Classic Porsches stun at eightieth Goodwood Members Meeting bash

The recent staging of the Goodwood Members Meeting once again had Porsche at its heart. In the Stuttgart manufacturer’s seventy-fifth year, and with a nod to the centenary of Le Mans and the sixtieth anniversary of the 911 taking place in 2023, the eightieth edition of this highly anticipated annual motorsport event saw a spectacular line-up of historic Porsche sports cars lapping the Goodwood’s famous circuit.

Welcome spring sunshine dried the track in time for the first of two days of nose-to-tail racing and high-speed demonstration runs, the highlight of which was a unique celebration of racing 911s from across the decades. Thanks to the efforts of Porsche Cars Great Britain, the team at the Porsche Museum and representatives of Goodwood itself, nineteen cars spanning three decades of motorsport assembled for this unprecedented parade, creating a colourful chronology of works and customer cars revealing the diverse history of the 911 in its many competitive guises.

Large crowds were drawn to the paddock all weekend. Rare sights included the Martini-liveried Carrera 2.8 RSR. Due to its experimental ‘Mary Stuart’ rear wing, this particular Porsche was obliged to compete in the prototype class during the 1973 season of the World Sportscar Championship, exactly fifty years ago. With Gijs van Lennep and Herbert Müller at the helm, the car was driven to an historic win at the Targa Florio and an equally remarkable fourth overall at Le Mans, nipping at the coattails of the V12- powered Matra and Ferrari prototypes.

By 1976, rule changes in sports car racing allowed for wild modifications to the 911. As a result, for the remainder of the decade, sports car racing would be synonymous with the 935. This highly evolved, be-winged and turbocharged evolution of Porsche’s evergreen air-cooled GT would bring countless victories to the factory and its customers. The four privateer examples on display at Goodwood — each an important part of Porsche’s rich racing legacy — flanked one of the Museum’s most reliable crowd pleasers: the fearsomely powerful long-tail 935/78, better known as ‘Moby Dick’.

Further veterans of Porsche’s long history at Le Mans included four 993 GT2 Rs, which served as the perfect support act for the last of the Museum’s exhibits: the 911 GT1-98. This technological tour de force gave Porsche its record-breaking sixteenth win at Le Mans in 1998, precisely twenty-five years ago. Le Mans legend, Tom Kristensen, who won the first of his nine victories at Circuit de la Sarthe with the Joest Porsche WSC-95 in 1997, led the field at Goodwood from behind the wheel of the GT1.

FOUR 993 GT2 Rs SERVED AS THE PERFECT SUPPORT ACT FOR THE MUSEUM’S 911 GT1-98

No stranger to the 911, nor to taking the chequered flag for Porsche at Le Mans, former factory driver, Neel Jani, was one of the guests invited to take part in the Porsche parade. At the controls of the 935/78, the Swiss speed merchant, who hustled the 919 Hybrid to its second overall victory at Le Mans in 2016, was delighted to have been a part of such a special occasion and was in awe of the 935/78’s extraordinary 833bhp.

Thanks to more than half a century of continuous competition, allied with peerless performance and reliability, the 911 in all its forms can lay claim to being the single most successful GT car to have turned a wheel in anger. Events like the Goodwood Members Meeting serve as an invaluable reminder of the public’s passion for a Porsche which has been winning races for well over half a century.