Time to return to one of my favorite conundrums: the Porsche 911 Carrera 3.0. Never made available for the U.S. market and produced in fairly…
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We have 15 years of archives. Links older than a year may have been updated to point to similar cars available to bid on eBay.Tag: 1976
I post this car knowing full well it must have some sort of problematic history attached to it, but I’ve yet to be able to…
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It seems just about any early 911 that is all green takes on the name ‘Kermit’. We’ve featured what might best represent the true and original example, a Viper Green Metallic 1979 Porsche 911SC. That 911 borrowed its exterior color from VW and it probably comes closest to mimicking the color of the famous frog. The one we see here uses Porsche’s own version of the similarly named color – Viper Green Diamond Metallic. It’s a little bit darker than Kermit himself, but still possesses that same sense of joy that’s really what makes these so appealing to many. That this version happens to be an early 1976 Porsche 930 should absolutely elevate it in the eyes of many collectors.
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1976 Porsche 930 on Classic Driver
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With the air-cooled 911 market backing off a bit, especially for classic 911s of the late-70s and ’80s, the hope, or at least my hope, is that this will help return the 912 to its typical place as an inexpensive alternative. After all, if the 912 is commanding high dollars then it’s tough to rationalize one as a driver when a little effort almost surely could turn up a decent 911. One caveat is that the original long-hood 912 produced from 1965-1969 may remain a more expensive option. We haven’t seen the long-hood 911s come down in value much (though they aren’t really going up in value either) and I suspect the 912 will follow suit. That leaves us with the one-year-only 1976 Porsche 912E that we see here. Like the 911 of its era the 912E is most distinguished from its predecessor by its impact bumpers, but it also featured a larger 2.0 liter flat-4 replacing the 1.6 liter of the original 912. Unfortunately, that increased displacement did not bring with it additional power as the 912E actually offered fewer horses on tap than when equipped with the 1.6. It’s also heavier. This wasn’t an atypical problem for Porsches of the time as the mid-year 911 suffered a similar fate and these points help explain why they remain some of the lower priced options on the air-cooled market.
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1976 Porsche 912E on eBay
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While there are iconic liveries that permeate motorsports, sometimes there are equally iconic aerodynamic aids. The 1970s and 1980s saw some incredible experiments, from the Brabham BT46 ‘Fan Car’ which sucked all of the air out from underneath the chassis, literally sticking the car to the road to the 935/78 ‘Moby Dick’ car, which somewhere underneath the long tail and stretched front end was actually a 911 (in theory, at least!). For BMW, exploiting the Group 5 FIA rules to suit their E9 chassis and make it competitive with the Porsche 911. That meant the aerodynamics of the 3.0CS had to be altered, and the result was wings, fins, and flares. But if the road going version of the also lightened 3.0CSL looked outrageous, the racing version simply took the recipe and turned it up to 11. Giant boxed flares widened the E9 half again. A huge front air dam looked capable of clearing cattle on the Sante Fe railway. Huge centerlock BBS magnesium wheels sported a footprint that would make most large commercial planes jealous. And if the tires didn’t shock them, the huge cantilevered wing protruding from the back of the trunklid certainly would spoil their plans to go airborn. This was the legendary car which gained the name “Batmobile”, and though they were not ultimately able to defeat Porsche in the Group 5 contest for 1976 (you know that, of course, because of the many Martini Championship Edition Porsches we feature), they are no less memorable than the 935:
