In 1973, this Porsche 914 served as the first pace car used in the Canadian Grand Prix.Doug Firby/The Globe and Mail
Porsche's long history of racing was front and centre at Monterey Car Week. By sheer number alone, the German auto maker was also the most popular at this annual gathering of automotive enthusiasts. Never was that more evident than at the Corral de Tierra Country Club on Friday. An estimated 1,300 Porsches from enthusiasts across the continent were assembled in a rainbow sea of automotive classics.
One of them was a sunflower-yellow Porsche 914 that, in 1973, served as the first pace car used in the Canadian Grand Prix. It is now owned by a Californian. A printout by the car describes the confusion and chaos of that rain-soaked event at Mosport, east of Toronto, in which drivers reportedly followed a yellow Porsche driven by a privateer, thinking it was the pace car. Controversy endured for years.
Nearby, a black Porsche 928 has a sign that calls it "The $1,000 Porsche 928 Parts Car." The owner, from Santa Clara, Calif., says he found the car listed on Rennlist, a popular car-enthusiast website. He learned the previous owner had invested $59,000 (U.S.) in repairs before running out of money and ambition to finish its restoration. The new owner bought the car, completed the work for another $25,000 and now uses his beloved Porsche as a daily driver.
It's a sound investment, if auction sales are an indication. A famous Porsche, a 1970 917K featured in the Steve McQueen film Le Mans, fetched $14-million at the Gooding and Co. auction on Friday night. A less famous 1989 Porsche 911 Carrera Speedster still did well; it also sold on Friday at Gooding for $297,000.
Porsche's racing tradition is everywhere. At Saturday's classic-car races held at the nearby Leguna Seca racetrack, the Porsche 959 driven by racing legends Claude Brasseur and Jacky Ickx in a 1980s Paris-Dakar rally sits proudly on display, with a sign warning spectators not to clean off the filth still there from the race.
But Porsches are also evolving for an electric future. At The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering on Friday, Porsche showed off its Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid plug-in. Combining the power from both gas and electric motors, the hybrid outmuscles its gasoline-only kin, producing 680 horsepower and 626 lb-ft of torque. The gas-only Panamera Turbo S, by comparison, shows numbers of 520 hp and 567 lb-ft.
Mike DePetro, the product manager responsible for the car, says the extra power shows itself most dramatically in the all-wheel-drive vehicle when accelerating from start. It easily outpaces the gas-only car by 20 metres.
"We're using [hybrid technology] not only for efficiency, but for performance," DePetro said. "It's a halo car for the model. It's the future for Porsche."
Earlier this year, Porsche announced it would produce its first all-electric car, the Mission E, by 2020. Last year, it was shown as a concept car at Frankfurt.
The writer was a guest of Porsche Canada. Content was not subject to approval.
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