Porsche 959 Gruppe B Concept (Frankfurt 1983)

Road & Track dedicated nearly its whole September issue to Porsche past and present. John Lamm’s look back at two of the German automaker’s most technologically advanced models, the 959 and the Carrera GT, was especially illustrative of how far advanced some of Porsche’s thinking has been; the 959 in particular was a supercar decades ahead of its time, an all-wheel-drive velocity lozenge that could cram itself through the air at up to 195 MPH from a 0-60 time of just 3.6 seconds.

Above is the Gruppe B concept that Porsche revealed at the 1983 Frankfurt Auto Show, photographed by the terrific René Staud (and available as a print if you like). While it’s not quite as obvious in profile, the concept had a conspicuous lack of air vents—just two lateral slices in the front and an intake slash on the hood. Combined with the solid hubcaps (which never made it to production 959s) it typifies early ’80s futuristic form. It’s not hard to imagine the Gruppe B as a getaway car chased by Detroit’s Ford Taurus Robocop police force.

The 959 was a favorite of America’s nouveau riche boy racers in the ’80s, as well.

John Lamm:

The price of a 959 was around $350,000 but it reputedly cost Porsche $500,000 to hand build each supercar. To cut its losses, Porsche topped production at 226 in 1989 and never did a U.S. edition. Yet the 959 was so highly regarded that several well-heeled U.S. enthusiasts, including Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Paul Allen, imported them and in the early 1990s the factory built perhaps a dozen more cars and sold them for $1 million each.

U.S. 959 owners couldn’t do much with their cars legally until 2000. A driving force behind the “show and display” rule — often called The Gates Law — that allows U.S. 959s was Bruce Canepa and his well known design house in Scotts Valley, California. Not only can owners like Gates, Allen, Ralph Lauren and Jerry Seinfeld now drive their cars, but Canepa imports 959s and makes them legal.

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