Porsche 959
When I went through my adolescence in the 1980s, bedroom poster coverage was a pretty reliable barometer of popularity. As you'd expect, Joe Montana, Michael Jordan, Ken Griffey Jr., and Magic Johnson dominated the sports poster world, Top Gun ruled on the movie front, and Cindy Crawford was an ubiquitous choice in the few cases in which my friends were able to put up posters of that kind. None of this should be surprising; both these topics and subjects dominated the teenage male mindset at the time.
More than anything, though, I remember lots and lots of car posters. Perhaps my car lust is causing a memory bias, but I remember my friends having a ton of car posters in the 1980s There were Panteras, Vectors, and Corvettes, of course; but the clear stars were the Lamborghini Countach and Ferrari Testarossa. Low-slung, exotic, dangerous, and emotionally Italian, the Countach and Testarossa had all the ingredients for teenage-boy-poster hegemony.
Behind those two Italian powerhouses, the Porsche 959 was a close third. The Porsche line was certainly potent, and my peers respected and even lusted after Porsches; but generally speaking Porsches were too serious, too common to be grace many posters. Only the potent and exotic 959 had the charisma necessary to be a serious player in the poster wars.
Aside from its significance as an actual car--more on that later--the 959 was a bit of an anomaly in the teenage dream car world. The Countach and Testarossa were wildly styled, incredibly low, and usually pictured in lurid yellow and red paint; by contrast, the 959 was smooth, understated, and invariably pictured in a chillingly unemotional silver or white. The Countach and Testarossa promised glorious trumpet blasts from a 12-cylinder orchestra; the 959 had only six cylinders, whose raspy voices were muffled by two turbochargers.
I always respected the 959 for two reasons--because it was a thinking man's exotic, and because it was the supercar epitome of speaking softly while carrying a big stick. Oh, and what a stick it was.
In a straight line, on dry pavement, the 959 could clobber both of the extroverted Italians. The Testarossa and Countach were scorchingly fast cars for the time, with 0-60 runs in the high-4, low-5 second range and top speeds in the 180-mph region. The 959, though, was in an entirely different zip code. Its all-wheel-drive traction helped it sprint to 60 in 3.6 seconds, and it rocketed up to the very verge of 200 mph. That's stunning, heroic performance for 1986; even two decades later, that 0-60 time is incredible. Only the outrageous Ferrari F40 could run with the 959.
Ah, but that's on straight, dry pavement. The 959 was outstanding on straight, dry pavement, but it was otherworldly when the road turned curvy or wet. The 959 excelled in real-world conditions that would cause a Testarossa, Countach, or even an F40 to run and hide.
In the mid-1980s, the world was still coming around to the idea of an all-around performance car that could drive happily in traffic, that didn't abuse the driver and that could be comfortably pushed to the edge of the performance envelope on real-world roads. The Audi Sport Quattro helped popularize turbocharged, all-wheel-drive performance; the Porsche 959 brought it to the supercar ranks.
Most supercars depended on brawn, but the 959's genius derived from its brainy technology. Rather than the huge V-8s or V-12s favored in other performance cars of the time, the 959 made do with a 2.85-liter flat six similar to the engine that appeared in plebeian 911s. Similar, that is, but for two sequential turbochargers that pumped the output to 444 horsepower. Few exotic car manufacturers used turbochargers at teh time, but those that did tended to use large turbochargers. That's not surprising, as large turbos provide amazing boost--albeit at the expense of jerky, delayed response. Porsche's sequential turbocharging system, on the other hand, paired a small, responsive turbo with a large, powerful sibling--providing both smooth, immediate power delivery and tremendous top-end thrust.
The 959 put that power to the ground through a sophisticated all-wheel-drive system, one of the very first to be installed on an ultra-high-performance car. The system could alter power delivery to each wheel depending on available traction--technology available to the most humble compact SUV today, but exotic stuff indeed in 1987. As a bonus, the 959 was relatively easy to drive slowly and smoothly; it wasn't quite a grocery-getter, but neither was it a snorting, ill-behaved brute like a Countach.
