Unlike the ‘spurious’ origins of the 3.0 RSR for sale of James Hunt provenance, which made headlines here and elsewhere, an opportunity to acquire a Porsche with unquestionable intrigue and history in concourse condition, is a rare thing indeed - even for the seasoned ‘car stalker’ at Jelenek.
Available at Jan Luehn, this 3.0 Carrera in dark metallic green may look like a standard, albeit impeccable, 1976 production 911, but it is something of an anomaly - an insider’s glimpse at what became the 3.0 Carrera and the 911 SC.
Ferdinand ‘Ferry’ Porsche, son of Porsche’s founder and father of Ferdinand ‘Butzi’ Porsche (who penned the now legendary curves of the first 911) was given this car as a taster of a new generation of normally-aspirated 911s that would exceed the 3 litre barrier by the Weissach factory on his 65th birthday in 1974. Having recently stepped-down from the board to take an Honorary Chairmanship of Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche KG, Stuttgart, Ferry used this prototype which took its engine, not from the production 911 ‘G Series’ 2.7 litre engine of the day, but from the race-ready Carrera 3.0 RSR, some two years before the general launch of a production 3.0 Carrera – a model which shared its boxer block with the 930 turbo, launched in 1975.
This unique car is said to have many other ‘pre-production and race parts’ but is hardy enough to have been used by Ferry as his daily driver for nearly two years. As a ‘one-off’ and one of only a handful of cars available as being owned by the Porsche family, its successor Ferry’s proto’ 911 (930) Turbo (in the same colour combination) resides on display at the new Porsche Museum at Stuttgart. A talking-point 911 available at €175,000 (around the same price as a 997 ‘Sport Classic’) – this is air-cooled heritage without the cod-retro.
Although there can be no question of the pedigree of the Carrera RSRs featured in our recent post, it seems like there may have been about the 911 we linked-to for sale at Nick Whale Sport Cars, a car which was said to have been driven by James Hunt.
Since posting the link, there have been several stories in the media questioning the history of the green £365,000 1974 RSR. It seems the car may have not been the daily road car used by James Hunt, as per the dealer's sales notes, the misinformation having passed down the line in good faith to the garage via its previous owner (an easy mistake considering the vehicle was owned by Hunt’s team boss Lord Hesketh).
According to the Sunday Times Newspaper and others, James Hunt’s daily-drive in the mid Seventies was, in fact, a white Carrera 2.7 RS – a vehicle that was often photographed cruising the streets of Marbella (where Hunt lived in tax-exile), before it worked its way back to England in 1980. The 1973 911 was later bought by the father of Gary Taylor (pictured) for £7,000 from a north London garage.
In his interview with the Times, Taylor explained: “Back then, it was viewed as just another Porsche 911 and a seven-year-old one at that. Dad paid £7,000 and just as he was about to drive off the forecourt, the dealer casually mentioned that it had been owned by Hesketh and James Hunt.”
Taylor, having never questioned the provenance of NSD 298L, had its heritage later marked on the car itself - getting James Hunt’s signature on the glove box door, penned less than a decade before his untimely demise in 1993.
To mark Porsche’s recent 22nd victory at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, Jelenek thought it might be a nice excuse to indulge in some classic Porsche racing history, and this poster of the Brumos Porsche (they always raced Number 59) taking a podium in 1975, is the sort of image that sends air-cooled Porsche people into a nostalgic daydream about the pedigree of the 911 Carrera.
In 1975 Porsche cleaned-up at the Daytona 24 hour race - a race that saw the legendary Porsche wheelman Hurley Haywood (the man who also boosted Porsche’s US commercial sales in the mid ‘90s, even appearing in 993-era promotional owners’ video), take his second-ever Daytona win. The photograph clearly depicts one-after-another Porsche Carrera RSR passing the chequered flag, the marque, in fact, taking first through to sixth place that year, leading their German promotional poster declaring: A triumph of zuverlassingkeit (reliability). About as near to the standard production car as it ever got, the tough, reliable wide-bodied 911 Carrera RSR was succeeded in this endurance race by the 935, and then the more Le Mans-looking 962. Porsche dominated the Daytona 24 until 1988, when Toyota, Nissan and the Corvettes starting getting in on the podium action. Hurley Haywood is now Brumos team manager, having driven his last Daytona race as No 59 this year, attaining only 26th position.
