A selection from Bernd Luz’s Porsche series.

Pop art and automotive art featuring the storied Stuttgart-based automobile brand. From classic to modern sports and racing cars. From Le Mans to the Nürburgring.
Legendary cars, legendary drivers – Porsche’s racing history

The Porsche 935 was produced as a racing car with a six-cylinder boxer turbo engine from 1976 to 1981 based on the Porsche 930.

It was fielded by the Porsche factory team in the Manufacturers’ World Championship from 1976 to 1978. Jacky Ickx and Jochen Mass won the very first race at Mugello. The team became Sports Car World Champions in 1976 with three wins and two second-place finishes in six races.

From 1977 to 1982, private teams fielded the racing car in the Manufacturers’ World Championship and the German Racing Championship (DRM). The 935 competed in the North American IMSA GT racing series until 1986.

Porsche won the Manufacturers’ World Championship four consecutive years with the 935 from 1976 to 1979. In the German Championship (DRM), Rolf Stommelen won the championship title in 1977 and Klaus Ludwig in 1979 in a Porsche 935. At Le Mans in 1979, Klaus Ludwig, driving the Kremer team, took overall victory ahead of two other 935s, and in the IMSA GT series, Porsche won the manufacturers’ title with the 935 in the GTX and GTP classes from 1978 to 1982.

The Porsche 935 remains one of the most successful production-based racing cars to this day.

Magnus Walker – a Brit living in Los Angeles – calls himself an “urban outlaw.” A long beard, dreadlocks, worn leather boots, tattooed arms, and a baseball cap are his trademarks.

“I only tinker for myself” is his motto. The cars Walker buys are usually run-down. “Sometimes I get a wreck.”

Twenty Porsche models, carefully laid on parquet flooring, live on his ground floor. “…what’s special is that mine don’t just sit around, they actually get out.” “It’s only through scratches, stone chips, and mud on the fender that a car acquires a soul. It wants to be driven, it demands it.”

In 1981, the first all-wheel-drive 911 was unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show. Its baptism of fire came in 1984: the Paris-Dakar Rally, a 20-day, 12,000-km race. Porsche fielded a “desert team” that operated for three years. The driving force behind this effort was Jacky Ickx, who secured sponsor Rothmans and driver René Metge. Including driver and co-driver, the team consisted of only 18 people. Ickx drove alongside the famous French actor Claude Brasseur, while René Metge drove alongside Dominique Lemoyne. The third car was driven by engineer Roland Kussmaul, who served as the “water carrier.”

A cable fire caused Ickx’s car to lose a significant amount of time right at the start, dropping him to 217th place. Jacky Ickx launched an incredible comeback over the next 14 special stages and returned to third place, just half an hour behind the leader, René Metge. This desert drive is still considered one of the most remarkable. As Ickx was about to overtake his teammate Metge, a half shaft broke in the penultimate special stage. The resulting 1.5 hours of time lost ultimately brought Ickx/Brasseur to 6th place overall. The Metge/Lemoyne team won, with the third car crossing the finish line in 26th place. The Porsche era at the Dakar also marked the beginning of the professional era.

The Porsche 911/953 (a revised 911 SC) was welcomed by Porsche as a development project, as they wanted to gain experience with four-wheel drive. It is the direct predecessor of the Type 959. In total, only these three Porsche 953s were built.

After Jacky Ickx won the 1983 Paris-Dakar in a Mercedes 280 GE, he convinced Porsche to test the new Carrera 4×4 at the Paris-Dakar. Rothmans financed the “Jacky Ickx Racing Team” project. At that time, Porsche still had a very familial atmosphere. Porsche won the race outright in 1984. René Metge finished first, and Ickx finished sixth.

In 1985, Porsche was unsuccessful. The 600 hp twin-turbo engines of the new 959 were not yet ready, so they had to compete with the less powerful 911 engines. All three Porsches retired. Ickx and co-driver Claude Brasseur suffered total loss on a sand-covered rock.

In 1986, the completed, highly developed Porsche 959 competed in the Dakar. Porsche won the race for the second time, this year with a one-two finish. Jacky Ickx finished second behind René Metge.

When it was first delivered in 1986, the 959 was considered the fastest road-legal production car in the world and, with its many technical innovations, a technological benchmark.

Hill climbs were held for the first time after the war in 1957. Initially, six races were held. In 1958, two victories were enough for von Trips to win the title.

The racing career of Wolfgang Berghe von Trips, a graduate in agriculture, began in 1953. Under the pseudonym “Axel Linther,” he initially competed in a VW Beetle, then switched to a Porsche. He chose the pseudonym so his parents wouldn’t worry. In his first year, he achieved numerous victories, and just one year later, in 1954, he became German Champion.

Mercedes racing director Alfred Neubauer took notice and hired von Trips for his Mercedes sports car factory team in 1955. Berghe von Trips drove a Mercedes 300 SLR. A move to Formula 1 seemed only a matter of time, but at the end of 1955, Mercedes withdrew from racing. He didn’t compete in Formula 1 until 1957, where he was posthumously runner-up in the World Championship until his accidental death in 1961.