The twist is that while the 959 was brainier and quicker than the legendary Ferraris and Lamborghinis of the time, it was no quicker and arguably slower than a variety of less famous, chunky-looking hatchbacks from Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, Ford, Lancia, and Audi.
The 959 was developed to participate in the legendary Group B rally series, which featured fire-breathing, high-tech, turbocharged all-wheel-drive rally racers from a variety of high-profile manufacturers arond the world. Each Group B manufacturer was required to sell a limited number of street-going versions to the public, resulting in in some of the most technologically advanced, outrageously fast street cars of the time. Among its Group B peer group, made up of little-known but pathologically quick cars that looked like common hatchbacks, the 959 was elegant but not especially quick.
The 959 never had a chance to prove itself in Group B; it came too late to make an impact before the series was canceled. The 959 and its competition 961 sibling did, however, establish a short but distinguished competition resume by winning the 1986 Paris-Dakar Rally and taking a class victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
We don't typically talk much about supercars here at Car Lust, since it's almost too easy; supercars are obvious objects of lust. But the 959 stands apart for me--in a decade that celebrated excess and extravagance, the 959 was a Porsche that was excessive in its technology and extravagant in its intelligence. That's my kind of supercar.
Unfortunately, Porsche never certified the 959 for sale in America, making it even less attainable than most rare, expensive supercars. You know, because otherwise I totally would have bought one.
The first video features a Dutch car reviewer excitedly giggling while driving a 959 on a closed course. He clearly understands how lucky he is to be driving the 959; I love that he slips a "Hee hee!" and a "Yee haw!" into his otherwise inscrutable barrage of Dutch. Inscrutable to me, anyway. Thw second video is a little more informative but a lot less fun.
The top image was taken by Flickr user alratag once again, the second image came from Flickr user Trasosworld Photography, the third image, of the Dakar Rally 959, came from Flickr user Porschista, and the fourth image, of the 1987 Le Mans 961, came from Flickr user shipscompass.
--Chris H.
...m... on January 21, 2009 at 05:50 PM
...truly lustworthy...
Shawn on January 21, 2009 at 06:01 PM
The 959 is a real gem! I always appreciated its ability to use lots of 911 body parts while managing to look unlike a 911 whatsoever. I wish Porsche had the same degree of style differentiation in their current line. I believe Jerry Seinfeld was (is?) one of the first Americans to own one. Did it have an air suspension standard for rally use or was that just a custom lifted model?
Regarding the childhood poster wars, I had large posters of the Ferrari Testarossa and Porsche 928 proudly above my bed. However, the biggest poster of all was a huge dealership-only bright yellow VW Corrado G60 offering that VW of America was kind enough to mail in exchange for a crude, cursive-written fan letter from a 10 year old me. I still have it somewhere.
993C4S on January 22, 2009 at 11:40 AM
Great post and great history. I'm a big fan of the 959. Always have been and always will be. They are actually becoming more and more affordable (if you consider a car that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars affordable) do to the lapse on some of the EPA federalization requirements.
Brian on January 22, 2009 at 11:13 PM
Nice one. 4-wheel drive & twin turbos, very nice. Something bothers me about that rear spoiler. Aesthetically, I prefer the 930 slant nose of the 911-looking Porsches.
Mochi Mochi on January 23, 2009 at 02:23 PM
Oh and besides all the performance and tech - It's a gem - a real beauty. I think the thing that bothers Brian about the rear spoiler may well be the thing that really makes the car work for me. From an aesthetic perspective i'm more bothered by the high riding rally suspension, but i totally get why it's needed, and i love watching the car in the desert.
That Car Guy on January 23, 2009 at 02:42 PM
How hard is it to say that this is the ultimate Porsche 911 on steroids?