To acquire a 1975 3.2 RSR with race provenance, well who knows what you’d pay? However, a road-going 1974 3.0 UK right-hand-drive example, recently posted on Jelenek as having belonged to James Hunt (one of only six 3.0 RSRS made) at Nick Whale Sport Cars, is for sale at a mere £365,000. All bit rich for your taste? Well, we’d recommend buying this full-size classic poster on eBay, valued at circa $200, and simply fantasising!
For those of you that avidly watch Top Gear (so that’s most of the UK adult, child and animal population then), it may have come as a surprise that their most rated car manufacturer, ever, was not Ferrari, Porsche or even Ford but a marque not often seen in the UK - Lancia. For those among you, however, who pronounce this make as ‘Lan-chee-aa’ (how it’s supposed to be said, in Italiano), this will come as no surprise at all - which includes me, as I pine giving one up ten years ago. And even though I’ve had some lovely (and more expensive) cars since, ever since I sold my 1971 Fulvia Series 2 1.3 S for barely enough money to carpet the downstairs of my first house, I’ve missed the slightly smoky, slightly rusty bella macchina.
There was something about the clever and well-engineered tiny little v4 engine that was so cammy, spritely and dramatic – belying its puny 90hp output. Something about the lines of the car that gave it a look, like a cross between a Riva speedboat and a short-wheelbase ‘60s Ferrari. There was something almost bespoke, about its interior and trim, and the Lan-chee-aa bores out there will tell you, the development of the Fulvia nearly bankrupt the then prominent sport car manufacturer, as a result. A small, practical 4-seater ‘60s car that had front wheel drive, a V4 engine with double over-head camshafts, disc brakes all-round and a five speed gearbox - all at a time when our dads’ generation had the Ford Anglia, Lancia took nothing from the newly formed Lancia-Fiat parts-bin of the day. The Fulvia Series 2, ahem, sorry Serie Due was a car which made its previous incarnation the Series 1 look like the boxy Italian Alfa police cars that break down in the Italian Job. But unlike in the the film, when launched this was a much more illusive (and expensive) car to be seen driving than a Mini Cooper.
Launched in 1969 the new Fulvia was a radical departure from its previous incarnation and went on to become one of the most important pre-Audi Quattro era rally cars - winning numerous competitions until the late '70s. The Fulvia (like this lovely example for sale in Belgium at Anglo Cars) marked a high water mark for the brand, which seemed to subsequently go further and further downhill under Fiat ownership (think Beta, think rust, Lancia Thema think erm….), making owning a Series 2 Fulvia, owning a piece of Italian auto design pride. Long gone as a modern day prestige brand, but not long forgotten: viva la Fulvia!
It’s one of those things most people want to do – own a historic car, but they don’t want to live with the danger of haemorrhaging cash on restoration and garage bills. The answer? An early 911, of course – the toughest and most useable of classics. I had one, a 1972 2.4S to be specific, and not only did the experience thrill (every outing seemed to be such an occasion), running and maintenance costs only ran into around £2k per year. Not exactly new-car cheap on the up-keep front, but by the time I had invested £6k on the car, bringing back some of its ailing bits and bobs (brakes, electrics, fuel injection tuning) it had more than doubled in value. Okay, so I got lucky finding a ‘matching numbers’ (engine and gearbox serials) ‘S’ model sourced via Holland, but the truth is, if you know these early cars, there is not a massive difference between an early ‘70s ‘S’ and the much cheaper ‘E’ model. Depending on precise history details about up-keep: restoration of engine, mechanical fuel injection and brakes, the 25HP performance difference can be negligible. What’s more, if you can find a nice 1971 car (and not later), you’ll benefit from a better weight distribution of having the massive oil tank located inside the wheelbase. With 1971 – 1973 911 S prices being sky-high at £40k min for a good one, a twenty thou’ 911 E (like this nice RHD ’70 2.2 model for sale at Brooklands) should make for a great investment, guaranteed to rise in value as they become more and more scarce.
