Porsche lost money on every 959 it sold, and changed its cars forever
When customers took delivery of the Porsche 959 in 1987, each paid 431,550 Deutschmarks, less than half of what the car cost Porsche to build. In return they got the world's fastest street-legal production car, and a showcase for technology that would shape every turbocharged 911 afterwards.
The project began in 1981, soon after Peter Schutz became managing director. Chief engineer Helmuth Bott wanted to see how far the rear-engined 911 could be pushed and proposed researching a new all-wheel-drive system. Knowing that competition speeds up development, he won approval to build a car for Group B rallying. A prototype was being finished in the final hours of 9 October 1983, the night before it went on show in Frankfurt.
Its engine was a 2.8 litre flat-six with water-cooled heads, derived from Porsche's 956 and 962 endurance racers. Instead of two identical turbochargers, it used them in sequence, which smoothed out the sudden surge that marked other Porsche turbos of the era. The six-speed gearbox labelled its first gear gelände, meaning terrain, a trick that helped the car pass noise rules. An adaptive all-wheel-drive system could shift up to 80 per cent of power rearwards under hard acceleration, and the hollow magnesium wheels contained built-in tyre-pressure monitoring.
Racing did not go to plan. Development dragged on, and Group B was cancelled a year before the road car was ready. The 959 found glory elsewhere, finishing first and second in the 1986 Paris-Dakar Rally, while its racing sibling, the 961, won its class at Le Mans that year.
The road car reached 317 kilometres per hour. Production ended in 1988 after 292 customer cars. Its legacy lasted far longer: the 959 underpinned the first four-wheel-drive 911, the Carrera 4, and persuaded Porsche to make all-wheel drive standard on turbocharged 911s from the 993 onwards.
Source: Porsche 959
