1987 Porsche 959 Komfort sold for $1,457,000

1987 Porsche 959 Komfort

Seller's Description

2,850cc DOHC Opposed 6-Cylinder Engine
Twin Turbochargers with Bosch MP-Jetronic Fuel Injection
576bhp at 6,100rpm 
6-Speed Manual Transaxle - All-wheel Drive
4-Wheel Independent Suspension 
4-Wheel Disc Brakes


*Porsche's first Supercar
*One of only 284 examples built
*Federalized and upgraded to 959S specification by Canepa Design
*Astonishing performance and driving characteristics
*Low mileage example


THE PORSCHE 959

The amazing Type 959 was Porsche's first true supercar, the world's fastest and quickest road car in its day, offering advanced technology that other automakers were only beginning to thinking about. Today, it is the most collectable of modern Porsches. The 959 had it all: A powerful and technically advanced powerplant, a lightweight body and chassis, adjustable ride height, huge brakes, run-flat tires, and brilliant performance. The 959 was born of Porsche's need to continue development of its bread-and-butter 911; Chief Engineer Helmuth Bott convinced the company's new CEO, Peter Schutz, to approve a program that would include a four-wheel-drive system. Bott felt that the best place to demonstrate that technology would be the FIA's intensely-competitive Group B rally category, a series for highly-modified production cars in which there were almost no rules other than a minimum production number. Manufacturers had to produce at least 200 street-legal units, so in 1981 Porsche set to work to come up with a world-beating entry, assigned the project number Type 961. The homologation version would be named the Type 959.

The Group B regulations stated that entries had to be generally based on a production model, so the new car's passenger cabin would retain the familiar size and profile of a Carrera coupe. The monocoque body shell, built on the Carrera's 89.4-inch wheelbase, was constructed of aluminum, carbon-fiber, and Aramid (Kevlar)-reinforced plastic. The floor panels were made of Nomex. To take maximum aerodynamic advantage, the body was stretched lengthwise nearly a foot and widened to a full six feet. The rather blunt nose was molded of polyurethane, and the tail section contained various air inlets and vents and a wide bi-plane spoiler. Careful attention to smoothing airflow around the body, including a full under-tray, helped the car achieve a relatively good drag coefficient of 0.31, and the use of those lightweight materials helped hold the car's weight to less than 3200 lbs. The 959's beautiful composite body shell covered a state-of-the-art chassis and drive-train. The 959 was fitted with a 2.85-liter flat six with air-cooled cylinders and water-cooled four-valve heads, an approach that had been well-proven on Porsche's Type 935-based "Moby Dick", its Indianapolis project, and WEC-winning Type 956 and 962 Group C racing coupes. With lightweight alloy pistons and titanium connecting rods, a pair of sequential KKK turbochargers, and advanced Motronic engine management, the 959 produced 450 horsepower at 6500 rpm running .9 Bar of boost, with 369 foot-pounds of torque at 5500 rpm. The transmission included five forward gears plus an ultra-low first cog, or "G" gear, for off-road crawling. The 959 could touch almost 200 mph, given enough space to run. Road-holding was equally impressive; the 959 offered Bott's full-time all-wheel drive and height-adjustable suspension. Huge power-assisted disc brakes with anti-lock could haul the 959 to a stop with alacrity from any speed without fuss or bother. 

The new design, unveiled as the "Gruppe B", debuted at the 1983 Frankfurt auto show. Without doubt, it was a tour de force, and would-be customers flooded Porsche with orders for the production versions. When in 1986 the FIA abruptly cancelled the Group B rally series following a rash of serious crashes and fatalities, Porsche had no choice but to continue the project so it could recover the 959's staggering development costs. Full-scale production began in 1987, and a total of 288 examples – including 29 lighter-weight "Sport" versions intended for the U.S. market - would be constructed. The initial retail price was placed at almost a quarter of a million dollars; even so, wealth was no guarantee of a place in line. 959s would be sold to a select group of long-term customers and collectors of note; most were carefully hidden away. In spite of steadily increasing the price as production continued, it is generally acknowledged that Porsche lost a huge amount of money on every 959 it built. Those losses, however, were largely offset by proving the 959's all-wheel-drive technology, which would soon appear in the production 964 series' Carrera 4.

Exports to the vital U.S. hit a bureaucratic barrier, however; because Porsche was unwilling to destroy any of these cars to prove their crashworthiness, the U.S. Department of Transportation banned their import, and the few cars that had made it to American shores were immediately seized and placed in bonded storage. They remained in that state of limbo until the law was changed in 1999, allowing 959s to be "Federalized" to meet current exhaust emission and crash-resistance standards. Now that 959s are more than 25 years old, they are exempt from that old import law, and many in this country have been modified to pass those standards.


THE MOTORCAR OFFERED 

The 125th of 225 examples built, this stunning 959 Komfort was completed December 18, 1987, and sold to well-known Japanese enthusiast Yoshiho Matsuda, joining his impressive Porsche Museum in Hakone. In the late 1990s, this example was purchased by collector and vintage racer Jamie Mazzotta of Newport Coast, California, and soon afterward joined the Tony Hart collection. Hart sent this chassis, which had recorded but 3600 miles from new, to Canepa Design in Scotts Valley, California, for a lengthy and comprehensive modernization to meet U.S. standards. The five-year project, costing some $180,000, was completed in 2004. It included replacing the original adjustable-height suspension system with "S"-spec gas struts and titanium springs (saving several hundred pounds), and bringing the engine to 959S standards with new parallel 993-type turbochargers and wastegates that provide full boost at 1500 rpm. The Motronic engine management system was also upgraded to meet stringent California emissions standards. The mechanical upgrades produced breathtaking performance; the engine now delivers 576hp at 6100 rpm, and 501 ft/lbs of torque at 4500. 0-60 time has been trimmed to a mere 3.2 seconds and the car is said to be capable of 215 mph. The original "Tri-gray" leather interior was changed to all-black leather, one of just six 959s to receive that interior treatment. The factory Denloc light-alloy wheels were black powder-coated. As part of a major service ($44,000) performed by Canepa in 2014, New Pirelli tires were installed, the rear pair upgraded to 275/40 ZR17, an inch and a half wider than standard. This amazing automobile is fitted with a $10,000 Eclipse stereo system, and is supplied with extensive original Japanese registration documents (with English translations), U.S. title and registration. The recorded mileage at the time of catalog writing was 4720.