910-25

Walking the paddock at any vintage race is half the fun of attending. There are scores of wonderful racing cars and dozens of friendly drivers happy to chat about them. At this year’s Elkhart Lake Vintage Festival, we did even more chatting with drivers than usual, as Paul is on the hunt for a vintage Formula Vee. One car this year, however, stopped me dead in my tracks—along with everyone else that passed—the Porsche 910.

Parked among some of the most arresting cars of the weekend, a Maserati 250 and a Cooper Formula car, it was the only car I can think of that could draw all attention away from these 2 other iconic cars. Immaculately restored in 2001, this car has competed recently in such estimable races at the 24 Hours Lemans Classic and the Monterrey Historics.

But of course the truly remarkable story of this prototype racer begins much earlier than that. The 910 series was originally conceived of as a hillclimb car, but quickly found success as an endurance racer. Think about that for a moment. Hillclimbs are short sprints up a mountainside. One way, one trip. The fact that this hillclimber was readily adaptable to endurance racing speaks volumes about Porsche’s late-60’s engineering. That a car designed for short bursts of speed could also run competitively for 24 hours is simply staggering.

This example ran the Targa Florio in ’67 (a race won by fellow works drivers Paul Hawkins and Rölf Stommelen in 910-08), and won the 1000km at the Circuit of Mugello with Gerhard Mitter and Udo Schuetz at the wheel. Sadly, 910-25 didn’t complete the Sunday race at Road America, dropping out of competition in the 1st lap. The car was hauled out of the track on a flatbed, but I didn’t see any signs of damage. Does anyone know what happened?

Update:

This article in Washington CEO Magazine shows that the current owner of Porsche 910-25 is AEI Music Founder and Real Estate developer Michael J. Malone. Congratulations, Mr. Malone, on one fine automobile.