My favourite Porsche ever, up close and beautiful.

[RDMcG]

There are many Porsches I admire greatly...550 Spyder, 2.7RS, 917, Carrera GT, RS 4.0 come quickly to mind.

However , for me, the ultimate car is the 904. I have had a look at a few of them over the years, and just had a closer look at a superb car and took a few pics.

Butzi Porsche designed the car and saw it as his great creation. Not the 911, interestingly. Came out at about the same time as the 911, and to me still looks as stunning as when it debuted. The car below is about mid-production. Only about 110 were built. Fibreglass bodies were built by Heinkel and bonded to a steel chassis.5 Speed box. Original idea was to use the then-new 911 engine but it was not yet ready for this purpose, so the old 4 cam was used instead with a few late cars with six cylinders and one flat 8 as I recall. For its time is was quick. 5 second to 60,150-160 top speed. A beautiful thing.





Beautiful simple interior:


Fiendishly complex 356 four cam four cylinder


Clamshell is quite heavy and a two-person job to open or close


Saw this one a couple of years ago:





and this one in the Museum garage



I don't really get bucket lists, but if I had one, this would be at the very top.

[996TT02]

Thanks for going to the trouble of posting these beautiful pics!

[stoocake]

That is absolutely stunning!

[RDMcG]

One more from the files

[anonymous-user]

Super. Thanks for posting. That's awesome.

Not sure if you saw the one I posted from the Prototyp Museum late last year.

[RDMcG]

Mutema said:

Super. Thanks for posting. That's awesome.

Not sure if you saw the one I posted from the Prototyp Museum late last year.

Missed that one...but have a real desire to go there next time I am near Hamburg!...post a pic here

[chris_speed]

It's no 906 - wrong soundtrack

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV_LbIzxAfU&

[barchetta_boy]

Totally agree, and sadly it's one of the Porsches that, even if I could afford it ($1m) I would not dare to drive t to the Ring and thrash it which is what it was built for.

One day I will have one of these replicas then: built very much in the same way and a cracking drive too: if only I could find a 4 cam engine to go in it!

http://www.904gts.co.uk/

Joel

[RDMcG]

chris_speed said:

It's no 906 - wrong soundtrack

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV_LbIzxAfU&

Very true, the 906 was a Piech-era car, better but less beautiful, sadly.

[RDMcG]

barchetta_boy said:

Totally agree, and sadly it's one of the Porsches that, even if I could afford it ($1m) I would not dare to drive t to the Ring and thrash it which is what it was built for.

One day I will have one of these replicas then: built very much in the same way and a cracking drive too: if only I could find a 4 cam engine to go in it!

http://www.904gts.co.uk/

Joel

The owner of the 904 I pictured does track it, and I admire him for it. It is one of those painful decisions with a valuable car, but I would hope that I would try it. Maybe not thrash it..but a run on the Ring in a 904?......,,,,running through Pflangzarten, driving history on top of history?.....hard to ever top that for your memory bank...or mine.

[wildman0609]

the 904 is amazing, looking at the interior shot you can see how similar a lotus elise is.

[keep it lit]

stunning machines...

what year was the 904 produced?

[anonymous-user]

Here you go. This is the only picture I could find in my files, just taken on the iPhone though.

[hornbaek]

I participated in the Kitzbuehler Alpenrallye last month and there was one driven by Hans Joachim Stuck - it is very tight in there and he also complained about the heat. But I agree it is a beautiful and rare car.

[RDMcG]

keep it lit said:

stunning machines...

what year was the 904 produced?

Mainly 1964 with some production late 63, and a few in '65, the six cylinder cars and a single flat 8 ( i think)

[majordad]

I'm often tempted to buy/have built one of those Martin & Walker Replicas, but chicken out . Some day though! They seem so good and I could never afford a real one. It' s not about trying to fool people but the M&W ones seem so good.
The 904 was versitile too, road, race and rally car.

[RDMcG]

majordad said:

I'm often tempted to buy/have built one of those Martin & Walker Replicas, but chicken out . Some day though! They seem so good and I could never afford a real one. It' s not about trying to fool people but the M&W ones seem so good.
The 904 was versitile too, road, race and rally car.

The owner told me its worse than my RS.1 for ground clearance, so definitely not for bumpy roads..no idea how it was set up for rallying.

[alynch506]

The car is beautiful, but those wheels just don't do it for me

[RDMcG]

alynch506 said:

The car is beautiful, but those wheels just don't do it for me

I Think it was a functional car that happened to be gorgeous rather than designed for looks, and the wheels reflected that priority...xould be been nicer, I agree.

[paulshears]

Just seen something very similar to a 904 in Hull

Along with 4 or 5 early 911's

Off on the ferry to a show maybe???