This morning I went to a local coffee meet with a bunch of fellow Porsche enthusiasts. This meet is put together and attended by mostly air cooled car owners with the early long hood 911 being the most popular.
One of the coolest cars at the meet is owned by a friend whose car happens to be the very first R Gruppe car (below). This car was featured in a story written by fellow 986Forum member Little "t" on Petrolicious (
This Is the Car that Inspired the Porsche R-Gruppe).
If you're not familiar with the R Gruppe, it was founded about 15 years ago to celebrate early 911 cars built for what Porsche referred to as 'The Sports Purpose". It is popularized by owners hot rodding their early 911's using the Porsche Sport Manual as their bible - a catalog of factory early 911 rally and racing parts.
The R-Gruppe is invitation only and is highly polarizing within the greater Porsche community. Automobile Magazine said this:
"To the august Porsche Club of America, R Gruppe is populated by a bunch of yahoos with no respect for tradition. To the hard-core racers who dominate the Porsche Owners Club, R Gruppe is full of poseurs who'd rather look fast than go fast. To early 911 aficionados who haven't been invited to join the club, R Gruppe is a gated community reserved for arrogant snobs. To high-dollar collectors, R Gruppe provides a prescription for replicars and fakey-doos that cost more to build than they're worth on the open market."
As a card carrying POC/PCA hard-core racer, what do I show up in? Yep, you guessed it!
And by and large, they loved it. Porsche fanatics are Porsche fanatics regardless of the car.
Even a water-cooled hair dressers Boxster.
