3 Porsches your garage needs from the 2019 Werks Reunion
Anyone with even the slightest love of the cars from Stuttgart will make a beeline for Werks Reunion, the showcase of all things Porsche at Amelia Island this week.
To find it, just follow the raspy sound of boxer engines. You’ll be excused for feeling overwhelmed; the event, hosted by the Porsche Club of America, has drawn hundreds of cars. You can spend hours roaming row after row of stunning automobiles. I know, because I did.
Here are three of the coolest.
The 911: 1979 Porsche 911 930 Turbo
Ford may have made the light blue of its Gulf-liveried cars iconic, but damned if that color doesn’t look great on just about anything. Case in point: this 1979 930 Turbo.
Now, any Turbo is a sexy car, what with those wide hips and flared fenders and an engine that sounds likes Zeus himself yelling. And every 930 is a special car. This example is even more so, because it is exactly one of one to leave the factory in this shade of blue. It wasn’t a special order, either—someone at the factory decided to squirt it blue and send it to a dealership.
The car, owned by Alan and Janet Boe, sports a few other unusual options. A boost adjustment knob sits within reach of the driver, and a boost gauge occupies the spot normally filled by a clock. The built-in radar-detector warns them when Johnny Law is nearby, a feature the Boes rely upon regularly. Alan believes a car like this should be driven, and driven often. They drove it north from their home in Braselton, Georgia, and take it out almost every weekend.
The Race Car: Herman-Miller Porsche 924
Porsche has a long and storied racing heritage, but most people tend to think of cars like the 911, the 917, the 935, or the 956. Big, fire-breathing cars. But Porsche saw no shortage of success with lesser-known models. Like, say, the 924.
Tom Brennan drove this particular car to victory in the SCCA D-production runoffs in 1981. Even now the car looks the business, and Brennan was on the green to regale everyone with war stories, like the time he and his team of volunteer mechanics worked almost nonstop building the car in a three-day sprint after it arrived from Stuttgart in boxes. They started work on a Thursday, and hit the track on Saturday after sorting out a rear end that left a little to be desired when it left the factory. “There was a lot more speed in the chassis than the engine,” he said.
The 356: 1963 Porsche 356B 1600 S90
This pampered little beauty spends most of its time in the garage, and the drive from Jacksonville, Florida to Amelia Island is one of the longest trips it’s made in the past three years. Still, given how special the car is, you can understand the owner’s reluctance risk wadding it up in an accident.
The car has been tastefully modified with a mild outlaw look. The bumpers gave way to a tasteful pair of nerf bars. Carello fog lights always look good on a 356, as do leather hood straps. A stinger exhaust completes the look and give the car a nice bark. Bonus points for being the only car at Werks sporting whitewall tires. They look great.