It wasn’t until the 1961 season that Wolfgang von Trips, driving a competitive Ferrari, became a serious title contender. After his first two Formula 1 victories, winning the World Championship seemed within reach. As the overall leader, Wolfgang von Trips entered the Italian Grand Prix in Monza on September 10, 1961. On the second lap, before entering the Curvetta, he collided with the Lotus of Jim Clark (1936-1968). The Ferrari overturned, and Wolfgang von Trips was ejected from the car and fatally injured. He and 14 spectators died along with him.

In 1960, he founded the Scuderia Colonia.

For many decades, the Avus (Automobile Traffic and Practice Road), along with the Brandenburg Gate, the Victory Column, and the Berlin Cathedral, was one of Berlin’s most important attractions.

To catch up with the lag in German automobile manufacturing, Kaiser Wilhelm II built the Avus at the beginning of the 20th century – Germany’s first race track. A high-speed track, essentially consisting of two straights and two corners, it was known and feared for its high speeds and bumps. Run-off areas were rare, and spectacular accidents were commonplace. Berlin was a motorsports hotspot like no other. There were grandstands along the track, picnics in the Grunewald forest, and the whole city was in motion.

In the 1930s, close head-to-head races between Mercedes and Auto Union captivated more than 300,000 spectators. Both manufacturers competed for records and race victories in fully faired streamlined cars. The steep north curve became a killer corner, guaranteeing high tension. In 1937, the north curve of the 19-kilometer circuit was replaced by a 43.6° banked, brick-built curve.

After the Second World War, the first race took place again in 1951. After several fatal accidents in the 1950s and 1960s, the north curve was demolished in 1967.

Porsche, especially the 911 and its predecessor, the 356, embodies the epitome of the sports car. I’ve selected milestones to represent the evolution of the “11,” each unique and representative of its era:

the 356-1500 from 1954
the 356 B from 1960
the 911 RS 2.7 from 1973 with its ducktail
and the 911 Turbo 3.8 from 2009

The origins of the automobile company lie in the design office founded by Ferdinand Porsche in Stuttgart in 1931, which produced vehicles, primarily sports cars, after the war. Porsche’s son-in-law, the Viennese lawyer Anton Piëch, held a 15% stake in the company at its founding. From 1934 onward, the office constructed the KdF-Wagen, later called the VW Beetle, on behalf of the Reich Association of the Automobile Industry. Ferdinand Porsche was CEO and member of the supervisory board of the newly founded Volkswagenwerk GmbH.

In 1944, parts of production were relocated to Gmünd, Austria, where, under the leadership of Ferdinand Porsche’s son, Ferry, the first car bearing the Porsche name—the 356 No. 1 Roadster—and its production version, the 356, were developed. Ferry took over the chairmanship in Stuttgart in 1947 while his father was a French prisoner of war.

Stefan Bellof’s exceptional talent was already evident when he competed in Formula Super Vee in 1981 and simultaneously finished third in the German Formula 3 Championship. In 1982, he was given a chance in Formula 2 with the German team Maurer-BMW. He won the first two races (Silverstone, Hockenheim) in the competitive series and finished fourth.

The Porsche factory team offered him a place in sports car races in 1983, where he immediately outclassed his experienced teammates. Stefan Bellof remains the only person to have lapped the Nürburgring Nordschleife at an average speed of over 200 km/h, doing so on May 28, 1983, during practice for the 1000km race in a Porsche 956 (chassis no. 007). Lap time: 6:11.13 minutes for the distance of 20.832 km, shortened due to construction work.

However, Bellof crashed while leading the race after setting a new lap record of 6:25.91 minutes. By comparison, the heavier vehicles still permitted on the Nordschleife today require about seven minutes to complete the same circuit.

In 1984, Stefan Bellof won the World Sports Car Championship and the German Championship with the factory Porsche. In the 1985 season, he left the Porsche factory and drove in sports car races in a private Group C Porsche for Walter Brun against his former team. At the 1000km race in Spa-Francorchamps, he collided with the Belgian in the Eau Rouge dip while attempting to overtake Jacky Ickx on the inside. Bellof likely died at the scene of the accident.

The Porsche Carrera RS 2.7 was unveiled at the Paris Motor Show in October 1972. The Porsche Carrera RS 2.7 was created solely because Porsche needed a competitive car for motorsports. For homologation in Group 4, 500 units had to be built, which seemed difficult to Porsche’s sales experts at the time. In 1975, it proved its strength by achieving a class victory at Le Mans.

After all, who would buy a sports car like the Porsche Carrera RS, which was designed for the optimal power-to-weight ratio? Demand was so high that the planned 500 units of the 210 hp car were sold by November 1972, and Porsche ultimately produced a total of 1,580 units of the 245 km/h sports car.

Not all RS models left the factory as lightweight designs. Most customers chose the Touring package, which had the same features as the 911 S.

The hallmark of the Carrera RS is the rear spoiler, popularly known as the “ducktail.”