Porsche Museum

On Saturday, I took a quick trip over to Stuttgart with Shane to visit the Porsche Museum. Minus 4°C and ice on the autobahn made the driving rather interesting. Shane is amongst the many who believe that the only true Porsches are the 911’s, so he was thrilled to see the first production version on display. A lackey later came along to clean off the drool.

Much to Shane’s disgust, I had to admit that the 928 is still my favourite production Porsche – 5.4 litre V8, 350 hp, 275 km/h, elegant and timeless styling and engine in the right place, to boot.

  

The 1971 Le Mans Porsche 917/20 featured such an unusually wide and rounded experimental bodywork that it apparently became referred to as “the pig”. In an amazing display of Teutonic wit and self-deprecation, it competed in bright pink livery with graphics depicting a butcher’s diagram of meat cuts.

  

A particularly interesting beastie was the 2013 limited production Hybrid Porsche 918 Spyder with a 608 hp combustion engine plus 286 hp electric motors. It does 0 to 100 km/h in 2.6 seconds and has a top speed of 345 km/h. It also looks rather hairy.

  

Despite all of the amazing machinery displayed, for me the prettiest car was this little 1500 cc Porsche 804 Formula 1 car driven by Dan Gurney to victory in the 1962 French Grand Prix. It looked like a toy car, but with a 185 hp 8 cylinder boxer engine it could do 270 km/h.

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