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Will be posting some pix of 3 PTS Spyders in Scottsdale later this month. A couple other 'listers are shipping their cars down for the winter. We hope to meet up after the auction week is over and there are a lot of good places around here for some cruising and picture taking... more to follow!
Pretty cool pictures, y'all! Absolute treat to see all kinds of shades in a wide variety of environments. One thing strikes me, albeit belatedly: 987's rear deck looks better than 981's! I know, some of you already knew. Might have been difficult to make the rounded flair of 987's humps to go with angular nature of 981. Yet, 987 got bigger and better streamers!
Will be posting some pix of 3 PTS Spyders in Scottsdale later this month. A couple other 'listers are shipping their cars down for the winter. We hope to meet up after the auction week is over and there are a lot of good places around here for some cruising and picture taking... more to follow!
Jeff and Dave? Tell them I say hi! They told me they were headed south to AZ... which sounds good, especially now. We got 7inches of snow last night.
Might have been difficult to make the rounded flair of 987's humps to go with angular nature of 981. Yet, 987 got bigger and better streamers!
Anyone else wish the 987 and 981 Spyders had just one streamliner on the driver's side?
I wonder if Porsche designers ever entertained such a notion and, if so, why they decided against it and went with dual humps?
It would have obviously been more historically accurate to have a single streamliner as I don't recall ever seeing any of the old 550/718 Spyders with two. Yes, you could say they were single-seaters back then, thus the one hump, while our modern cars are built for two people. And maybe one streamliner would have posed some challenges with the roof design if there wasn't complete symmetry on the rear lid. But Jag certainly was undeterred choosing to go with one pronounced streamliner on the F-Type Project 7 car thus paying homage to those amazing D-Types of yore. I just wish Porsche had shown equal reverence for the Spyders' racing forebearers.
I was thinking about this while looking back at the side-by-side pics of Alex's Spyder and his brother's 550 earlier in this thread. I just really like the look of the single streamliner better. Add this to my wish-list of dream features I'd love to see appear on the 718 Spyder, but I certainly won't be holding my breath.
Sexy, no doubt! And there's an undeniable balance there.
You almost won me over, but my vote would still go for remaining true to the race-inspired design cues of the historic 550s. I'm a sucker for heritage I guess!
Nick I wonder if the dual streamers are borrowed from the Speedster which was/is a great design success. The spyder is more pronounced which makes sense since it has a larger rear decklid and the design allows/demands it.
Personally I prefer the two streamers but that's just my OCD Engineering mind that wants a balanced look.
Nick I wonder if the dual streamers are borrowed from the Speedster which was/is a great design success.
Could be. I know little about Speedsters and could be totally wrong, but I think the original/earlier Speedsters didn't have any humps at all, did they? They were just bathtubs. It was only with the later Speedster models from the late '80's and most recently in 2010 or so that Porsche added the double bubble tonneau/trunk lid I believe. Again, I could be totally wrong, but I think the dual humps in the newer Speedsters were merely a styling exercise by Exclusive that can't be traced back to earlier Speedsters.
I guess the way I feel about it is this: Porsche has such a rich racing history and the Spyders of yesteryear, dragon slayers that they were, play a huge role in that history. If you're going to come out with a new Spyder and you're a company like Porsche whose model range is so rooted in lineage, why not draw upon/steal/pay homage to/respect/acknowledge/embrace/honor/etc. design features from those historic Spyders whenever possible? I get that a new car can't replicate, nor should it, the exact appearance of the old cars because then they would look, well, old! But here I have to believe it would have been possible to make the 987/981 Spyders with a single streamliner and to me that would have been a very cool nod to their ancestors and a design element that extended the lineage. A missed opportunity IMO!
That would be a very interesting project for a carbon fiber body panel manufacturer like Robert Linton, you could create a frunk with one streamer on the driver side, maybe make it a little bit more accentuated and racy, while leaving the passenger side flat just like in the original version.
Anyone else wish the 987 and 981 Spyders had just one streamliner on the driver's side?
I wonder if Porsche designers ever entertained such a notion and, if so, why they decided against it and went with dual humps?
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Originally Posted by 63A 981510
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This picture (pretty beautiful, by the way) clearly highlights how the hump just drops sharply. Granted, the shadow might be making it more dramatic. This rather emphasizes my preference of 987's lines (just the rear deck).
As for an asymmetrical styling, not sure if such a design works in contemporary times. The designer would need to pull off a slick move to make it work. Here is one sample of asymmetrical design that really doesn't work well:
718 RS-W: The "Grandmother" to our current Spyders?
Originally Posted by Suicide Jockey
It would have obviously been more historically accurate to have a single streamliner as I don't recall ever seeing any of the old 550/718 Spyders with two.
Earlier in the thread I lamented Porsche's decision to go with dual streamliners on the current Spyders feeling that they should have remained true to the single streamliner design of the famous racing 550/718 Spyders from the '60s. However, I have since found a historically significant racing 718 that had two humps. This is the 718 RS-W of which only four were made:
Info on the 718 RS-W from the Porsche Museum:
"Porsche's first two-litre, eight-cylinder vehicle is affectionally nicknamed 'Grandmother' by the mechanics because of its exceptionally long motorsport career (1961-1964).
Its history of wins includes sensational class victories, such as those at the Targa Florio in 1962 and the 1,000-kilometer race at Nürburgring.
'Grandmother' dominated the European Hill Climb Championship in 1963 and in 1964, and twice drove Edgar Barth to the championship title."
The humps on the 718 RS-W provided for engine cooling and/or the escapement of heat from the engine so they are not "streamliners" in the traditional sense. Still, a claim can be made that there is some historical precedent for the two humps appearing on our 987/981 Spyders. Plus, note the presence of a rear spoiler on the 718 RS-W, something shared by the current Spyders.
01-01-2017, 04:04 PM
