Votren911

#Porsche

Greetings from the southern hemisphere, where I recently returned for the Adelaide Motorsport Festival, a celebration of modern and historic racing in the heart of this wonderful Australian city. As regular readers will know from recent news stories published in this magazine, the event played host to Porsches old and new, from the mighty 917/30 to modern 911 Cup cars. I was pleased to see a Leyton House 962 take to the track, as well as a selection of vintage Formula One cars. Special guests included Valtteri Bottas, David Brabham, Thierry Boutsen, David Coulthard and the appropriately named Paul Oz, a British sculptor unveiling new work in tribute to the late Ayrton Senna. The subject of presentation from the city mayor and revealed in the presence of assorted media, this bronze ‘figure of eight’ is designed to look like a used Formula One tyre and had event attendees poking and prodding it all weekend, convinced the hyper-realistic art must have been a manipulated rubber tyre. Nice work, Paul. At the time of writing, the weather in this part of the world is most agreeable, which is to say ideal conditions for taking to the road in aircooled classics, unlike Europe, which is dealing with the tail end of winter. Put it this way, at this time of year, encouraging owners to bring their Stuttgart-crested speed machines out to play is far less strenuous in Australia than it is when I’m attempting to achieve the same in Blighty. In fact, as soon as I’ve finished writing this introductory piece, I’m heading out to spend time with a Type 901. Specifically, a Porsche thought to be the fourth right-hand drive 911 manufactured, just one of many significant P-cars in this neck of the woods. That Australia has so many important Porsches is testament to how vibrant car culture is Down Under. You’ll know I’ve been using these pages to showcase cars photographed during my last trip to Adelaide, not least the modified Guards Red Carrera 3.0 featured on the cover of the January issue of Classic Porsche. Needless to say, in coming months, you can expect to see much more of what this corner of the Porsche scene has to offer, all of it spectacular.