Porsche 959

Porsche 959

first publically seen at the German Motor show in 1983 and was known as the “Gruppe B Prototype”, the road version of the 959 made its appearance two years later at the 1985 German Motor show and didn’t go into full production until a further year later and the first customer took delivery in ‘87 came in two variants, the race version was called Sport and the road version was called Komfort and went on sale for $225,000 only 337 cars were made until production ceased in 1988 although 8 were later made in the early nineties when Porsche had a clean out of old parts half were made in Silver the other half in red and these have become the 959’s to have.

The 2850cc, twin-turbo 6 cylinder boxer engine had water-cooled heads with an air cooled block pushing out around 444 bhp, To reduce Turbo Lag Porsche fitted sequential turbo’s that gave a progressive delivery of power and combined with a weight saving aluminium and Aramid composite body producing a very powerful and fast supercar hitting 62mph in just 3.7 secs and a standing Kilometre in 21.6 Seconds (back in the Eighties!)
To make it drivable Porsche added a "zero lift" aerodynamics package and an advanced 4 wheel drive system capable of distributing torque (PSK)
Due to Department of Transport rules the 959 was not available in the US until 1999 as it required a certain number to be available for “crash testing” and Porsche just wasn’t prepared to do that, and personally I don’t blame them.