Conflict: I like the new Porsche 935.
I like its looks. That it’s retro, with cues, colours, shape, name - very obviously - pulled from the 935/78 ‘Moby Dick’ race car from 1978. I like that it’s not just another ‘recreation’ of an old car. It’s new.
I also don’t like the new Porsche 935. Because it’s a 911 GT2 RS with a massive carbonfibre composite bodykit. That you can't drive on the road. Honestly, what’s the point?
The point is a celebration of Porsche’s 70 years, during which it has amassed a racing heritage like perhaps no other car maker on the planet. The 935 is among the most successful of its racing cars. This isn’t one of them. It’s a pastiche, a copy, an ornament. Literally claimed by its maker to be a ‘present to all motorsport fans’. It’s a bauble.
Porsche unveils reborn 935 race car
But what a bauble. There are few companies that you’d trust to put together an exquisitely finished limited-run production car like this, and one of them is Porsche. Standard production pieces have been carefully grafted and crafted around new, bespoke parts made by hand from unobtanium.
Which is why it costs an absurd £750,000 after tax and they’re only going to make 77 of them, thus creating the worst kind of awful please-sir-me-sir consumptive bunfight among billionaire collectors apparently desperate to part with their money; the kind of awfulness that defines so much of what’s wrong with the world today.
None of that, though, is the fault of the car: it’s just a car. A cool-looking, fast car that is likely terrific to drive.
Not that anyone will ever know. Because it’s not a race car. Worse, it’s not a road car, either, and unlike some of those other gauche recreations, I doubt you’d get it through individual vehicle approval either, owing to the lack of headlights and all that.
Still, a regular 911 GT2 RS isn’t much of a road car either. Sure, you can use it to get from your house to a race circuit , and drive it quickly on the autobahn, and get a bit of feel out of the steering, but so ludicrous are its capabilities that you’ll never need its 690bhp performance on the road. It, and this, are track cars.
Yet the new 935 doesn’t even have any more power or capability than the GT2 RS. For £750,000, they can’t even be bothered to turn up the wick on the 3.8-litre twin-turbocharged flat six, because that would require too much effort, despite the fact that this project will be worth about £50 million in revenue.
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For the Porsche fans (Porsche
For the Porsche fans (Porsche Sound Nacht) :
https://www.autohebdo.fr/tourisme-gt/actualites/quand-porsche-celebre-les-musiques-de-ses-moteurs-de-course-198446.html
Knowing almost them all, I have voted for the 911 (996) GT3 RSR which made an exceptional sound (still free exhaust, pure sound and rich signature).
But it lacks the best : the Porsche 910.
In the other hand, it is more intresting to hear the sound in dynamic than in static.
Doesn’t matter....
No matter our opinions are, all 77 will sell, yes a few won’t turn a Wheel, and yes, it’s wealthy persons Toy, but what does that matter, they probably worked hard to be where they are in society, of course Porsche wouldn’t just remanufacture Bolt for Bolt screw for screw Car from the 70’s , it was never a Road Car, company’s like Ruff and Rinspeed to name two produced their “flat nose” versions for the Road, so, Porsche doing this homage is just fine, personally as you may have guessed I like it......
Trivia
Unobtanium is the soft material used in Oakley (TM) sunglasses around the nose and ear contact areas. It also cropped up in the film “Avatar” and numerous other sci-fi stories.
Just sayin....
Robbo
Unobtainium?
Nothing to do with (excellent) sunglasses. Grow up and go back a couple of decades for its origins.