959

[IowaS]

My mom is visiting for the holidays and she brought up some of my old car books from back in the day for my son. One of them was a picture book of 1989ish "super cars". As I was flipping through the book and I came across the 959. I had almost forgotten about this car.... found a decent web page to read up and I am shocked how "advanced" this car was...if you are interested...http://erntheburn.tripod.com/autos/959/


By the way my son's (he's 2) favorite car...Lotus Esprit Turbo....MN Boxster would be proud.

[YellowPorscheMan2002]

Yep, the 959 is a legend......in my opinion, one of the greatest cars ever made. Saw one in Germany once for a split second. If I were rich, I'd have to have one. Would park it in between my Ferrari 288 GTO, and Mercedes Gullwing

[Tool Pants]

Canepa in the Santa Cruz, California area always has several.

He does the emission conversion, upgrades, and so on. I have been to 3 or 4 tech sessions at his old and new shops. He usually gives a talk about the history of the 959. His own is black.

[CJ_Boxster]

holy crap! I didnt realize that car was that cool, theres been one parked in a transmission shop parking lot for atleast 5 years... its white.

[Tool Pants]

http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=6706&hl=canepa

There are 959-look cars out there, so I doubt if a real one has been sitting in a parking lot for 5 years.

At the first Canepa tech session I went to years ago he had about a dozen of them. He likes to buy them from Japan.

He kept this black one. I forget the exact history. It was built for a Porsche race car driver. Porsche did not want to make it black because heat might delaminate the body panels.

[TriGem2k]

What kind of powerplant did the 959 have?

[blue2000s]

Originally Posted by YellowPorscheMan2002

Yep, the 959 is a legend......in my opinion, one of the greatest cars ever made. Saw one in Germany once for a split second. If I were rich, I'd have to have one. Would park it in between my Ferrari 288 GTO, and Mercedes Gullwing

Just like Ralph Lauren does. His collection is great to see.

http://about.polo.com/mfacars/launch.asp?activepage=1&ab=suits_learnAboutCarsLink

The 959 is impressive in person, but doesn't compare to the 250 GTO.

[z12358]

There's a cover page article on 959, 911 GT1, and Carrera GT in the current Excellence mag. 959 may be rare and spectacular for its time but I can't say that it's body captivates me much today. It actually borders on ugly. Just my opinion, of course.

Z.

[MNBoxster]

Originally Posted by TriGem2k

What kind of powerplant did the 959 have?

Hi,

The 959 used a tweaked existing engine - the Porsche 'Indy' engine. It was a six-cylinder 2.85 Litre engine with air-cooled Block, water-cooled heads and a pair of sequential Turbochargers. Max boost was 1 Bar, 450 hp (340 kW) @ 6500 RPM. The engine was capable of being tuned to 600 HP.

The Body was Aluminum/Kevlar/Nomex. It used the Porsche-Steuer Kupplung (PSK) all-wheel drive system. It had electronically controlled dampers, ride height and tire monitoring with unique pressurized magnesium wheels.

The car was not street legal in the US until the Show and Display excemptions were granted in 1999 allowing the car to be driven 2500 miles annually. In 2002, Steve Canepa did several US legal conversions adding OBDII compliant software, exhaust, twin KKK Turbochargeers and a more advanced Bosch Motronic engine management system. The conversions are more powerful and fast than the originals producing 600hp. 200 959s were built, about 50 of them as Rally 'B' cars and the rest as homologation cars...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

[blinkwatt]

I saw a interesting piece on DirectTV(don't remember what show) about Porsche's history and alot of it focused on the 959. The car is amazing,even though it's almost 20 years old it's right there with the Carrera GT and 99% of today's supercars.

[FIG]

Saw this at Melbourne Porsche Centre......

Notice LHD, any 959's that came to Australia were LHD and never changed! I had a look, it's amazing and so far before its time really. Priceless!! (literally, in Aus)

[Bavarian Motorist]

What's the connection between the 959 and 961? Why does the 959 receive all the hype? I can't find much on the 961

[YellowPorscheMan2002]

Nice 959 pics from Melbourne and Cali, I think.

Rumour had it that there was only 1 Porsche 959 ever allowed to be imported to the US, and either Seinfeld or Lenno had it. Just a rumour I guess.

Man, I love that car. Would love to take one out for a spin....

[Ronzi]

Apparently the one "authorized" 959 was imported by/for collector Otis Chandler. It got in because it was a race car. There were others, among them Seinfeld's, and two belonging to Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Gates and Allen cares supposedly were eventually freed from impound by the display regulation.
Google on "bill gates porsche 959" for some conflicting and confusing info.
The big problem with them wasn't necessarily lack of smog eqpt. Porsche didn't want to destroy 4 of them certifying the car for US crash regulations.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Ronzi

Porsche didn't want to destroy 4 of them certifying the car for US crash regulations.

Yeah, word is Porsche lost mucho bucks on each one of those bad boys so why waste another 4 right?

[Tool Pants]

Originally Posted by TriGem2k

What kind of powerplant did the 959 have?

VW inspired....

[Tool Pants]

Originally Posted by Ronzi

Apparently the one "authorized" 959 was imported by/for collector Otis Chandler. It got in because it was a race car. There were others, among them Seinfeld's, and two belonging to Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Gates and Allen cares supposedly were eventually freed from impound by the display regulation.
Google on "bill gates porsche 959" for some conflicting and confusing info.
The big problem with them wasn't necessarily lack of smog eqpt. Porsche didn't want to destroy 4 of them certifying the car for US crash regulations.

There are lots of stories. Canepa tells them all.

This is Seinfeld's parts rack. Pic by Gary.