Luftgekühlt Wows the U.K.

Creative & curated Porsche event series brought it’s vintage theme to the United Kingdom.

Luftgekühlt is a reminder that Porsche culture is a diverse and wonderful thing. The literal translation of the word Luftgekühlt is air-cooled, and that’s the era of Porsche that the event founders love to present in a truly special way. We get to see their U.K. event here, in all its creative beauty, presented by Henry Catchpole for the Carfection YouTube channel.

The unique vision for the Luftgekühlt events come from it’s two founders, both of whom have deep back catalogs. Patrick Long you may recognize as a Le Mans winner, and one that also holds the distinction of being the only American Porsche factory driver. Howie Idelson is a well noted Socal creative director with a deep love for older Porsches, which comes across straight away in the video.

This is Luftgekühlt’s first event outside the U.S, and the UK is an excellent venue for finding vintage Porsches ranging from the iconic and priceless to the understated and super cool. The rain at the chosen venue of Bicester Heritage, a business campus dedicated to historic motoring and aviation, only adds to the atmosphere of an artistically inspired display of the style and substance we all love about Porsche.

The winged 550 Spyder may be the highlight of the show, but it’s far from everything and doesn’t look out of place mixed in with everything from slightly ratty unrestored originals, through more modern vintage race cars, and to something brightly painted and stanced out. The curation appears to be impeccable for what Catchpole describes as an open-air art exhibition.

In the video from the Luftgekühlt Media YouTube channel, Long let’s slip at the end that there’s the inkling of a German based event on the horizon as well. We’re looking forward to the next U.S event but, as Idelson points out, traveling to other countries gives them a chance to see a wider variation of the air-cooled gems out in the wild. We’re all for that.

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Ian Wright

Ian Wright has been a professional automotive writer for over two years and is a regular contributor to Corvette Forum, Jaguar Forums, and 6SpeedOnline, among other popular auto sites.

Ian's obsession with cars started young and has left him stranded miles off-road in Land Rovers, being lost far from home in hot hatches, going sideways in rallycross cars, being propelled forward in supercars and, more sensibly, standing in fields staring at classic cars. His first job was as a mechanic, then he trained as a driving instructor before going into media production.

The automotive itch never left though, and he realized writing about cars is his true calling. However, that doesn’t stop Wright from also hosting the Both Hand Drive podcast.

Ian can be reached at bothhanddrive@gmail.com