frisbee91

I was helping my son with his math homework yesterday, when I noticed "911", "991", and "997" in a list of prime numbers. 996 was obviously missing. It got me wondering how many Porsche designations are prime. Was this by conscious choice, or by happenstance?

So, for your Friday entertainment, I present the following useless information:

Number of Porsche unique numeric designations (under 3513): 223
Number of prime numbers (under 3513): 490
Number of Porsche Primes (under 3513): 29

Here are the Porsche model designations that are prime:

Type Year/Description
7 1930-31 Wanderer 1.86-liter chassis (first Porsche office design)
67 1939 KdF "invalid vehicle"
101 1942 Carrier for 88 mm gun, electric transmission, Elefant basis
113 1941 Small tractor, version III
137 1940-41 Wind power generator, 4,500 watt
181 1942 Tank design with hydraulic transmission
293 1944 Personnel carrier
313 1945 Diesel tractor
509 1950 1.3-liter engine for Porsche 356
523 1951 Studies of marine engine
547 1952-53 1.5-liter four-camshaft racing engine
577 1953 Experimental disc brakes for 356
587 1961 2.0-liter racing engine for Type 718
593 1953 Four-speed gearbox for Porsche cars
607 1954 Gearbox for Grand Prix Bugatti T.251
719 1957 Racing engine with fuel injection
787 1960-61 Grand Prix car chassis
821 1961 2.0-liter six-cylinder engine
907 1968 Right-hand-drive sports-racing coupe, short tail
911 1964-65 Six-cylinder production sports car
919 1969 PDK prototype transmission for production Porsches; 2.0L sports-racing coupe for LMP1 category
929 1973 "Turbo Sport Carrera"
937 1980 924 Carrera GT left-hand drive
947 1980 Initial project for four-speed 928S automatic, later Type 960
953 1984 4x4 version of 911 Carrera for Paris-Dakar Rally
991 2011 7th generation of the "911" Carrera and Carrera 4
997 2004–2011 6th-generation "911" Carrera and Carrera 4
1997 1973 Urban car studies, two-cylinder air-cooled rear—engined
2539 1975 SAVE mobile medical-assistance project for Technology Ministry (see 2614)

(Designations per Wikipedia. Duplicate designations such as 911/01 and non-numeric designations omitted.)

In the list of all numbers between 1 and 3512, the likelyhood of 29 numbers to occur in both the prime number list and the Porsche designation list purely by chance is very high (likelihood ratio p-value = 0.67)

tl;dr: Looks like it's random. Now you know.

TonyTwoBags

Oh yeah?

I used to drive a Maserati Coupé

Billup

Well, I used to drive a Maserati Bi-Turbo.



OP thanks for the Friday morning enlightenment.

wyovino

That explains the hate for the 996. I always thought it was the headlights. Who knew?

DBJoe996

I used to own/drive a 1995 Ford Aerostar van (more useless random information)

ZuffenZeus

If you flip the first two digits in 996, you'll know exactly why it's the most hated of Porsche 911s.

996inTX

Makes the 996 rather a unique machine.