Hidden treasure

Despite opening in 2009, the Porsche Museum has never had an original ‘901’ 911 in its factory collection. Until now ...

4y ago
11.6K

It may surprise some of you that up until now, the Porsche Museum has never had an original 901 in its collection. But now, after three painstaking years of restoration, that wrong has been righted and a red coupe that was built in October 1964 will get a special place in that special building.

Porsche originally developed and built the successor to the 356 as the 901, before a trademark dispute with Peugeot meant that Porsche had to change the name to 911 only a few weeks after starting production. As such, the 901 is an extremely rare beast and not an easy thing to track down.

So imagine Porsche’s relief when a German TV crew stumbled across two 911s in a barn. Subsequent investigations revealed one of them to be a rare 901, chassis number 300.057, so Porsche bought both cars and set about restoring them.

The good news was that the red coupe was an extremely original car (albeit a tad rusty), which allowed the Museum to accurately rebuild it to match those early 901s. Porsche has used genuine body parts taken from a different car, and the engine, transmission, electrics and interior were all repaired with the same principle. Hence the protracted three-year timeline to get it back into showroom condition.

And now you can come and view it. An exhibition called ‘911 (901 No. 57) – A legend takes off’ is running in the Museum from today (December 14) until April 8, 2018.

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Comments (8)

  • Would be great to see the restoration process...

      4 years ago
  • That's one hell of a restoration and wow, what a result. Such a beautiful shape.

      4 years ago
  • Awesome. Super cool that Porsche (along with a few other car companies) takes such good care for their historical pieces.

      4 years ago
    • Couldn't agree more, Tanner. It's amazing to see the pride the Museum guys take in their work ^PW

        4 years ago
  • Can't imagine why a person would let such cars rot away in a barn...Classics

      4 years ago
  • Absolutely,what a stunning restoration!,it looks showroom fresh!,I'm sure Porsche themselves would be astounded.😃👌🏼✨✨👏🏻👍🏻😍😉

      4 years ago
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