The Carrera Panamericana was a sports car racing event on open roads in Mexico, similar to the Mille Miglia and Targa Florio in Italy. It ran from a southern Mexican west-coast city towards Texas, and counted towards the World Sportscar Championships. Running from 1950 to 1955, it was widely held by contemporaries to be the most dangerous race of any type in the world. It has since been resurrected as classic road rally.

Due to safety concerns, the race was cancelled after the 1955 Le Mans disaster, although the Mexican President announced only that the race's original task of publicizing the highway was 'complete'. The cancellation was unavoidable given that cars of the period were of a high-speed, low-safety design, and drivers of a win-at-all-costs mentality. Only a third of entrants typically finished the race, and unlike more compact circuits, the long stage sections were impossible to secure entirely, making it possible for crashes to linger for several hours before being noticed. 27 people had died during the five years of the Panamericana, giving it one of the highest mortality rates per race in the history of motorsport, primarily because during the years the race was held, automobile racing had undergone an amazing technical transformation to emerge as an advanced science. The speeds had almost doubled as a result, but safety controls remained static and competitors, spectators and safety control personnel alike became casualties.

Despite being abandoned, the race would not be immediately forgotten. Despite their models being small and often quite underpowered (especially with regard to American and other German opponents) Porsche enjoyed some success in the race, mainly class wins, which was a testament to the reliability engendered by the Volkswagen Beetle ancestry of their cars. Famously, a 550 Spyder won the Small Sports Car category in 1953. Later, some Porsche road cars were named the Carrera, after this race (in the same theme as the Targa, after the Targa Florio).