Porsche 'new services for historic motorsport'

Have a 917 languishing in your shed? Porsche wants to make it worth more!

Granted, this is a pretty niche story and the not the most important news you will read this week. But it does feature a beautiful Porsche 917K and, well, we're hardly likely to ignore a story with one of those. Look at it!

Oh Lord

This car is the work of Porsche's newly expanded - see, there was a news story - 'comprehensive service for historic motor racing' in Germany and in America. Basically, Porsche has finally begun to realise how values of its classic motorsport cars are skyrocketing and that a factory original spec contributes significantly to that. So the aim of this expansion is 'to restore vintage race cars as true to the original as possible as well as to repair and maintain them.' The hope being that if they're looked after, people will use them.

This 917K is the first product of the new venture, shown to the world during the Rennsport Reunion at Laguna Seca. This car won the Spa 1,000km in 1971 and raced in America before being put into storage. In 2009 it gained the Gulf colours and the recommissioning began in 2012, using the archives at the Porsche Museum to ensure complete accuracy.

Pleasingly the aim for these new services appears to be getting the cars back on track rather than simply kept pristine for a collection. So old seatbelts are not fitted to ensure they remain legal for competition and a new Porsche Experience Centre in LA will look after cars between races if you wish. There's one at Weissach too for European customers

Alright, so this move from Porsche Motorsport won't benefit those with a Shed-spec 924 track car. And clearly it's a response to rapidly increasing values. But if Porsche-approved work, with the input from long established specialists too, gets a few more old racing cars on a circuit for us all to see then that has to be good news.