Pierre Martins

I often wonder what my fellow 928 fans think of other P-Car icons. I'm not talking about the 911 / 928 front vs rear engine debate, we've all been there, done that. That's an endless, hollow debate at best.

But what about classic icons like the mighty 917 and 956? Do you guys think of these cars as icons, or what? My feeling is that most 928 owners really don't care two hoots about the cars that established the Porsche marque on the race tracks. Most 928 owners are Grand Tourismo drivers that could be just as cumfy in a '90's Merc SLC. The only reason you drive a 928 is because you have a feeble attempt at owning an affordable Porsche just for show-off value.

911 owners, on the other hand, are much more "race" orientated and have a much higher regard for the mighty 917, 956, GT1 and other great Porsche race cars. They sit in there in pit lane in their light-weight rear-engined go-carts and give us smirky looks in our heavy front-engined porkers...

oops, I wasn't gonna talk about that... Okay, I'm just stirring the pot, so flame away. Prove me wrong. Name the best P-cars in your opinion.

Cheers,
Pierre.

Robert_H

Pierre,

I don't know, I grew up going to the IMSA Camel GT series races. I love the classic Porsche race cars like the 904, 908, 935 and 956, 962 variants. But my favorite Porsches are the 917 variants, with the 917/30 being "numero uno" on my list.

Of the street variety, among the older "pre-impact bumper days", I would say the 911 RS and RSRs are my favorites. As far as the newer ones, I really like the sexy lines of the 993 Turbos and of course... the 928.

Rob

heinrich

Dr Ernst Fuhrmann
Hellmuth Bott
Jurgen Barth
Brian Redman
Jacky Ickx
Huschke von Hanstein
Derek Bell
Dan Gurney
Peter Falk
and so-on
[edited] how could i forget Mark Donahue and Vic Elford!!

Every Porsche ever built

And in particular:
Ernst Fuhrmann
Porsche 911 T, S, E (long bonnet)
Porsche 917 (pre-K)
Porsche 935 Baby
Porsche 911GT1
Porsche 959
Porsche 9 Carrera GT
Porsche 962 roadcar
Porsche 910
Porsche 928GTS

philip karas

917 and 962, and id doubt id be as comfortable in a merc.

2V4V

Pierre,

For shame. If you want vitriol, I got a coupla spare gallons...

911 owners as the 'race oriented' ones? You're killin' me. Most 911 owners know their stock portfolios far better than where to find the oil filter on their over-priced uber-Beetle.

OK, if it's gonna have one of those silly flat motors, make it a 12 and crank up the boost please. If I had an extra pile-o-cash, I'd have a 917-30 in a road-legal state. Yeah, I'd drive it on the street. I remember staring through the window down at Vasek Polak at his jumbo-Matchbox-storage collection of those things and just drooling.

I always liked the racing 908/917 stuff, but until the front-engine cars arrived, Porsches to my crowd were just a rodded VW Beetle. The layout, the cockpit, the ergonomics, the handling, the technology, the weight distribution - just a faster VW. Not a serious automobile. Every engineer at Porsche knows this too. That's why everytime they do a "clean-sheet" car, it's front engine and water-cooled and actually drives and sounds like a real car, not some broke-*** high-schooler's Baja Bug.

One owns a 911 because strippers, small children, and even the illiterati down at the country club will know you bought a 'Porsche' and are now cool.



Greg

Warren928

I was 10 when I became very infactuated with porsches, among them were the 911, 930, 959, some of the race cars (although I couldnt remember the numbers) and the 928 was a late entry in my favorites list, making the list around 1986. Ironically, I ended up with an 86'

Pierre Martins

Ha! ...impressive list you posted there heinrich...

Where did you copy that?

2V4V

Pierre,

Unless there's an inside joke that I'm missing (there probably is), I 'd bet Heinrich actually could rattle that off.

Greg

Pierre Martins

I was just haggling heinrich.

Back to topic at hand.

hacker-pschorr

How could you? You forgot Mark Donahue!!! He should be at the top of EVERY Porsche driver list. The 917/30 would not have become the monster it is without him.

Holy double-clutch batman, you also forgot Al Holbart?? WTF man, have you totally forgot your 928 roots? Did he not certify the 928 as the fastest car in the world back in 1986?

I need a beer, the world is starting to spin......

Shane

Tim Murphy and Andy Keel

Gretch

Vic Elford.

and he was my instructor at Skip Barber school in west palm beach at Moroso.........

heinrich

truly agreed, Mark Donahue and Vic Elford should have been VERY close to the top ... hey it's the best I could do in a hurry off the top of my head Hacker, Al Holbert was cool, but I stand by his not making my list

saxapeeel

The ultimate porsche in my opinion is the 959. oh how i long for one.

Pierre Martins

btw, i got exclusive pics. The hippy coloured ex David Piper chassis # 917/012 that he crashed during Le Mans 1970, rebuilt by Porsche AG and renamed chassis 917/021 (they musta been up all night figuring that one out)

This is the same 917 once owned by Bobby Rahal and at some time registered and used as a street legal 917 in Germany before being sold to Don Marsh. 917/021 is now owned by Juan Barrazi and raced here in the SA historic tourist trophy in Feb '04. Lick my *** and I'll post some pics.

Better yet, I have some scanned black & whites of the 3 Rothmans 956's at Weissach. Original factory pics, never seen on the net. Well, almost. I submitted these a month or so ago to a historic Le Mans site, but I bet you never seen 'em.

but I guess you guys would rather talk about 928 torque tubes and paint codes eh?

Cheers,
Pierre.