When it comes to the top-performance cars from any era, they tend to be compared by their headline stats over all else. This risks glossing over their more nuanced traits. Take the Ferrari Testarossa and Lamborghini Countach, for example. Released ten years apart, one was an uncompromising supercar, the other a luxurious grand tourer, yet somehow they were pitted against each other as bitter rivals because they both had big 12-cylinder engines and similar performance figures.
The same happened with the Porsche 959 and Ferrari F40, two cars that couldn’t have been more different. But the fact that both could tickle the magical 200 mph mark made them the perfect magazine cover duo. While both may have been borne out of a desire to compete in the Group B rally class, their manufacturers approached the task from very different directions. While the admittedly impressive Ferrari F40 was an evolution of the 288 GTO, the Porsche 959 was practically a clean slate design, and it set the template for the future of the supercar.
Several ground-breaking cars have influenced the motoring world. Whether through next-level design, powertrain technology, or electronic advancements, these rare vehicles stand out among their contemporaries. We have chosen the Porsche 959 to showcase here as it is one of the few cars that stood out in all three categories.
Porsche 959: Genesis
The early 1980s was a tough time for the Porsche brand. Its core model, the 911, was based on a design dating back to 1964, while the advanced 928 meant to replace it was just not selling in high enough numbers. Then there was the entry-level 944, itself an update of a 1970s design. The time was ripe for a new generation of Porsche sports cars to take the marque into the next decade, and they had to be more than just a mild upgrade to an existing design.
The genesis of the road-going 959 can be traced back to 1981, when Helmuth Bott, Porsche’s chief engineer at the time, suggested that a new all-wheel-drive 911 be developed to participate in the Group B racing class. A prototype was displayed in 1983 at the Frankfurt Motor Show, and the 959 road car was revealed two years later at the same show.
While the Group B class had been banned before the 959 could participate in it, several race-prepped 959 models competed in the 1986 Paris-Dakar rally, where they scored a 1-2 finish. A single road racing version of the 959 was also built, called the 961. It took part in a handful of races, with a 7th-in-class finish at Le Mans being its most notable achievement.
However, the 959 is best remembered as the most advanced road-legal supercar of the 1980s, with performance to match its space-age looks.
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Porsche 959: Performance
Specifications: Porsche 959
|
Engine |
2.85-Liter Twin-Turbo Flat-Six |
|---|---|
|
Drivetrain |
Rear-Engine AWD |
|
Transmission |
6-Speed Manual |
|
Horsepower |
444 hp |
|
Torque |
369 lb-ft |
|
0-60 |
3.7 Seconds |
|
Top Speed |
197 mph |
When it was launched back in 1986, the Porsche 959 was the fastest road car on sale. Most V12 supercars of the time would top out at around the 175 mph mark, whereas the 959 carried on until it was just three mph shy of the mythical 200 mph mark. Its 0-60mph time of 3.7 seconds was even more impressive, and it took the mighty McLaren F1 to better that figure some six years later.
The Ferrari F40 arrived one year later. It was a stripped-out race car for the road, weighing 441 pounds less than the 959 and producing an extra 27 hp and 57 lb-ft. It was undoubtedly quick, but it lacked the 959’s all-wheel-drive traction advantage, so it was slower to 60 mph, but closed the gap as speeds rose. To avoid being an also-ran from the get-go, Ferrari ensured that its new supercar would top 200 mph, and that is was faster around Ferrari’s famous Fiorano circuit. In less-than-ideal weather and over bumpy road surfaces, the 959 was the quicker car. It also had a great sound system, a leather-lined cabin, and sound deadening that didn’t require wearing a helmet on the way to the shops.
It didn’t end there, though. Both manufacturers offered factory performance upgrades for owners who wanted to take things to the next level. Ferrari would upgrade the turbos to LM spec, resulting in around 600 hp, while Porsche offered a 959 S model, which had 508 hp and was 220 lbs lighter than the regular ‘Komfort’ model. Porsche provided no official 0-60mph time, but it must have been staggering.
Specifications: Porsche 959 S
|
Engine |
2.85-Liter Twin-Turbo Flat-Six |
|
Drivetrain |
Rear-Engine AWD |
|
Transmission |
6-Speed Manual |
|
Horsepower |
508 hp |
|
Torque |
413 lb-ft |
|
0-60 |
n/a |
|
Top Speed |
210 mph |
However, judging these two cars by their raw performance figures or comparing any other 1980s supercar to the 959 purely on acceleration and power output would be missing the point entirely. The F40 represented the pinnacle of what could be done with existing technologies; the 959 showed us what the future held in store.
It was a technological masterpiece that greatly influenced Porsche and many other manufacturers’ approaches to sports car design for decades to come.
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Porsche 959: The Details
Technical Highlights:
- Active suspension system
- Electronically-controlled AWD system
- Driver-selectable torque split
- Tire-pressure monitoring
- Sequentially activated twin-turbos
- Aluminum Kevlar composite body panels
- Nomex floor construction
To get some perspective on how far ahead of the competition the Porsche 959 was, we need to look at what other manufacturers were offering when it was launched. Ferrari had the 288 GTO (the precursor to the F40) and Testarossa, both impressive and beautifully styled, but relatively conventional in the engineering department. Lamborghini was wringing every last drop out of its aging Countach, which was quick, but tough to drive and about as advanced as a very pretty hammer.
BMW was focusing on its new M5 super sedan and upcoming M3, both excellent driver’s cars but not particularly ground-breaking apart from their engines. Audi had the Sport quattro, but its AWD system was still in its infancy, and nose-heavy handling was still the order of the day.
Here in the US, the Buick Grand National GNX and Corvette C4 were about as advanced as things got. Both fun to drive, and certainly quick in a straight line, but it wasn’t till the Corvette ZR1 was released in 1990 that things started to get interesting. Japanese manufacturers were experimenting with AWD and turbocharging, but their efforts only started to pay off in the 1990s as well, with cars like the Nissan Skyline GT-R R32. We aren’t saying that these other cars weren’t great to drive or impressive in their own right, but in 1986, nothing came close to challenging the 959 in technological advancement or usable performance.
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Porsche 959: Legacy
The 1974 930 Turbo was the first production Porsche with a turbocharged engine, but it was the 959 that refined the concept, and laid the template for future turbocharged 911 models. While the second-generation 964 was still a RWD single-turbo design, the 993 Turbo that followed it used the 959’s AWD system and also had a twin-turbo layout.
Rival manufacturers have since also developed adjustable suspension systems, sequential turbochargers, intelligent AWD systems, and advanced body construction methods, but the 959 combined all these technologies into one cohesive package first. Since then, every Porsche 911 has benefited from the pioneering work of the 959, and cars like the latest all-conquering 911 Turbo S wouldn’t have existed without it.
