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When you first glance a Porsche 959, you’ll be shocked. Not at the car’s overbearing presence, but that your first thought isn’t, “Holy smokes a 959!” Instead, your brain pauses, working over the car’s curves. “Wait, is that a 959?”
Even sat apples-to-apples by an actual Eighties 911, the 959 looks, feels, smells, and drives a lot like an Eighties 911. Profound, I know. But the observation grates against the decades of praise heaped on Porsche’s late-Eighties supercar, praise which built a heightened expectation the car was unlikely to match.
Perhaps that expectation endured because 959s are rare. Porsche built fewer than 300 examples, plus an additional 29 examples of the 959 S. Not exactly hen’s teeth, but I’d sat in more McLaren F1s than 959s by the time Porsche had pulled eight classics from a Stuttgart warehouse last summer.
I worked through those classics over the course of a day spent in the German countryside, then finally had a crack at the 959. Parked in a gravel lot next to the bevy of other Porsches, it’s simple enough to make out the genetic through lines.
Visually, the 959 looks like a G-Body 911 made of warm saltwater taffy. From the 959’s aerodynamic shape, you see how the 911 pivoted into the 993 generation, equipped with more rounded, bulbous lines that gave way to the fried-egg 996 and even its even-longer, more laid-back profile. The later Panamera sports that same no-right-angles aesthetic as the 959, and the supercar’s design even echoes in the early Cayenne’s front end.
If the exterior does just enough to separate itself from the 911 after careful observation, the interior does not. It’s a reminder that before SUVs and roadsters and sedans, the Porsche corporate portfolio was far slimmer; Porsches were boutique vehicles built in modest numbers for in-the-know enthusiasts who cared far less about interior niceties than the interplay of four tires screaming tires and a good backroad.
I found this visual introduction all a bit underwhelming. But after coming to grips with the 959 on the road, it proved to be a crystal ball that divined where fast cars were headed. More importantly, it paved the path to get there.
Compare it to one of the 959’s contemporaries: the Ferrari F40.
Save the odd modern McLaren, we don’t make cars as raw and essential as the F40 anymore. But as a global society we make many, many fast cars in the mold of the 959, packing increasingly complex technology into ever-tighter spaces to produce overwhelming, seamless, and nearly effortless speed.
The 959’s marvelous drivetrain led the way in that respect.