911 LoveRS Perfectly Captures Car’s Beauty, Technology & History
New book on the Porsche 911 R and RS models is full of industry-changing history, impressive stats, and entertaining owner anecdotes.
Porsche is a serious business. In 2017, it broke its previous year’s sales record by delivering approximately 246,000 vehicles to customers around the world. It has five primary model lines to manage. There are figures to generate and bottom lines to meet. Publisher Delius Klasing‘s new book written by Jürgen Lewandowski and Bart Lenaerts, 911 LoveRS, tells the story of the 50-plus-year lineage of the Porsche R/RS/RSR cars that started with a love of performance, not the pursuit of a marketing or sales goal.
As the introduction states, engineers made the decision to “take a sporty 911, then make it sportier” and give it “extra power, less weight, [and] a sharper focus,” not the marketing executives. Back in the mid-1960s, the 911’s already-high prices and slow sales would’ve made any corporate type gasp at the idea of introducing an even more expensive and focused model with even fewer potential customers.
There was an urge to construct faster and more race-ready 911s building inside of numerous Porsche employees. According to 911 LoveRS, “At this point, the crew around Ferdinand Piëch had an even more uncompromising 911 in the works: the 911 R. This was essentially the nucleus of the fantastic RS and RSR models which play such a significant role in the brand’s renown today.”
As those special 911s became more advanced and their popularity increased, it began to make sense for Porsche to keep making them. The boardroom’s dedication to those variants came to match engineering’s eternal passion for quicker acceleration, better handling, less weight, and more driver enjoyment.
Reading 911 LoverRSÂ can be a serious business of digesting numerous names, dates, and figures. However, those are balanced by stories that illustrate the deep and ongoing love auto enthusiasts have for high-performance Porsches.Â
911 LoverRS documents the history of those models, from the original R to the legendary 2.7 RS to the brutal 964 RS to the not-for-the-U.S. 996 GT3 RS to the modern R, in a variety of ways. Although it’s packed with beautiful photos showing the half century of Porsche’s R/RS/RSR program, it’s not just a coffee table book to be picked up, quickly glanced at, and put down. It offers an elaborate and technical background on each model, explaining the measures taken to increase power, reduce weight, and sharpen reflexes. Its wealth of stats and figures and even original (European) prices add up to gearhead-friendly reading.
Reading 911 LoverRS also reveals a history of Porsche as a whole. For instance, it explains the significance of the 993 to the automaker’s financial stability and future production. Although unconventionally styled in a particular area (you know which one), the 996 was a technological revolution in the 911 timeline. It was even more important to Porsche because much of its front-end hardware was able to be shared with the Boxster, a model which also proved essential to Porsche.
In between corporate history lessons are interesting personal anecdotes from various R and RS owners. Many of them approached getting their first uber-Porsche with the same philosophy Piech and his team subscribed to when creating the first R. They didn’t view the money they spent on a 2.7 RS or GT2 RS as a cold, calculated investment that they expected to grow. They just wanted a faster Porsche, an experience instead of a CPA-approved expense. Classic car dealer Koni Lutziger “never thought deeply about return on investment or potential profit. He just purchased the motorbikes and automobiles he liked best. He bought with a bit of money, but mostly with his adoring heart.” That led to him to buy one of the 21 2.7 RSs in Light Green, as well as a multitude of other Porsches and exotics.
Barus Racing owner Franz-Josef Schwarz‘s 993 RS is historically significant to both him and Porsche. According to the book, it’s “a loyal soldier. The first five years of its exciting life, from 1995 to 2000, it spent at the factory in Zuffenhausen. Of the 1,014 copies produced, two were kept aside, both as yellow as a bathing duck. The one with the number plates S-PR-911 had the more discreet spoilers and served for PR purposes.”
Although 911 LoverRS is packed with beautiful photos showing the half century of Porsche’s R/RS/RSR program, it also offers a technical background on each model.
Consider 911 LoverRS a mixture of both Porsche the practical, numbers-focused business and its performance-above-all-else R/RS/RSR models. At times, reading through it can be a serious business of digesting numerous names, dates, and figures. However, those are balanced by stories that illustrate the deep and ongoing love automotive enthusiasts have for high-performance Porsches. It’s great for those who are especially passionate about Porsche — just like the 911 R. 911 LoverRS is available in hardcover now online and on Amazon for around $100.
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