Kelly on January 23, 2009 at 04:56 PM
I heard Bill Gates tried to import one but was held up by CA emission standards (he was 25-30 at the time)
Jeff on January 23, 2009 at 05:39 PM
It is a true testament to Ferdinand Porsche's original 901 that the 959 was STILL, in that day, based upon the original 911 chassis and bodywork. Porsche has since eclipsed the 959 with their current versions of the 911, but they re-engineered the chassis to the point it has little to do with that original, other than basic layout and look.
Of course, this was the first time we saw water cooling on the classic flat-6. A harbinger of things to come....
isrousro on January 23, 2009 at 06:25 PM
I believe that one of the F-1 teams took the running gear out of a 959, put it into a Volkswagon van and used it as a parts runner.
Sure would like to see a few pictures of this.
_Jon on January 23, 2009 at 08:38 PM
I recall reading a review / comparison of some of those cars.
The part I remember most are these (paraphrased) comments:
"After getting out of the Ferrari after a long drive, I had the feeling like 'I survived!'"
"After getting out of the Porsche after a long drive, I felt like I wanted to get back in a drive some more."
That says a lot about the car as well, me thinks.
Stephen M on January 23, 2009 at 09:43 PM
Note that you can now make a 959 US road-legal under the "Show & Display" exemption. You only get 2500 miles a year, but what miles they would be!
...m... on January 24, 2009 at 05:11 AM
...when executed well, i'm very fond of supercars which aren't produced by the usual suspects: particularly when a well-established manufacturer decides to stretch beyond its traditional market forté, it strikes me as a 'because we can' celebration of engineering excellence...
...porsche has ever only produced two proper supercars, the 959 and the carrera GT, both of which will remain iconic brief shining moments, real-world design exercises to be revered for posterity...
Rob the SVX guy on January 25, 2009 at 11:50 AM
Awesome post Chris. I've always liked this car, but... well...being a child of the 80s myself, I had the typical "justification for higher education" poster, a few countach posters, but the love of my life was the Jaguar XJ220. For a few years, the XJ220 was set up to be the world beater, but so was the McLaren F1. One of my friends and I fought on a regular basis as to which would be the better car.... well, history has spoken, but honestly I'd still prefer the XJ220. It just does something for me the McLaren doesn't.
stanczyk on February 10, 2009 at 11:35 AM
this car is not a looker , so I dont think it's great poster competitor
even it was quicker than amazing , wild Countach - it looks just like little modified 911( this rear wing looks not bad, though...)
"small" v6 encuraged by 2 turbos & all wheel drive that reminds me - NISSAN GTR !
the same in Jaguar XJ220 ?...
Jag's design is knockout !(it wall beautifully long and flat)
...but really shame they didnt put v12 (or v8 - dont precisely remember) as it was originlly planed,
but this car was fast ! - in Top Gear they "drag-raced" it again Pagani Zonda (above 7 -Liter AMG !) and Jag've won !
stanczyk on February 10, 2009 at 11:46 AM
McLaren is also not best looker...i belive Jag is..
it's very impressive Porsh've build 20 years ago car that;s specs matches modern supercar Carrera GT...
but I would take GT as more mature car, and Countach and much slower Testarossa as more iconic, but this is impresive !
ernwopr@wp.pl
Caskwarrior on March 21, 2009 at 07:13 AM
My father is the mechanic for a semi-private car collection that has one of these in it, i dismissed it at first as a dressed up 911 but went round the back and was surprised, that thing is mean, but balanced too, now all they have to do is fix the engine which is currently a glorified oil-pump. sits rign along side a mean as early RUF 911 with a bazillion horsepower too.
Caskwarrior on March 21, 2009 at 07:19 AM
they also have some other super rare stuff, like a twin engined AMG a-class sedan, super super rare jaguar xjr-15 which is supposed to be really deadly to drive.