Porsche 959
Development of the 959 (originally called the Gruppe B) started in 1981 , shortly after the then-new company Managing Director, Peter Schutz , took his office. Porsche's head engineer at the time, Helmut Bott , approached Schutz with some ideas about the 911 , or more aptly, a new 911. Bott knew that the company needed a sports car that they could continue to rely on for years to come and that could be developed as time went on. Curious as to how much they could do with the rear engined 911, Bott convinced Schutz that development tests should take place, and even proposed researching a new all wheel drive system. Schutz agreed, and greenlit the project. Bott also knew through experience that a racing program usually helped to accelerate the development of new models. Seeing Group B rally racing as the perfect arena to test the new mule and its all wheel drive system, Bott again went to Schutz, and got the go ahead to develop a car, based on his development mule, for competition in Group B.
Porsche began with an engine they already had, and moved on with development from there. The powerplant, a twin turbocharged boxer six engine, with an air cooled block and water cooled heads displaced 2.85 total litres , about half a litre less than a contemporary 911 engine.
Porsche 959
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959 - Wheelbase (mm): 2272 - Length/Width (mm): 4260/1840
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Porsche 959 - 1988
2-door, 2+2 coupe. 197mph, 4wd, twin-turbocharged supercar. Based (lightly) around 911, the 959 was Porsche's homologation special for Group B rallying. A technical tour de force for its time (and still much so today), the 959 boasted all-wheel drive with active torque splitdriver, selectable traction settings (for dry, wet and snow conditions), electronically adjustable ride height and damper control, water cooled cylinder heads and multi-stage turbocharging and 911 evolved composite body provided 'zero-lift'. All 283 959s built cost Porsche more than double the price the customer was charged. Only today's GT2 is more powerful.
The water cooled cylinder heads combined with the air cooled block, 4 valve heads and sequential turbochargers allowed Porsche to extract 450 hp (340 kW) from the compact, efficient and rugged power unit. The use of sequential twin turbochargers rather than the more usual identical turbochargers for each of the two cylinder banks allowed for smooth seamless delivery of power across the engine RPM band, in contrast to the abrupt on-off power characteristic that distinguished Porsche's turbocharged engines of the period. It has been speculated the engine was capable of over 600 horsepower if fully tuned. The engine was used, virtually unchanged, in the 959 road car as well.
In an attempt to create a rugged, lightweight shell, Porsche adopted an aluminium and Kevlar composite for body use along with a Nomex floor as opposed to the traditional steel that was normally used on their production cars. The vehicle's light weight (2917 pounds) gave astounding performance.
By 1991, with the introduction of the 964 generation 911s, Porsche had already begun utilizing many of the technologies they had mastered with the 959/961. The 964 became the first 911 available with four wheel drive. Finally, the successor of the 964, the Porsche 993 Carrera 4, features a derivative of the 959's all wheel drive, still applied in today's Carrera 4 and Turbo models. The Porsche 993 Turbo was, after the 959, the first 911 variant to combine turbocharging with 4WD. The 993 Turbo also adopted twin-turbochargers, however not in the 959's particular configuration. The 993 and 959 also share a strong physical resemblance in the front end.
In 2004 , Sports Car International named this car number one on the list of Top Sports Cars of the 1980s .