drive 911 Carrera and comes in silver metallic, until now a colour available only on the $1-million-plus Carrera GT sports car.

The anniversary 911, expected to cost about $230,000 when it arrives in New Zealand in January, borrows styling features from other models in the range. The front bumper is adopted from the 911 Turbo, for example. Other styling details are the left and right sill trims, the shot-blasted, polished 18-inch Carrera wheels and the polished exhaust tailpipes.

A sunroof and bi-xenon headlights with a cleaning system complete the exterior features. There is an aluminium 911 logo on the engine cover.

The interior is trimmed in dark grey natural leather. The sport seats come with two-stage heating. The centre console, seat backs and trim strips on the dashboard and the handbrake lever covers are finished in GT silver metallic. So are the instrument dial rings and the numbered 911 40th-anniversary plaque on the centre console.

The jubilee 911's body is 10mm lower than the standard model and has firmer suspension. Traction and off-the-line acceleration have been improved with the addition of a differential lock, says Porsche. The zero to 100km/h sprint time is not known. The electronic Porsche Stability Management (PSM) system also comes as standard.

The one-off model comes with more power, too. The 3.6-litre flat-six engine now develops 254kW (345bhp), up 18kW over the standard 911.

The extra power, says Porsche, boosts maximum speed by 5km/h to 290km/h and improves the zero to 200km/h time by one second, down from 17.5s to 16.5s.

The anniversary model is the 13th version of the Porsche 911 available and the second-fastest car in the naturally aspirated production programme, after the GT3.

The company Porsche AG was formed by founder Professor Ferdinand Porsche on April 25, 1931, as "designers and consultants for land, sea and air vehicles".

But it was Ferdinand's son "Ferry" who steered it into becoming a specialist manufacturer.

From the time he designed the first Porsche - the Type 356 - in 1948, it was his personal involvement which has made Porsche the great marque that it is today.

When Ferry was born in Wiener Neustadt, Austria, on September 19, 1909, his father was technical director of the Austro-Daimler company.

The Porsche family moved to Stuttgart in 1923 when Ferdinand became the technical director of Daimler-Benz.

Ferry started working with his father in 1931, after the Porsche design office was set up. Their first contract - designated number 007 to give the impression it was not their first project - was a 2-litre car for Wanderer.

The success of this car was later to lead the newly founded Auto Union Company, which had incorporated Wanderer, to appoint Ferdinand Porsche as the designer of a new Grand Prix car to meet the new 750kg maximum weight formula.

The Auto Union was the most advanced racing-car design concept before the war.

It was of lightweight construction and featured a 16-cylinder supercharged engine mounted just behind the driver - the standard engine position in today's Formula One cars.

Ferry did most of the test driving of the Auto Union car, until his father said one day, "I have enough drivers, but only one son".

Auto Union was one of the companies that collectively became Audi.

One other car which the Porsche firm designed before World War II was to have an important influence on both Ferry and the world. It was the Volkswagen Beetle.

Ferry left war-torn Stuttgart in 1943 for Gmund in Austria. After World War II, he kept busy with repair jobs and the construction of farm machinery.

His father was arrested at the war's end by the French and held until 1947, when the Porsche family managed to raise sufficient money from new contracts from Italy to buy his freedom.

One of these design projects resulted in the Formula One race car - the Cisitalia, unveiled at the Turin Motor Show 1947. It was the first racing car with a mid-mounted engine and four-wheel-drive. After that Ferry decided to build his own sports car and took out plans he had made back in 1939 for a light, compact car, based on the Volkswagen - practically the only components available in Germany at the time.

Besides providing speedy acceleration, unmatched braking and good road-holding, an essential criterion was the car had to be practical for everyday use.

The marketing concept adopted by Ferry was, "If I build a car that gives me satisfaction, then there must be others with the same sort of dreams who would be prepared to buy such a car".

The first car to bear the Porsche name - the Type 356 - was delivered on June 8, 1948. It boasted a tubular spaceframe chassis, an aluminium body and a rear-mounted, four-cylinder, 1131cc VW engine.

The following year, to ensure continued production of the 356, "Ferry" negotiated a new contract with the head of Volkswagen, Heinz Nordoff, for the supply of parts.

Fifty-two 356 cars were built at Gmund in Austria before the company returned to Stuttgart and production recommenced there in March, 1950.

During the same year, Porsche began designing its own engine - the Carrera. The 356 model, which was initially forecast to have a world sales potential of 500 units, was last produced in 1965 after more than 78,000 cars had been built.

By then its successor, the 911, had been going for two years. Porsche's policy of model longevity continues today with the anniversary 911.