Porsche 904 Only Import on Quickest Cars From the ’60s List

By Adam Pockross - December 15, 2015

Porsche 904

Back in the 1960s, muscle ruled the roadways. Speed was the ever-pervasive need. And 0-60 times were dropping quicker than hippies dropping acid, as illustrated by the fact that the quickest car from the ’50s was a full 1.3 seconds slower than the next decade’s fleetest flier, the 1965 Shelby Cobra 427, which clocked in at a still-zippy 4.3 seconds.

To celebrate such acceleration, Car and Driver recently put out a list of all the quickest cars from the ’60s. Perhaps not surprisingly for the muscle-bound era, American cars dominate the list. But one uppity import blazed its way into a tie for 9th place: the 1964 Porsche 904, with a 0-60 time of 5.3 seconds.

The Porsche 904 Carrera GTS really was designed more for racing, to compete in the 1964 FIA-GT class racing season. The 106 street versions were produced, essentially, in order to comply with homologation regulations. They originally sold for a U.S. list price of $7,245, and orders far exceeded the number of cars made.

Porsche 904

Here’s what Car and Driver had to say about the car back in September of 1964:

“Even with street mufflers and air cleaners, the 904 comes on like the loudest part of a war movie soundtrack. That old Porsche trait, spitting back through the carburetors, is still there, as was a certain amount of lusty backfiring. . . . The loudest noise at 60 mph is your heart pounding in anticipation, and normal conversation is utterly impossible at 100 mph. . . . For the first time since the original series of 50 Porsches were built in Austria, the engine is ahead of the axle in a Porsche production car. . . . This engine differs from previous Porsche two-liters in having wilder cams, bigger valves, and more fin area. . . . Oh sure, only 130 horsepower. It didn’t seem hardly enough to do any more than pool all our blood along our jellied spine, break our glasses across the bridge of our nose, and leave the impression of our belt buckle on our stomach.”

Other than the power numbers, it sounds like they might be describing a Porsche today, right?

It’s interesting to note that C&D readily admits that car testing by magazines back then was a much less exact due to the number of “ringer” cars sent in by manufactures. They even excluded one particularly rung 1965 Pontiac Catalina 2+2, which the magazine originally anointed with a world-beating 3.9 second sprint. So maybe there could be a few more imports on this list after all.