Een legendarische 911...

[iDS]

...en ik had er nog niet van gehoord tot er vanmorgen een reportage over was op de radio.
De reportage is gebaseerd op een artikel dat terug te vinden is op de website van Porsche en gaat over een van de beroemdste dirigenten ter wereld: Herbert von Karajan

Von Karajan studeerde thermodynamica en werktuigbouwkunde vooraleer zich helemaal aan de muziek te wijden.
De liefde voor motoren bleef en hij werd een grote fan van de andere beroemde nazi die zijn oorlogsverleden achter zich kon laten: Ferdinand Porsche.
Hij zou o.a. een 356 Speedster, een 550 en meerdere 911s gehad hebben.
Porsche beschikte zelfs over het telefoonnummer van de dirigent zodat hij kon verwittigd worden als er een nieuwe versie op de markt zou komen.

Maar von Karajan wilde meer en hij liet een 911 op maat maken. Hieronder de foto's en het verhaal

One of the most renowned Porsches of all—the 911 Turbo RS that belonged to maestro Herbert von Karajan—is back. The sports car had disappeared from view for years. But then it appeared in front of Karajan’s favorite concert hall in Salzburg—as otherworldly as ever.

For the first time in forty years, the car takes the wide curve around Hotel Friesacher in the Austrian municipality of Anif. It comes to a stop right where Herbert von Karajan himself used to park whenever he was heading home from a rehearsal and wanted to treat himself to tête de veau en gelée in a cozy nook in his favorite restaurant. The car, a Porsche 911 Turbo (Type 930) delivered in 1975, is expected—by Wilfried Strehle, who was the principal violist under Karajan for eighteen years and who performed with the Berliner Philharmoniker on the world’s stages from Berlin to Tokyo.
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Long list of special wishes
Karajan put the same meticulous attention to detail that made him a master of Nibelungen productions into the design of his cars. When he contacted the Porsche special order department in 1974 about a new Type 930, he made it absolutely clear that he wanted a lighter and more sports-oriented version of the standard production vehicle. Karajan dictated that the car should weigh less than one thousand kilograms and its power-to-weight ratio should be well under four kilos per hp—no easy task, given that the standard version was already at 1,140 kilos and 260 hp. The Porsche CEO at the time, Ernst Fuhrmann, carried out the special wishes of his prominent customer himself. Karajan’s Turbo was given the racing chassis of an RSR and the body of a Carrera RS, along with a racing suspension and rollover bars. The interior was rigorously stripped down. The backseat was replaced by a steel roll cage, while the radio and any symphonies it might have played gave way to the harmonies of the flat-six engine, which could mobilize around 100 more hp thanks to a larger turbocharger and a sharper camshaft. Lightweight construction even extended to replacing the door handles with slim leather straps that opened the catch when pulled. And Porsche specifically requested permission from Rossi, the vermouth producer, to replicate the Martini Racing paint job from the 911 Carrera RSR Turbo 2.1 that finished second in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1974.

Karajan, a mastermind throughout his life, made so many records with the Berliner Philharmoniker that he was already dreaming in the 1970s, rather immodestly, about the immortality of his life’s work. “For him there was only one direction: forward,” recalls Strehle. “He never rested. He kept on learning his entire life, and kept developing both us and himself, including the business aspects.” The maestro’s constant desire to move forward expressed itself not only on the stage but also in his hobbies. And his favorite means of forward locomotion was the brand from Zuffenhausen. Over the years, he drove a Porsche 356 Speedster, a 550 A Spyder, two 959s, and several Porsche 911s. “Year after year we would stand in front of the latest model like little boys, absolutely fascinated. Karajan was a model for us in everything he did, and of course we tried to emulate him.” A native of the Swabian region of Germany, Strehle shares Karajan’s love for Porsche. One year after joining the Berliner Philharmoniker, he purchased his first 911. The Turbo remained just a dream. Until today.

As if seeking to console the sports car, Strehle now heads to a place where it used to run free—the winding roads of the Alps. The panoramic road leading up to the Roßfeld was Karajan’s favorite stretch. The ever-so-disciplined conductor used to get up at six in the morning to study scores and do yoga—and sometimes to drive up into the mountains to greet the first rays of light. It’s now time to give the Karajan Porsche free rein on the nearly sixteen kilometers of the panoramic circuit. As Strehle shifts down and lets the rpm levels rise, an inferno erupts from the rear, like Wotan emerging from the clouds. It’s enough to make you want to swing a Valkyrie’s staff out the window and storm the peak on 360 horses accompanied by loud battle cries. Karajan, by contrast, apparently did not push the Turbo to very many heights. When he sold it in 1980, the odometer showed just three thousand kilometers. But the few years in the possession of the conductor were enough to give the legendary Porsche its current estimated value of over three million euros. The car’s sixth owner, who bought it in 2004, has added it to his secret collection in Switzerland and has not driven it a single time—yet.
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[video]https://www.porsche.com/international/aboutporsche/christophorusmagazine/archive/382/articleoverview/article13/[/video]

 

[MB 300SL]

Om hier nou een topic voor te openen….

 

[iDS]

Oeps, je hebt helemaal gelijk hor. Even uit het oog verloren dat dit een autoforum is en de rubriek van auto's met een verleden...
Ik had ook overwogen om de stencilmachine en postduif vanonder het stof te halen om wat flyers te produceren, maar die duif blijkt op pensioen...
Maar ik vind een verhaal over een unieke 911 toch wat boeiender dan een discussie over de kleur van een wagen of en topic over een nieuwe vrachtwagen die toevallig een BMW-logo op de neus krijgt.
En dan blijven er niet veel andere opties open dan een topic te starten.

 

[der Magistrat]

Och ja, precies. Ik heb het toch even gelezen hoor, weer wat geleerd.

 

[iDS]

Daar doe je het toch voor
en ik vind het een leuk weetje, het weten waard.

Wie een unieker exemplaar kent: een adres...

 

[afentoe]

Ongelofelijk cool ding! Ik zou dat nooit kunnen, zo'n auto achttien jaar in de garage hebben staan zonder erin te rijden.